Offshore in the UK: Analysing the Use of Scottish Limited Partnerships in Corruption & Money Laundering

Based on joint research between TI-UK and Bellingcat, “Offshore in the UK” provides new insights into how money launderers are abusing Scottish Limited Partnerships (SLPs) – the UK’s own home-grown secrecy vehicle – to move billions of pounds of corrupt wealth around the world.

The report identifies how SLPs have become unusually popular in the last ten years, with a substantial proportion of them bearing the hallmarks of money laundering vehicles.

According to this new research:

71 per cent of all SLPs registered in 2016 were controlled by anonymous companies based in secrecy jurisdictions, like Belize, Seychelles and Dominica – an opaque corporate structure which is a known indicator for money laundering risk.

113 SLPs with similar secretive structures were used to launder between $20 billion and $80 billion between 2010 and 2014 as part of what has been called the ‘Global Laundromat’.

SLPs formed key parts of a $1billion raid on Moldovan banks, involving corrupt judges and officials, which cost the country around an eighth of its annual GDP.

Two SLPs are alleged to have helped facilitate illegal bribes to an Italian politician at the Council of Europe. These could be part of a much wider network of over 1,500 other UK legal entities with suspicious corporate structures.

The full report can be read here.