Beautiful Virgin Islands

Wednesday, Oct 08, 2025

Britain’s new anti-corruption tool is proving useful—in certain cases

Britain’s new anti-corruption tool is proving useful—in certain cases

Unexplained Wealth Orders force suspects to prove the legitimacy of their assets
JUDGING BY HIS social-media posts, Mansoor Mahmood Hussain (pictured) was a successful businessman whose shrewd property deals allowed him to enjoy a lavish lifestyle, which included collecting high-performance cars and hobnobbing at VIP parties with the likes of Beyoncé and Simon Cowell.

Investigators looking into criminal gangs in the north of England reached a different conclusion: they suspected Leeds-based Mr Hussain of being a major money-launderer who had helped gangsters, including Mohammed Nisar “Meggy” Khan, a convicted murderer, rinse tens of millions of pounds.

Despite intelligence linking Mr Hussain to organised crime, the National Crime Agency (NCA) struggled to gather the exhaustive evidence needed to bring money-laundering charges. So it turned to a newish legal tool called an Unexplained Wealth Order (UWO).

This turns the tables on those suspected of buying assets with dirty money, forcing them to open their books and prove their wealth came from legitimate sources. Mr Hussain has agreed to hand over 45 properties worth £10m ($12.9m). He could yet face a criminal investigation.

The NCA says the result is a “significant” step forward for UWOs, which Britain introduced in 2018. Ireland and Australia already had such provisions. It marks the first time a British case involving a UWO has led to assets being recovered. Criminal money-laundering cases are difficult to prosecute; money trails can be horribly tangled, making it hard to connect the loot to the original crime.

The UWO process, administered under civil law, involves a lower burden of proof and puts the onus on the suspect to prove that their wealth was not ill-gotten.

When Britain’s crime-busters started wielding UWOs, anti-corruption campaigners hoped that they would be a powerful weapon against a different type of ne’er-do-well: dodgy “politically exposed persons”, or PEPs—such as kleptocrats and their associates from places like Russia, Central Asia and Africa—who plough corrupt foreign capital into swanky British properties. Such swag is largely responsible for the “London laundry” tag bestowed on the capital.

Here, however, the NCA has found the going tougher. Of the three other UWO cases brought so far, two have involved PEPs. The one that drew more attention was against Zamira Hajiyeva, the wife of a banker from Azerbaijan: £22m-worth of assets, including a London mansion, were frozen. Ms Hajiyeva lost an appeal, but the case grinds on.

The other case, involving properties owned by the daughter and grandson of Nursultan Nazarbayev, the former president of Kazakhstan, was thrown out in June. The court found that the NCA had not provided sufficient evidence that the use of offshore entities to hold assets suggested financial shenanigans rather than being for legitimate reasons, such as privacy or legal tax mitigation, says Jonah Anderson of White & Case, a law firm.

Cases against PEPs were never going to be easy. They have plenty of money to hire the best lawyers, and many offshore structures are impenetrable. UWOs may prove more useful in domestic-crime cases than those involving international corruption. Gangsters beware.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×