The royal family of Qatar, Russian oligarchs and important British businessmen are on the list of people who acquired property in United kingdom It is worth more than 4,000 million pounds (4,700 million euros, 5451.6 million US dollars) through ‘offshore’ companies or registered in tax havens, the BBC revealed as part of the investigation into so-called Pandora leaves.
According to leaked documents to which the British Public Channel was able to access, the real estate portfolio accumulated in this country by secret buyers includes more than 1,500 properties acquired by non-transparent means.
The BBC reports that the Qatari royal family has bought two homes in one of the most exclusive areas of London, overlooking Regent’s Park, through companies located in tax havens, in order to save millions of pounds in taxes.
Other members of the Al Thani estate also own many of the UK properties acquired thanks to these financial arrangements – legal in this country – worth over £650 million (€763 million, US$885.88 million).
Likewise, the wife of British businessman Philip Green bought properties in London when the couple’s textile empire, owners of BHS and Arcadia, where stores like Topshop and Topman were merged, was on the verge of collapse.
Tina Green, according to the BBC, in 2016 acquired, among other things, an apartment in London’s Mayfair district for 15 million pounds (17.6 million euros) and a house for her daughter near Buckingham Palace for 10.6 million pounds (12.4 million euros) . .
Among the Bandura papers, which were leaked to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, is Ukrainian banker Gennady Bogolyubov, who is being investigated by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation for money laundering.
Bogolyubov, the co-founder of PrivatBank, which was nationalized by Ukrainian authorities in 2016 for fraud, owns £400m (€469m) of UK property, including a landmark building in Trafalgar Square.
Most of the assets owned by the banker around the world have been frozen since 2017, while legal proceedings were launched by Privatbank in the US and UK.
Another name that appears in this investigation is that of the Russian oligarch Mikhail Gutseriev, whose son Said, who has British citizenship, owns an office building which he bought, through offshore companies, for more than 40 million pounds (46.9 million euros).
In response to the crackdown launched by the President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, in 2020, against pro-democracy movements, the United Kingdom and the European Union imposed sanctions on the Minsk regime, which also extended to collaborators and close associates of the dictator. , like Mikhail Gutseriev himself.
London and Brussels consider the businessman, founder of the Safmar Group, which is interested in oil and coal, to be one of the “main investors in Belarus” and “a long-time partner of Alexander Lukashenko”.
Lawyers for Said Gutseriev, who owns a stake in Safmar, told the BBC that he “has no business relationship with his father”, while recalling that Mikhail no longer had relations with the company.
“Subtly charming bacon junkie. Infuriatingly humble beer trailblazer. Introvert. Evil reader. Hipster-friendly creator.”