Dismantling Londongrad: the dark geography of dirty money

Abstract

Londongrad is at once a place, a process and a paradox. As a place, it refers to the manifold ways in which London has acquired a reputation for being a safe harbour for dirty money largely on account of a secure system of property rights, a cluster of professional enablers and a neoliberal politics that actively cultivated it. As a process, it illustrates the premier role that London plays in the global system of secrecy jurisdictions. As a paradox it signals the bizarre alignment of two nominally opposed systems, authoritarian state capitalism in Russia and neoliberal capitalism in the UK. Before the war in Ukraine, it was tacitly assumed that Londongrad was impervious to reform because no single political jurisdiction had the reach or the remit to confront this baroque system. Dismantling Londongrad is therefore a belated attempt to regulate the dark geography of dirty money.