London, Dec 9 (PTI) The UK government on Monday named a new Anti-Corruption Champion who will be tasked with tackling the flow of “illicit finance”, both domestically and internationally, along with increased funding for the National Crime Agency’s International Corruption Unit (ICU).
Baroness Margaret Hodge, a former Labour MP and long-time campaigner against illicit money, will work with Parliament, the private sector and civil society to help clamp down on corruption and the organised criminals who benefit from it.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has also extended its funding support to the ICU by up to GBP 36 million over five years to help the unit continue successful investigations of cross-border corruption, money laundering and bribery cases overseas.
“After years of campaigning on the issue, I feel privileged and delighted to be able to work as the government’s champion, combatting corruption and the illicit finance that flows from it, both at home and abroad,” said Hodge, who had previously served as Chair of the Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee.
“The time has now come to put an end to dither and delay. We must take determined and effective action and I look forward to playing my part in that work,” she said.
In her new role, Hodge joined UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Security Minister Dan Jarvis on a tour of the National Crime Agency (NCA) to hear first-hand about the ICU’s work of “tackling corruption and dirty money in the UK and overseas”.
“Corruption poses a real threat to the UK. It enables the activities of dictators, smugglers and organised criminals around the world, making our streets less safe and our borders less secure,” said Lammy, who welcomed Hodge in her task to “bear down” on the menace of corruption.
“Take Syria, where Bashar al-Assad was ousted from power this weekend after decades of brutal suppression, financed in recent years by laundering the proceeds from the illegal Captagon trade abroad. This government will make the UK a hostile environment for the corrupt and their ill-gotten gains as we put national security as a foundation of our Plan for Change and decade of national renewal,” he said.
“Margaret brings decades of experience and expertise to this important role, and I know she is the right person to help drive forward our ambition to tackle corruption in all its forms — both at home and overseas. We understand the scale of the challenge and are ready to put in the hard work to deliver the credible and lasting change our country needs,” added Jarvis.
The ICU claims to have already frozen over GBP 441 million of assets related to international corruption since 2020.
Monday’s announcement came as the government confirmed sanctions against three individuals designated under the UK’s Global Anti-Corruption Sanctions Regulations 2021 – Kamlesh Pattni, a British Kenyan businessman who has “used bribery to export gold from southern Africa as a means of laundering dirty money”, and his sister and brother-in-law, who have a “long history of involvement in his network of companies”.
“Today’s sanctions will disrupt and deter the illicit gold trade by imposing asset freezes on five individuals, including infamous British Kenyan gold smuggler Kamlesh Pattni and his enablers. Pattni smuggles illicit gold out of southern Africa for use in money laundering and was implicated in the Goldenberg corruption scandal in the 1990s,” the FCDO said in a statement.
“Illicit gold is an assault on the legitimate trade of a valuable commodity, fuelling corruption, undermining the rule of law, and entrenching human rights abuses such as child labour.
"Russia uses the illicit gold trade to launder money and evade sanctions, in doing so bolstering [Russian President] Putin’s war efforts... These announcements come on the back of a major NCA investigation last week – Operation Destabilise – that exposed and disrupted Russian money laundering networks supporting serious and organised crime around the world, further highlighting the harm caused by dirty money to UK and international security,” it added.
Others sanctioned this week include Alain Goetz, a Belgian gold trader at the head of various gold refineries and companies across Africa, who is believed to have smuggled illicit gold extracted from mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) controlled by armed groups and Anto Joseph, the CEO and manager of several gold trading companies, who has purchased more than USD 300 million of Russian gold.