(Strangford) (DUP): I understand that there will
be a programme in Northern Ireland tomorrow night that confirms
what the Secretary of State referred to—that there are economic
crime gangs stretching from Russia right through Europe across to
the United Kingdom. Will the Bill address the issue of organised
crime gangs that stretch into Northern Ireland and are laundering
money?
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (): I thank my hon. Friend
for his incredibly important question. The Bill will cover
aspects of hostile state activity, and he will hear the details
of that as I make progress with my remarks. Much of the work on
organised crime and criminality in the United Kingdom is led by
the National Crime
Agency and it is heavily involved in this work as
well. As well as money laundering, we have debated sanctions in
recent months. Some of our financial work to follow the money is
embedded in the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act
2022, which is part one of the legislation, and we will introduce
the economic crime Bill—part two of the legislation—in which
there will be much more of that work.
Money laundering is one aspect of organised gangs’ criminality.
For people to have the money to launder, a whole sequence of
criminality goes with that. That could involve drugs and firearms
and, tragically, as we know, people smuggling. We know that the
case in Purfleet, in which 39 people died tragically in the back
of a lorry, emanated from organised criminality in Northern
Ireland. We were able to take that case to court through the work
of the police and the National Crime
Agency There is, of course, much more that we need
to do collectively...
(Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab):
Ehud Sheleg, no doubt an honourable man, has given £3.3 million
to the Conservative party, yet The New York Times revealed that a
suspicious activity report from Barclays flagged that £2.5
million moved to Mr Sheleg from his father-in-law in Russia wound
up in a UK account that then shifted £450,000 to the Conservative
party. The New York Times reported that Barclays flagged the SAR
with this statement:
“We are able to trace a clear line back from this donation to its
ultimate source… Kopytov”—
the father-in-law—
“can be stated with considerable certainty to have been the true
source of the donation.”
Along with a number of other hon. and right hon. Members, I
flagged this to the National Crime
Agency A day or two later—the NCA did not spend an
awful lot of time looking at this—a letter came back from Steve
Rodhouse, its director of operations, which stated:
“As you will be aware, provided a donation comes from a
permissible source, and was the decision of the donor themselves,
it is permitted under PPERA. This remains the case even if the
donor’s funds derived from a gift from an overseas
individual.”
That is utter nonsense. It is completely ridiculous. No doubt Mr
Sheleg is an honourable man, but the Sheleg manoeuvre could be
exploited by all kinds of bad actors...
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