Illicit Finance Summit to build international coalition against dirty money  

• Governments, civil society and the private sector to gather in London next year to accelerate fight against corruption and dirty money, as details of major summit outlined by Foreign Secretary.  
• Foreign Secretary calls out illicit finance as the ‘lifeblood of crime’ on UK streets and promises to ‘take the fight to the corrupt’.
• New funding for investigative journalists exposing corruption announced as UK prepares to launch new Anti-Corruption Strategy.

The UK will host a major international summit next summer to tackle the flows of dirty money around the world, which are making the UK’s streets less safe.

Taking place at Lancaster House in London over two days from 23-24 June, the Illicit Finance Summit will bring together governments, civil society organisations, and private sector representatives, such as major banks, to build an international coalition to tackle flows of dirty money around the world and strengthen the UK’s national security.  

In the UK, dirty money lurks behind drug-related violence and organised immigration crime, allowing criminals to store their profits without trace. Overseas, it fuels international conflict, with illicit gold funding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and a civil war in Sudan, and the misuse of crypto-assets enabling sanctions evasion.  

The Summit will focus on strengthening global enforcement efforts to prevent, disrupt and recover dirty money, including through closer collaboration with the private sector. It will forge new agreements to tackle modern methods for moving dirty money, such as laundering in the property sector, misuse of crypto-assets, and trading in illicit gold.    

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said 

Dirty money fuels crime on the streets of the UK and drives conflict and instability overseas.  

It’s largely invisible, but the damage is there for all to see. People smuggling gangs stashing the profits of their despicable trade. Kleptocrats buying up property to launder their ill-gotten gains – and driving up house prices sky high as they do so. Profits from the illicit trade in gold fuelling Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the dreadful conflict in Sudan.  

This government is committed to turning the tide. We have sanctioned those responsible for running international scam networks on a massive scale, and hiding their illegal income in London property.  

We have introduced new immigration measures to block Putin’s oligarchs from entering the UK. The National Crime Agency has disrupted Russian money laundering networks in the UK, seizing over £20 million in cash and cryptocurrency, cutting off funding for Putin’s war efforts. As Home Secretary, I signed an agreement to allow British and Italian police forces to bust the mafia’s financing networks which underpin the people smuggling trade. 

To really take the fight to the corrupt around the world, we need more of this kind of collaboration. That’s why I will host the Illicit Finance Summit at Lancaster House on 23 and 24 June, bringing together governments, civil society and the private sector. 

The Summit will agree tough international action on three means through which dirty money is moved illicit gold, which is financing Russia’s war in Ukraine; property, used by criminals and kleptocrats to hide cash; and crypto-assets, increasingly exploited by people smugglers to stash away their profits. 

As the Government publishes its landmark Anti-Corruption Strategy tomorrow, I am kick-starting preparations for the Summit and putting the corrupt on notice the UK is ready to shut you down.

The announcement comes ahead of the launch of the Anti-Corruption Strategy tomorrow (Monday 8 December).  

Delivering on the international commitments in the Strategy, the FCDO is providing new funding for investigative journalists and civil society organisations to work together to combat transnational corruption.  

The £3 million package will support Transparency International, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and the Anti-Corruption Data Collective (ACDC) to expose how corrupt and criminal actors amass illicit wealth and exploit the international financial system.  

Last week, the OCCRP revealed the Balkan drug traffickers smuggling cocaine to Europe using shipments of bananas from the family firm of the Ecuadorian president, and earlier this year they exposed large scam networks that extracted more than £200 million from victims in the UK and other countries. 

Previous UK funding has enabled the OCCRP to develop AI tools capable of extracting data from vast stores of documents, unlocking new insights into how dirty money is moved and hidden.  

NOTES TO EDITORS  

Further details of the Anti-Corruption Strategy will be announced by the Home Office and Deputy Prime Minister’s Office on Monday.