The UK government is taking aim at corrupt bankers, lawyers, and accountants and deploying new tech tools to identify dirty money as part of a new strategy to root out tens of billions in illicit funds entering the country each year, Bloomberg reported.
Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy said the UK Anti-Corruption Strategy 2025 is designed to shut out corrupt actors, disrupt the flow of “dirty money” and rebuild trust in public life. Under the plan, the UK will spend £15 million (about $20 million) to create a specialist police taskforce and expand the use of sanctions in corruption cases, according to the report.
Authorities also intend to pilot an artificial-intelligence bot to assist investigators in tracking complex financial networks and suspicious transactions, Bloomberg said.
“We will increase our efforts to dismantle kleptocratic networks in the UK by scaling up our capacity to pursue the professional enablers who make corruption and broader economic crimes possible,” said Lammy in a statement. “At the same time, we will deploy new tools to detect and remove corrupt insiders across policing, border security, and the prison system.”
In the strategy, UK officials pledged to review the nation’s asset-ownership rules amid evidence that sanctioned individuals and other high-risk figures hide wealth behind nominees, including spouses, lawyers and close associates.
The National Crime Agency estimates that more than £100 billion in illicit funds is laundered through Britain annually. The government also says UK businesses faced around 117,000 bribe demands worth some £300 million over the past year, underscoring the scale of the problem the strategy is meant to address.
The strategy separately outlines a previously disclosed plan to consolidate governmental oversight of professional bodies under the Financial Conduct Authority.
Read the UK Anti-Corruption Strategy 2025 here
Read more at Bloomberg