With last year’s Pandora Papers stories and Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine this year, there is unprecedented attention being paid to how Western economies, including in the U.K. and U.S., provide a safe financial haven for kleptocrats, oligarchs, and criminals. Thankfully, there is also growing momentum for reform. In the U.S., ranked the world’s biggest supplier of financial secrecy, the Treasury Department is implementing reforms to deal with anonymous shell companies and money laundering through real estate. Congress is contemplating new legislation to tackle the “enablers” who assist kleptocrats and criminals to hide their ill-gotten gains. In the U.K., strengthened economic crime legislation is being considered and, last month, an “economic crime manifesto” was launched with cross-party support.

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