A fully-serviced tower block that is empty for most of the year, whilst most Londoners can barely find an affordable place to rent in London. Houses … - Roberto Saviano

A very interesting report on the London property market as a refuge for secret assets and dirty money – published in March 2015 by Transparency UK – spoke of money coming from corruption or corrupt individuals, without ever mentioning the word “”; nor did it ever mention “organised crime”. The reason is simple: with the exception of a few very rare cases, in the UK the mafia is not something that you can see or hear. There aren’t dead bodies on the streets, or shootings. In Mexico or in Italy, between corpses, blood and drug seizures it’s impossible to think that the Mafia doesn’t exist. In Italy and in Mexico Mafia is loud and it smells of blood. In London, as in Paris, it exists, but it’s quiet, it acts in the dark. And most of all it doesn’t have the pungent smell of blood, but the reassuring smell of money. It’s not true that money doesn’t smell, it does smell indeed, but you definitely can’t rely on your sense of smell to identify criminal money.

But the problem is that the boundaries of tax havens themselves can become very blurred. London is an international financial system that sees trillions of dollars from all over the world go through it each year, and that offers the most sought after financial services. This alone would be enough to make this city a desired anchorage for those looking to launder and reinvest unlawful funds. But there is more; besides this, the British capital is at the heart of the world’s most important offshore system.

Have you ever asked yourselves why Mafias from all over the world are constantly opening restaurants, cafes or shops? Because this type of commercial activity has huge amounts of cash coming in. A Mafioso businessman’s number one priority is not to make money, but to hand out receipts in order to justify money that he already has. In Italy, where tax avoidance is extremely high, we know that when a shopkeeper is reluctant to give you a receipt he or she is almost definitely committing an offence, but almost definitely not a Mafioso. Businesses run by the Mafia will always give you a receipt. And the , in the years of the wavering ruble, safely stored away its money in London’s luxury homes, fuelling London’s property bubble with dirty money. The fictitious buying and selling of property is one of organised crime’s favourite ways of laundering money. ... This is how entire neighbourhoods in London are becoming unoccupied, turning into investments’ empty spaces. Money moves in, and people move out.