Panorama 2020 E36
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00:00:00Tonight on Panorama, banking's dirty secrets.
00:00:10They were just as guilty as the fraudsters in perpetuating the scheme.
00:00:15Leaked documents reveal how our banks helped criminals.
00:00:21They'd been laundering funds for one of the world's most dangerous mobsters.
00:00:27They show the real cost of a banking system that's open to anyone.
00:00:43The leak exposes the Russian cash in British public life.
00:00:48It's not operating in our interests, it's operating in foreigners' interests and hostile foreigners' interests at that.
00:00:54The £10 million Brexit backer with two names.
00:00:59I've never seen a case where we've identified a client having two accounts in two different names.
00:01:06And the secret deals at the heart of UK football.
00:01:10I would have wanted as chairman of the FA to investigate them.
00:01:19This is Canary Wharf in London.
00:01:22Most of Britain's big banks are based here.
00:01:29I'm on the trail of their secrets, and the secrets of their wealthy customers.
00:01:35They are reviled.
00:01:37They are the ones who have the money.
00:01:40They are the ones who have the power.
00:01:43Most of Britain's big banks are based here.
00:01:46I'm on the trail of their secrets, and the secrets of their wealthy customers.
00:01:51They are revealed in an extraordinary leak of files from within the US Treasury.
00:02:00The leaked documents show how UK banks allow strange payments, dodgy deals and criminal cash into the financial system.
00:02:08The City of London is at the heart of global money laundering.
00:02:13People in Britain have been scandalously lax about dirty money.
00:02:17We could almost say it's their business model, is to take dirty money and make it look clean.
00:02:22The City of London floats on a vast cushion of dirty money.
00:02:30What is shocking is how the banks fail to stop even the most serious criminals.
00:02:37There are fraudsters, terrorists and mafia bosses in the documents.
00:02:43Well, criminals that want to move a lot of cash, and I'm talking the proceeds of crime, they don't stuff it under their mattresses.
00:02:51They get it into the financial system.
00:02:54They want to put it in a bank so they can hide it, they can move it and they can invest it to make more money.
00:03:01So they are constantly looking for ways to get into the financial system.
00:03:17It's a hilly terrain, rocky.
00:03:21It is a beautiful area.
00:03:24Hills and trees and forests, creeks that run through there.
00:03:31Most of his body was submerged underwater.
00:03:36He was bound. He had coverings over his face.
00:03:41You knew that he was deceased.
00:03:46Ronaldo Pacheco's body was discovered in a creek on this vineyard in California.
00:03:53They utilised what they had at the scene at the time.
00:03:57Very large rocks were thrown at him and he was eventually killed by large rocks being thrown at his head.
00:04:08The events that led to this brutal murder started with a financial crime.
00:04:14World Capital Market is a global merchant banking advisory firm.
00:04:19This is the dream that cost Ronaldo Pacheco his life.
00:04:24World Capital Market is managed by a team of experts.
00:04:29He signed up to a scam.
00:04:31It promised riches as long as he recruited other investors.
00:04:35But the people Ronaldo recruited lost money.
00:04:39That led to his murder.
00:04:42He was just a guy that was basically in America to live the American dream and make the American money.
00:04:49He was just a true, true victim in all senses of the word.
00:04:54In everything.
00:04:56He was a victim in the scheme. He was a victim in a homicide.
00:04:59Just a true, true victim.
00:05:07Thousands of people lost money in the scam.
00:05:11The fraudsters used the banking system to hide the cash.
00:05:16They stole $80 million.
00:05:21We've discovered that Britain's biggest bank helped them get away with it.
00:05:25HSBC allowed the fraudsters to move the stolen cash around the world even after the bank had been told it was a scam.
00:05:35In 2013, regulators asked HSBC in the United States about accounts being used in the scam.
00:05:46The bank said it was unable to locate any accounts with the information stated on the subpoena.
00:05:53What HSBC didn't tell the regulator is that the fraudsters did have accounts with the bank in Hong Kong.
00:06:01The bank then carried on moving the cash from the UK and US to Hong Kong.
00:06:07HSBC moved millions of dollars of stolen money even though they'd been warned about the scam.
00:06:16So they had the information. They sat on it.
00:06:21That's when they were just as guilty as the fraudsters in perpetuating the scheme.
00:06:27In this particular case, they knew about it and did nothing about it, and as a result, a lot of people lost a lot of money.
00:06:35When the US authorities shut down the scam six months later, HSBC was still helping the fraudsters move their cash.
00:06:44Too often, around the world, banks appear to have treated money laundering like a spectator business.
00:06:50It's as though they wait for the authorities, for the police to come and take action.
00:06:54But that's not wholly their responsibility. But why are you carrying on laundering money?
00:06:58Why are you just watching? Why are you not stopping it? That's flawed and wrong.
00:07:05HSBC wouldn't comment on the fraud case, but said it has been on a multi-year journey to overhaul its ability to combat financial crime.
00:07:16They say the regulator has concluded that HSBC became a safer bank each year as a result of the bank's efforts.
00:07:25What this case shows is that banks don't always stop crime, and that allows criminals to profit from their victims.
00:07:35He didn't even know it was a scam. He literally was trying to, in his heart of hearts, make people's lives better.
00:07:42And he himself was scammed and conned, and he unfortunately paid for it with his life.
00:07:58It's not just HSBC. The leak shows what's going wrong inside other big banks.
00:08:06These documents are called Suspicious Activity Reports.
00:08:12Banks have to send them to the authorities if they suspect their clients might be up to no good.
00:08:19These documents contain some of the banking systems that HSBC uses.
00:08:24Banks have to send them to the authorities if they suspect their clients might be up to no good.
00:08:31These documents contain some of the banking systems most closely guarded secrets.
00:08:37The suspicions big banks have about their wealthiest clients.
00:08:42And they show how the system has failed to stop criminals from laundering their cash.
00:08:46There's never been a leak like it before.
00:08:50We've got more than 2,000 reports that were sent to the US authorities over the last decade.
00:08:57They involve $2 trillion of transactions.
00:09:02They were leaked to BuzzFeed News and shared with Panorama by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
00:09:09This is an unprecedented and remarkable leak that tells us, as never before,
00:09:15what the banks know about suspicious money movements.
00:09:19It connects with virtually every country on the planet.
00:09:23And it connects with some of the worst financial scandals ever in history
00:09:29and some of the worst criminal and terrorist activity on the planet.
00:09:34They're some of the most valuable documents held by the US government.
00:09:39I was a former prosecutor.
00:09:42And as a former prosecutor, when I would be working on an investigation,
00:09:47I would always gather any suspicious activity reports.
00:09:52So they really are, in a large part, the lifeblood of US law enforcement.
00:09:58Vast numbers of these reports are filed by banks.
00:10:03Three million last year in the US alone.
00:10:06So it's impossible for the authorities to investigate them all.
00:10:11That means the banks can appear to do the right thing, file reports,
00:10:16but carry on making profits from dirty money.
00:10:20The fact that banks are doing their job,
00:10:23The fact that banks are filing huge numbers of suspicious activity reports
00:10:27does not mean they're doing a good job.
00:10:30They simply file as they are, but continue to move the money.
00:10:34The reason for that is because it's so profitable.
00:10:38So profitable.
00:10:40The leaked files show how banks fail to carry out proper checks.
00:10:45And that can leave them open to organised crime.
00:10:50He's a 300-pound chain-smoking mobster
00:10:55who essentially has been a victim of a terrorist attack.
00:11:00He's a terrorist.
00:11:02He's a terrorist.
00:11:04He's a terrorist.
00:11:06He's a terrorist.
00:11:07He's a criminal gangster who essentially has been charged
00:11:13with running money for organised crime into the West
00:11:16for several decades.
00:11:18If Semyon Mogilevich has an account at your bank,
00:11:23you really should know.
00:11:26He's seen as the boss of bosses of the Russian mafia
00:11:30and has been accused of crimes including gun running,
00:11:34drug trafficking and contract killing.
00:11:37Panorama interviewed him in 1999.
00:11:42You are said to be a financier who runs prostitution,
00:11:46gambling and money laundering.
00:11:49These are just words.
00:11:53They don't have documents proving that.
00:11:56And the people saying it understand nothing.
00:12:01It should be impossible for a crime boss to move cash through banks,
00:12:07but Mr Mogilevich may have used one for 13 years.
00:12:12JP Morgan is one of America's biggest banks
00:12:16and we've discovered that their office in London
00:12:19allowed a secretive offshore company to open an account here.
00:12:23It was called ABSI.
00:12:26JP Morgan helped the company move more than a billion dollars through the system.
00:12:33Then, five years ago, the bank discovered ABSI
00:12:37might be associated with Semyon Mogilevich,
00:12:41an individual who was on the FBI's top ten most wanted list.
00:12:46If you're a major western banker
00:12:49and you find that you're banking an entity
00:12:52related to Semyon Mogilevich,
00:12:55I think you would have to be incredibly shocked.
00:12:59That would essentially mean that they'd been laundering funds
00:13:03for one of the world's most dangerous mobsters.
00:13:07Mr Mogilevich denies all the allegations
00:13:11and the files don't prove he was running ABSI.
00:13:15But banks have to know who their customers are
00:13:20and the documents show the ownership of ABSI
00:13:24was not clear from JP Morgan's records.
00:13:28They weren't sure who owned the company
00:13:31and they didn't know where the money was coming from.
00:13:35That matters because in one case,
00:13:38ABSI received $76 million from a Russian-owned company
00:13:43that has now been sanctioned.
00:13:45And another company ABSI did business with
00:13:48is at the centre of a major criminal investigation.
00:13:55How important is it that banks know
00:13:58who is behind the accounts that they hold?
00:14:01If you don't know who you're dealing with,
00:14:03you don't know that you're not dealing with one of the FBI's top ten most wanted.
00:14:06Behold, you were in fact dealing with one of the FBI's top ten most wanted.
00:14:10It strikes me that that particular bank
00:14:13never at any one time knew who their customer was,
00:14:15notwithstanding which they processed billions of dollars of transactions for that customer.
00:14:19Staggeringly bad.
00:14:23The banks aren't allowed to talk about suspicious activity reports,
00:14:27but JP Morgan told us it follows all laws and regulations.
00:14:32It spends hundreds of millions of dollars
00:14:36to combat money laundering, terrorist financing and economic sanctions.
00:14:41It says it has developed innovative techniques to help combat financial crime.
00:14:48Some who work with the banks say they're key players in the fight against dirty money.
00:14:54They view themselves as partners with law enforcement
00:15:00to prevent the institution from being the victim of money laundering
00:15:06because allowing a money launderer to invade your bank
00:15:10is going to hurt the bank just as much as the financial system and the other people,
00:15:14so it's protecting the financial institution
00:15:17and also protecting the financial system in the US public.
00:15:25The most striking revelations in the files
00:15:28are about the way London has been flooded with Russian cash.
00:15:33I think there was an overriding belief that the more Russian money came to the UK,
00:15:38the more Russian tycoons and their businesses would have to perform
00:15:43according to Western rules, that they'd be forced to become more transparent.
00:15:49But unfortunately the opposite has happened
00:15:52and the structures that they run have become more and more intransparent.
00:15:58That includes criminal cash.
00:16:02Banks are extremely good at finding box-ticking lawyer-ish reasons
00:16:08to argue they haven't actually done anything wrong
00:16:11when actually what they're doing is laundering money from Kremlin cronies.
00:16:23The laundering happens at the same big-name banks we all use.
00:16:29Most of us know Barclays as a popular high-street bank,
00:16:34but it also opened its doors to some of Russia's most notorious oligarchs.
00:16:41This is Arkady Rotenberg and his brother Boris.
00:16:46They're billionaires and lifelong friends of Vladimir Putin.
00:16:52Arkady Rotenberg is incredibly close to Putin.
00:16:55They grew up together in the streets of St. Petersburg,
00:16:59scrapping in the streets and then they were judo partners.
00:17:03So Putin knows Arkady Rotenberg very, very well and he trusts him.
00:17:09They've benefited fantastically since he came to power
00:17:13and they've become among the richest and most powerful people in Russia.
00:17:16I think it would be fair to say that were it not for their friendship with Putin,
00:17:21you would never have heard of them and they wouldn't be very rich.
00:17:26That place in Putin's inner circle
00:17:30led to the Rotenbergs being sanctioned by the US.
00:17:34Arkady has been sanctioned in the EU as well.
00:17:38And that means they shouldn't be able to do business in the West.
00:17:43For the banks, it meant Rotenberg cash was toxic.
00:17:48And yet there is evidence that millions of dollars of Rotenberg money
00:17:53ended up right here in London at Barclays Bank.
00:18:01It involves a company called Advantage Alliance.
00:18:04The company had an account with Barclays.
00:18:07But a US Senate investigation found strong evidence
00:18:11it was controlled by Arkady Rotenberg.
00:18:14We were looking at the suspicious activity reports from the Treasury Department
00:18:18and we noticed that shell companies that we found out were associated
00:18:22with some of the oligarchs had been buying a lot of art.
00:18:26It was a way to avoid what otherwise would have been illegal under our sanctions laws.
00:18:30In 2014, Advantage Alliance bought this valuable painting by Magritte.
00:18:36This is the money trail.
00:18:39A company linked to Arkady Rotenberg sent $7.5 million from Moscow
00:18:45to Alliance's Barclays account in London.
00:18:49The following day, Barclays sent the cash to the cellar in New York.
00:18:54Despite being sanctioned, it looks like Arkady Rotenberg got his hands on a work of art.
00:19:02Advantage Alliance was a UK company and had a relationship with Barclays as having an account there.
00:19:08As we looked into it, it became clear to us that the beneficiary owners were likely to be these oligarchs.
00:19:14And that that's something that the banking system would have normally uncovered.
00:19:20Our files show $60 million was moved through Advantage Alliance.
00:19:26And Barclays themselves concluded that Arkady Rotenberg was the true owner of Ayrton,
00:19:32another company with an account at the bank.
00:19:35But even then, it still took months for Barclays to close the account.
00:19:41We approached the Rotenbergs, but they didn't respond.
00:19:45Barclays told us financial crime is complex and difficult to detect
00:19:50and is often only uncovered as a result of careful evidence gathering.
00:19:56It would only terminate a client relationship after careful and objective investigation.
00:20:04They point out the US Senate report highlights Barclays' significant cooperation with relevant authorities.
00:20:14Russian dirty money is toxic. It's stolen from the people of Russia.
00:20:18When we launder it here, we discredit the West in their eyes.
00:20:22And it also corrodes and pollutes our political system.
00:20:34The UK is open for dodgy business.
00:20:38And our leaked files show it's not just banks.
00:20:42I'm on my way to an office just to the north of London.
00:20:46And in our leaked documents, it's quite clear that the US Treasury thinks
00:20:51the place that I'm about to visit is one of the dodgiest addresses in the world.
00:20:56So I'm going to go to the office.
00:20:59It's not Canary Wharf. This is a little road off Potters Bar High Street.
00:21:05But billions of dollars go through companies registered here
00:21:09in an office on the second floor called Suite 2B, 175 Darks Lane.
00:21:17I want to understand how it works.
00:21:19So there is here Suite 2B. I'm guessing that's them.
00:21:23So let's give them a ring.
00:21:26See who runs this place. See how it operates.
00:21:31One more.
00:21:37OK.
00:21:38See how it operates.
00:21:41One more.
00:21:48This is a place where hundreds of companies have been registered.
00:21:52But nobody's in. Nobody's answering.
00:21:55It's just a dead end.
00:22:01The man who runs the office later told us he simply offers a registered address
00:22:06and can only carry out basic ID checks.
00:22:09But more than 100 companies registered at the Darks Lane office address
00:22:14have been named in our leaked suspicious activity reports.
00:22:19Britain is a money launderer's dream.
00:22:22It offers a type of company with hardly any checks that criminals can hide behind.
00:22:28So when they're used to move stolen cash, the companies don't leave any fingerprints.
00:22:35They don't even have any real accounts
00:22:37because they don't even have to have any business activity in the UK,
00:22:41which means they don't even file taxes.
00:22:43You can just make everything up.
00:22:45And these are the entities that have been central
00:22:48in moving tens of billions of dollars from Russia into the UK.
00:22:54I don't know whether I'm delighted or sad to tell you
00:22:56that we are one of the world leaders in providing vehicles for laundry money
00:23:00because every major money laundering scheme I've ever seen
00:23:04has had UK companies at their heart.
00:23:11We can actually see how these things work
00:23:14because of a scam that laundered $10 billion of dirty Russian money through London.
00:23:21This is one example, Westpool Commercial.
00:23:25It laundered tens of millions in the scam.
00:23:31And this is the man behind Westpool, Russian private security consultant Igor Marikin.
00:23:38This is his photo on Facebook.
00:23:42That is a machine gun and a hand grenade on his desk.
00:23:48You really do need to know not just the companies that you're doing business with
00:23:51but who owns and controls these companies.
00:23:53And is it sensible that the people who've been put forward as the owners and controllers really are?
00:24:00So the application of logic is, is it rational that this person should be running this business?
00:24:07And it gets worse.
00:24:09Look at these two companies, ErgoInvest and Chadborg Trade.
00:24:15They were both registered at that Potters Bar address.
00:24:21This shows $700 million went through Chadborg
00:24:27and a staggering $2.6 billion went through ErgoInvest.
00:24:34But the public accounts don't show anything like that amount of cash.
00:24:38They are clearly made up because both companies filed identical financial figures.
00:24:48I don't want to oversell myself here, but I'm pretty stupid and I spotted it straight away.
00:24:53So if two companies file absolutely identical accounts
00:24:58and they're registered at the same address by the same people,
00:25:01it is pretty clear.
00:25:02You cannot have two companies that magically manage to generate exactly the same amount of commission
00:25:07two years running, come on.
00:25:09There is a point when even the most credible person is going to say,
00:25:12that doesn't look right.
00:25:15And we found more than 3,000 British companies in the Suspicious Activity Report.
00:25:21That is more than any other country in the world.
00:25:25And that has tarnished the UK's reputation.
00:25:30This secret US Treasurer Report refers to the UK as a higher risk jurisdiction,
00:25:36comparing us to notorious financial centres such as the Bank of England,
00:25:41comparing us to notorious financial centres such as Cyprus.
00:25:46When you saw this, what was your reaction?
00:25:48Hurrah, because we are.
00:25:50It's a charade to think we're not.
00:25:53Around the world, there's a perception of virtue of our laws and regulations.
00:25:57In regards to money laundering, they're totally misplaced.
00:26:00A country calling out our failures in relation to combating money laundering,
00:26:05it's pretty damning.
00:26:08The government declined to be interviewed.
00:26:11But on Friday, two weeks after we approached them,
00:26:14they announced plans for new company rules to help combat fraud and money laundering.
00:26:21It said the UK is internationally recognised
00:26:25as having some of the strongest controls worldwide
00:26:28when it comes to tackling money laundering.
00:26:32But today, criminals can still hide billions of pounds behind anonymous companies.
00:26:39All of us are harmed by that.
00:26:43Why is money laundering something that our viewers should care about?
00:26:47Because it is actually the very fuel of crime.
00:26:52If we continue to launder money,
00:26:54criminals will continue to commit the crimes to kill people over drugs,
00:26:58to supply drugs that kill people in our community.
00:27:01Banks or bankers, for too long, have seen it in the abstract
00:27:06and removed it from the crime.
00:27:08We need to join those dots up again and show people
00:27:11there are real, true consequences to laundering money.
00:27:14People suffer. People die.
00:27:29The files show how even cash for terrorism can get through the system.
00:27:43A suicide bomber strikes in Israel.
00:27:47The target is families celebrating a religious festival at a local hotel.
00:28:06This is the circle, the centre of the dining room,
00:28:10and we were sitting just here,
00:28:12I was sitting here, and my children were sitting here,
00:28:16Ravid, Gavriel, my nephews and my nieces were sitting here,
00:28:21and also my brother-in-law.
00:28:23So all the people that were sitting just here
00:28:27were all killed or very badly injured.
00:28:32I saw my son, he was with a white shirt,
00:28:37but the shirt was torn and everything was blood.
00:28:44I was so afraid.
00:28:46I was afraid that he was going to die.
00:28:48That he was going to die.
00:28:50I was afraid he was going to die.
00:28:52I was afraid, I was afraid.
00:28:55I was afraid he was going to die.
00:28:57I was afraid for him.
00:28:59There I saw my husband, all of his face were with blood.
00:29:09My sister was unconscious and she was lying on the floor just next to him.
00:29:16And there I saw that my brother-in-law, and I understood that he was killed.
00:29:24Sigelit's husband and children survived, but 30 people were killed, 140 were injured.
00:29:38The militant group Hamas carried out the attack.
00:29:46The man who planned the bombing later admitted he used his account at Arab Bank to fund terrorism.
00:30:01In the early 2000s, terrorists used the bank to move money and pay the families of suicide bombers.
00:30:10A terrorist organization can move hundreds of thousands of dollars in suitcases with couriers and so forth,
00:30:21but that's a risky proposition.
00:30:25They can't move the kind of money that an organization like Hamas needs to operate.
00:30:32For that, you need banking services, and Arab Bank was simply the largest and most convenient route.
00:30:46So what's that got to do with our banks?
00:30:49Well, in 2005, after Arab Bank was exposed, it was forced to stop dealing in dollars.
00:30:57You might think that if a bank can't do business in dollars, then that's the end of it, but that's not true.
00:31:04A bank that can't move money in dollars can just find another bank to do it for them.
00:31:12It's when one bank opens up an account for another bank,
00:31:16and there are a handful of major banks in the United States, in the UK, in Europe, in Asia,
00:31:24that become the gateways for smaller banks.
00:31:30So it can be a way for shady characters who couldn't open up an account directly to sort of get in through the back door.
00:31:42For banks, it makes it even harder to know where money is coming from.
00:31:48One major British bank was willing to help Arab Bank.
00:31:52Standard Chartered provided the kind of dollar business that Arab Bank could no longer do itself.
00:32:04Standard Chartered are not on the high street, but they're Britain's fifth biggest bank, and sponsor the shirts of Liverpool.
00:32:12Insiders say Arab Bank was a good earner for them.
00:32:18First of all, huge profits being made out of it.
00:32:21So the reason they were keen to hang on to it is because it was a very, very profitable account for the bank.
00:32:27It was just another one of those accounts that were profitable for the wrong reasons.
00:32:35The file suggests Standard Chartered moved dollars for Arab Bank for 11 years.
00:32:41But there was a problem.
00:32:43Because Standard Chartered became worried terrorists might still be using the money.
00:32:49They were worried that the money would be stolen.
00:32:52They were worried that the money would be stolen.
00:32:55They were worried that the money would be stolen.
00:32:58But there was a problem.
00:32:59Because Standard Chartered became worried terrorists might still be using Arab Bank.
00:33:10Standard Chartered discovered it had processed hundreds of suspicious payments for Arab Bank.
00:33:17The UK bank suspected money might be for illicit activities under the guise of charity.
00:33:24Other payments triggered terrorism alerts.
00:33:27Some appeared intended for specially designated nationals who'd been sanctioned.
00:33:34Arab Bank operates in very high risk jurisdictions, including the Palestinian territories.
00:33:41And so it would not at all surprise me if they had Hamas operatives in their customer base even to this day.
00:33:51Standard Chartered finally stopped moving dollars for Arab Bank in 2016,
00:33:57a decade after the links to terror funding had first been revealed.
00:34:04But the two banks didn't stop doing business.
00:34:11Arab Bank says it enjoys a long-standing relationship with Standard Chartered,
00:34:16which continues today.
00:34:19It says many of the allegations date back nearly 20 years.
00:34:25Arab Bank abhors terrorism and does not support or encourage terrorist activities.
00:34:32It says no government or regulator has ever found Arab Bank violated anti-terrorism laws.
00:34:39Arab Bank said very few of the accounts involved were linked to known terrorists at the time.
00:34:45And it was unaware of Standard Chartered's latest suspicious activity reports about terrorism.
00:34:53If one bank files a suspicious activity report on another bank,
00:34:57the first bank absolutely cannot tell the second bank about it.
00:35:02If one bank files a suspicious activity report on another bank,
00:35:05the first bank absolutely cannot tell the second bank about it.
00:35:09They are prohibited, the bank under the suspicious activity reporting laws
00:35:16is prohibited from disclosing the information to anybody
00:35:20except for law enforcement or the regulatory authorities in the United States.
00:35:25Suspicious activity reports are not proof of wrongdoing at all.
00:35:28They're not even really proof of suspicious activity.
00:35:31All they are is that the bank has identified potentially suspicious transactions.
00:35:39Standard Chartered says it takes its responsibility to fight financial crime extremely seriously
00:35:47and has nearly 2,000 staff making checks.
00:35:51Last year they say they monitored more than 1.2 billion transactions for potential suspicious activity.
00:35:59This work they had has contributed to the conviction of criminals.
00:36:07But our former insider says Standard Chartered were clearly at fault.
00:36:14Arab Bank fitted in a way the views and client requirements of Standard Chartered.
00:36:19Their view was this is the perfect client for us.
00:36:22We can make a lot of money off of it.
00:36:24It's an account that, you know, our lapsidazical approach fits perfectly.
00:36:46The files don't just raise serious questions for the banks.
00:36:50They also give surprising insights and raise questions for wealthy clients and the politicians they fund.
00:37:01Meet the man who spent a fortune at the last election.
00:37:05He cropped up in our files in relation to financial trading.
00:37:10But that is not what makes Christopher Harbourn interesting.
00:37:15He is one of the biggest donors in British political history.
00:37:19He gave the Brexit Party almost £10 million in the run-up to last year's election.
00:37:27£10 million in our system is a huge political donation.
00:37:31I mean, it's a huge political donation to any party.
00:37:36You need, in any legal system, to know who you're dealing with in a way that's reliable
00:37:42and enables you to make an assessment of them as a person who's appropriate to deal with.
00:37:50Mr Harbourn's a multi-millionaire British businessman who's based in the Far East.
00:37:56Two years ago, a news website noticed that he looked like this man.
00:38:01He is called Chakrit Sakunkrit, a Thai businessman who not only looks like Mr Harbourn,
00:38:08he also has the same birthday, the same address and same CV.
00:38:15They are the same person.
00:38:23Chakrit Sakunkrit appeared in our files.
00:38:27Chakrit Sakunkrit appeared in our files.
00:38:30He was buying the cryptocurrency Bitcoin.
00:38:36But why would anybody have and use two identities?
00:38:43We wanted to ask the Brexit Party about their £10 million donor.
00:38:49It's ringing.
00:38:51So I'm giving the party's leader, Nigel Farage, a call.
00:38:56Mr Farage?
00:38:58Hi, it's Richard Bilson from Panorama. How are you?
00:39:02He didn't know we were calling, so we can't let you hear his voice.
00:39:07I wanted to know what name he uses when he chats to his £10 million donor.
00:39:13When you talk to him, you know, what is it, Mr Harbourn or Mr Sakunkrit?
00:39:18Mr Farage knows about his donor's two identities, but he does not want to be interviewed.
00:39:26Oh, and that's it. He's gone.
00:39:28But what he didn't do was talk about Mr Harbourn, which I think is disappointing,
00:39:33because Mr Harbourn gave his party £10 million.
00:39:42We've discovered Mr Harbourn has got two passports in his two different names.
00:39:47One British, one Thai.
00:39:49And he's used his two identities to run his businesses around the world.
00:39:57Look at this company. Christopher Harbourn resigns as a director.
00:40:03On the same day, Mr Sakunkrit takes his place.
00:40:08They sign off with the same signature.
00:40:11He's two people on the same document on the same day.
00:40:17Here in the UK, he's got a company directorship in his Thai name.
00:40:22In Thailand, he owns shares in a company in both names.
00:40:28And in Hong Kong, he's even got bank accounts at HSBC in both names.
00:40:37We asked Mr Harbourn about his bank accounts in different names.
00:40:41His lawyer said he does not recall ever being asked or being required to disclose his dual citizenship,
00:40:49but uses the accounts for legitimate purposes.
00:40:55Banks' role is to have a set of identity documents and to have a single client view.
00:41:01If a client has two different accounts in two different names
00:41:06that are not clearly identified as being the same person,
00:41:10with a rationale for why he's got two different names, it's highly problematic.
00:41:15Have you ever come across anything like that before?
00:41:19I've never seen a case where we've identified a client having two accounts in two different names.
00:41:25Why is it so unusual, do you think?
00:41:27Because it flies in the face of everything banks are trying to do.
00:41:31When we asked Mr Harbourn about his two identities,
00:41:35his lawyers told us he has been a resident of Thailand for over 20 years
00:41:40and obtained Thai citizenship and a Thai passport by naturalisation.
00:41:46They said when obtaining citizenship, Thai law requires applicants to adopt a unique Thai name.
00:41:55But the key question is, do the UK authorities know he's got passports in different names?
00:42:03We asked Mr Harbourn, but he declined to tell us.
00:42:10The Home Office told us they would not normally issue a British passport
00:42:15in a name which differs to that on their foreign passport, except in specific circumstances.
00:42:26We know the Electoral Commission made inquiries about Mr Harbourn's two names,
00:42:31but they told us it does not affect his status as a permissible donor in the UK.
00:42:38There is a weakness in the system and the law as it stands.
00:42:43It's not their responsibility to look into things any more deeply than that,
00:42:47any more than it is the responsibility of the political party to look into things any more deeply than that.
00:42:52Whether that should be the state of the law is another matter.
00:42:56The files have also revealed secrets of Russians who have become influential in British politics.
00:43:07Meet the wealthy Chernukins, Lubov and Vladimir.
00:43:15He was sacked from presidency in 1936,
00:43:21and Vladimir.
00:43:23He was sacked from President Putin's government and she is a major Tory donor.
00:43:31She's paid to spend time with the last three Conservative Prime Ministers.
00:43:37£160,000 to play tennis against David Cameron and Boris Johnson.
00:43:44She's paid to spend time with the last three Conservative Prime Ministers.
00:43:51£160,000 to play tennis against David Cameron and Boris Johnson.
00:43:57£135,000 for a night out with Theresa May.
00:44:05And £45,000 for a second game with Boris Johnson.
00:44:11In total, she's given more than £1.7 million to the party.
00:44:19In total, she's given more than £1.7 million to the party.
00:44:31That makes Lubov Chernukin the biggest female political donor in British history.
00:44:37But her payments to the Conservative Party have become increasingly controversial.
00:44:44Critics of the government say it's tainted money.
00:44:49Lubov Chernukin has given more money in British politics than any other female donor.
00:44:54And if I was the Conservative Party treasurer, that would be a matter of grave shame rather than pride.
00:45:02I'm profoundly concerned by the access that not only Lubov Chernukin but also other rich Russians have to the heights of the Conservative Party and to the government.
00:45:19So, where the Chernukins got their money from matters.
00:45:27We can reveal some of it came from this man, Suleyman Kerimov, a billionaire and ally of President Putin.
00:45:36In 2018, he was sanctioned by the US, who were targeting those they said play a key role in advancing Russia's malign activities.
00:45:48It's impossible to see someone like Suleyman Kerimov as an independent businessman,
00:45:53because he's clearly won the bulk of his fortune through good relations with the Kremlin.
00:46:02The files show a financial link between Suleyman Kerimov and the Chernukins.
00:46:09A payment of $8 million, flagged as suspicious, was sent to Vladimir Chernukin in 2016.
00:46:18The money initially came from Mr. Kerimov and was paid through a secretive offshore company.
00:46:29Now, we don't know if any of that cash went to the Conservative Party,
00:46:34but most of Lubov Chernukin's donations were made after her husband received $8 million.
00:46:42The Chernukins, pleasant people that they may be, they are not fit and proper people to make donations to a British political party.
00:46:49I want the government of this country to stand up for this country's national security, which is threatened by Russia.
00:46:55And it looks and feels and is really troubling if you see that people are paying money into the Conservative Party coffers
00:47:05and getting this level of access and therefore presumably influence as a result.
00:47:12Lawyers for Mr. Kerimov said all of Panorama's allegations are denied
00:47:19and that he's had no dealings with Ms. Chernukin whatsoever.
00:47:25Lawyers for the Chernukins also said Mrs. Chernukin has never received money deriving from Mr. Kerimov.
00:47:33Her donations to the Conservative Party have never been tainted by Kremlin or any other influence.
00:47:42But they refuse to answer our questions about whether Mr. Chernukin received the $8 million from a now-sanctioned Russian oligarch.
00:47:58The Conservative Party said there are people of Russian origin who are British citizens
00:48:04and have the democratic right to donate to a political party.
00:48:09It is discriminatory to smear all Russians with the same brush.
00:48:26The leaked reports reveal financial secrets across society, including the deals the super-rich keep hidden away.
00:48:40Most of us know Roman Abramovich as the high-profile owner of Chelsea.
00:48:49But the files have revealed the billionaire's secret football investments.
00:49:00We've discovered that Roman Abramovich has been buying footballers through an offshore company.
00:49:05It looks like a conflict of interest because the secret contracts were with players who weren't owned by his club.
00:49:18It starts with a suspicious activity report from a bank.
00:49:26It identified more than a billion dollars of suspicious payments involving offshore shell companies.
00:49:35Owned by Roman Abramovich, one of Russia's most powerful oligarchs with close ties to Moscow and Vladimir Putin.
00:49:46The money seems to be going around in circles using his companies.
00:49:53I would need to have some explanation as to why that money was sent on that circular route when there's no obvious economic purpose for those payments.
00:50:02They operate quite quickly and they do look like circular transactions.
00:50:07And that's harder to understand because, again commercially, what would be the point of that?
00:50:15Mr Abramovich's spokesman says suspicious activity reports don't mean laws or rules have been broken.
00:50:23The fact that we are not aware of this issue confirms that there has been no wrongdoing as no action was taken.
00:50:33So what we found is in 2016 one of Roman Abramovich's companies in Cyprus made a series of payments to four companies.
00:50:45$156 million was then sent to the British Virgin Islands.
00:50:52What's important is where Mr Abramovich's cash ends up.
00:50:57A company called Leiston Holdings.
00:51:03Leiston! Leiston! Leiston!
00:51:09We've discovered it's a Roman Abramovich company.
00:51:14And it matters because in the world of football Leiston is highly controversial.
00:51:21The company was accused of being involved in the now banned practice of third party ownership.
00:51:28That is when a footballer is not wholly owned by the club he plays for but by outside investors too.
00:51:36It can mean investors could force the sale of a player against the player or the club's wishes.
00:51:42Someone else who may own, if you like, half of you.
00:51:45That doesn't really make sense to me because that's nothing to do with football and their interests are purely financial.
00:51:51From a moral point of view and from an integrity of the sport point of view,
00:51:54when you sign for a club your integrity and your loyalty should be to that club 100%.
00:52:06Roman Abramovich's company even had a secret interest in a player who played against Chelsea.
00:52:14This is the club's Champions League game with Sporting Lisbon in 2014.
00:52:21Lisbon had Andre Carillo on their side.
00:52:26But Leiston Holdings had a stake in him.
00:52:31So Roman Abramovich had a stake in 12 players on the pitch.
00:52:39I think most fans demand first of all that the competitions they watch are fair,
00:52:46that there's nothing hidden going on.
00:52:51And I think most fans will understand that third-party ownership creates at the very least the suspicion that something else is going on or could go on.
00:53:02I think they would be unhappy about it.
00:53:05We want transparency.
00:53:06We want to know that the players who play for our club are signed up and exclusively in the interests of our club.
00:53:21And it wasn't just Andre Carillo.
00:53:25Back then Leiston Holdings also owned stakes in two other Sporting Lisbon players.
00:53:31And the Portuguese club owed Roman Abramovich's company 2.6 million euros.
00:53:39Third-party ownership was banned in the Premier League in 2008.
00:53:44It was banned by FIFA in 2015, a year after the match between Lisbon and Chelsea.
00:53:50It's now against the rules of football in every country in the world.
00:53:55I don't think it can possibly be proper for the owner of a football club to own players in other football clubs.
00:54:04That is precisely why third-party ownership is banned.
00:54:08It casts suspicion and a shadow right across football.
00:54:13On the documents I've seen, I would have wanted, as chairman of the FA, to investigate them.
00:54:25This secret ownership of players seems to be a clear conflict of interest.
00:54:33I think third-party ownership can't really influence the game.
00:54:37I don't think it affects what happens on the pitch.
00:54:39But it's more to do with the fact that I just believe that any player should have an identity and a loyalty to his employers, who are the club, and the fans of that club.
00:54:55Mr Abramovich's spokesman said the matters we raised were not allegations of wrongdoing and relate to the period before FIFA changed their rules.
00:55:08They said the fact that transactions may have been confidential does not mean that they were unlawful or otherwise in breach of then-applicable rules or regulations.
00:55:25It isn't just football.
00:55:29Roman Abramovich is now an Israeli citizen.
00:55:33Our files reveal new evidence about his financial dealings there.
00:55:38We've discovered that Chelsea Boss has been secretly funding a controversial settler organisation in Israel.
00:55:53Elad want to strengthen the Jewish presence in occupied East Jerusalem.
00:55:58Elad has been linked to the evictions of numerous Palestinian families.
00:56:29I want to show you how it was before the settlers came to us.
00:56:34This land here, all of it was ours, roughly two acres.
00:56:41Today, it is targeted by the settlers.
00:56:44It has been singled out because they want to empty it.
00:56:47They regard it as the City of David.
00:56:50The UN has said settlement activity is a flagrant violation of international law by Israel.
00:56:58Israel disputes this.
00:57:05But there's no doubt Elad's money is transforming parts of East Jerusalem.
00:57:11I can tell you today that an absolute majority of the houses in the City of David are in the hands of Elad in terms of ownership.
00:57:19An absolute majority.
00:57:21Palestinians still live in many of them.
00:57:24It could be another five years, another ten years, until Elad claims them.
00:57:30We've discovered Roman Abramovich has been a member of the Jewish community.
00:57:34Elad claims them.
00:57:38We've discovered Roman Abramovich has bankrolled this controversial group.
00:57:48These are the publicly declared donations to Elad.
00:57:52They show Leisten Holdings and three more offshore companies gave cash.
00:57:58All four are Roman Abramovich companies.
00:58:01Between 2005 and 2018, they gave around $100 million to the settler group.
00:58:18That makes the Chelsea owner Elad's single biggest individual donor.
00:58:24A donation of $100 million to a right-wing settler body in the heart of Jerusalem.
00:58:31I'm in shock, because Roman Abramovich is not seen that way in the eyes of the public.
00:58:41Elad say all of their property has been obtained fairly and legally under Israeli law.
00:58:47They have never hidden the source of their funding and abide by all of Israel's laws.
00:58:53All Israeli laws and regulations.
00:59:00A spokesman for Roman Abramovich said he is a committed and generous supporter of Israeli and Jewish civil society.
00:59:09And has donated over $500 million to support healthcare, science, education and Jewish communities.
00:59:24London
00:59:34All of our stories have London at their centre.
00:59:40The city is at the heart of the world's financial system.
00:59:45London
00:59:49But this leak shows the UK is often the weak link.
00:59:55Whether it's secret deals, mafia bosses or money laundering.
01:00:01The files suggest the UK welcomes them all.
01:00:14EastEnders with the fallout from Friday's tragic events on BBC1 next.