Head of anti-corruption at Britain’s FBI says he was ordered to halt probe into Russian money laundering by ‘senior Foreign Office official’
- Jon Benton said senior official from Foreign Office told him to stop investigation
- Mr Benton headed up the special corruption unit from its inception in 2015
- He claims he was given 37-page dossier about London-based money laundering
The former National Crime Agency international corruption boss says he was ordered to stop an investigation into Russian money laundering.
Jon Benton, the international corruption unit boss, said a senior official from the Foreign Office told him to stop his investigation.
The claims undermine recent Government lines that say the UK is tackling Vladimir Putin’s cronies who stash their wealth here.
Mr Benton headed up the special corruption unit from its inception in 2015 before retiring last year.
He claims he was given a 37-page dossier about London-based money laundering by Russian crime syndicates linked to the Kremlin.
Jon Benton said senior official from Foreign Office told him to stop investigation into Russia
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He added that it was given to him by Bill Browder, a British financier whose lawyer was beaten and tortured in a Moscow jail for exposing Russian corruption.
Browder had led a 10-year campaign against Vladimir Putin’s regime after Sergei Magnitsky was detained for exposing the corruption and theft from Browder’s business.
Mr Benton told The Sunday Telegraph: ‘Bill Browder had brought this to my attention. I went away and checked our systems to see what we could find to corroborate what Mr Browder was saying.
‘After about eight to 10 weeks, we had a reasonable package that was good to go. It showed money laundering into the UK and quite enough to start a full money laundering investigation. We were pretty sure it was Russian money.
Bill Browder had led a 10-year campaign against Vladimir Putin’s regime after lawyer’s death
‘I was pretty sure it was the proceeds of the fraud and the corruption committed against Bill Browder.’
But a more senior official at the National Crime Agency with links to the Foreign Office, according to Mr Benton, then took him to one side and asked him tostop the investigation.
‘I was approached and taken for a coffee and basically told Bill Browder is a pain in the neck and to leave it,’ recalled Mr Benton.
The Telegraph also reported that a short after the first meeting, the same official again took him to one side at the NCA and told him: ‘This guy Bill Browder is a real pain. We are not carrying on with the investigation.’
Mr Benton said: ‘At that point I said: ‘what do you mean’ and he said ‘it is closed and we are dealing with it. You are not to launch a money laundering investigation’.’
He added that he thought it was odd that the senior official was getting involved in the matter because he didn’t usually interfere with ‘operational matters.’
The former crime boss said he doesn’t know the motivation behind the NCA pulling the plug on the investigation.
Mr Browder’s dossier had alleged that $30 million (£23 million) of ‘illicit funds’ had been laundered through the UK, most of it through Lithuanian accounts.
Browder went on record in Parliament in naming a businessman, Dmitry Klyuev, as the head of the organised crime syndicate.
He said the 48-year-old planned the theft of $230 million (£176 million) from Hermitage Capital, his investment fund that was based in Moscow but is now run out of London.
Russian tax officials colluded in the theft and high-ranking Russian police officers and ministers also benefited, according to Browder’s dossier.
Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was killed in prison. He had exposed Russian corruption
He began a 10-year justice campaign for justice after Sergei Magnitsky, who was investigating the alleged fraud, was killed in jail in Matrosskaya Tishina Prison in 2009.
The US congress passed the Magnitsky Act in 2012. The act imposed sanctions on several Russian officials, but Mr Browder has accused the British Government of not acting even after relations with Russia hit a new low after the Salisbury poisonings.
The fraud investigated by Magnitsky has led to criminal investigations around Europe and last week it emerged that Danske Bank, Denmark’s largest bank, had laundered £178 billion.
Mr Browder had first alleged connections between the Danske bank and Russian organised syndicates years before.
Last night, following Mr Benton’s claims, Mr Browder told The Telegraph: ‘It now appears as if there was a deliberate attempt at the highest ranks of the British Government to shut down the money laundering investigation in the UK.
‘There needs to be an inquiry in the UK. For some reason the British Government didn’t want to take action against Russian gangsters in this country.’
An NCA spokesman said in a statement: ‘The NCA is aware of the allegations made by Mr Browder and has carried out inquiries and assessment.
‘The barriers to a criminal investigation are high and a full investigation is most effective where the major criminals can be brought to justice.
‘In the NCA’s judgment this in not in the UK – so the NCA has offered, and continues to offer, assistance to foreign partners investigating Mr Browder’s allegations.’
Dmitry Klyuev, the businessman with a previous conviction for fraud, has denied any involvement in the tax fraud using stolen Hermitage documents.
He has dismissed claims of the existence of the Klyuev crime gang as a ‘fabrication and a lie’
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