'Come Meet Us In Dubai': The New Offshoring Of Grand Corruption

2025-07-14 02:02:07

(MENAFN- Asia Times) During an interview that one of us (Ricardo Soares de Oliveira) carried out in 2017, an African high net-worth individual said he was told by an executive whose business had long served him out of London:“Come meet us in Dubai.” This is part of a large but still misunderstood shift.

In response to the hardening of rules for foreign money of dubious origins in traditional financial centers, sensitive business has been moving toward new, more permissive jurisdictions. This offshoring of services is giving corrupt strategies a new lease on life, while also making the fightback more difficult.

For every corrupt dealing that materializes as legitimate wealth, a trail of service provision is indispensable. Bankers, lawyers, real estate executives, accountants, management consultants and PR agencies have acted as facilitators in Western financial centers.

Western governments have long indulged kleptocracy , a system in which business success and political power are inextricably entwined. They have done so by condoning lax law enforcement and promoting deregulation, often through risible mechanisms of professional self-regulation.

But in recent years, data leaks and brave championship of reform by politicians, as well as the work of civil society organisations, investigative journalists and academics, have shed light on the role of these so-called professional enablers.

In June 2024, a month before becoming British foreign secretary, David Lammy promised to take aim at professionals who enable corruption through London and the UK's overseas territories. This, he noted, included the“finest bankers, lawyers, estate agents and accountants that money could buy.”

Lammy's comments give the impression that the era of risk-free facilitation of corrupt behavior was at an end. But this optimism is, at least for now, proved misplaced.

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