Name: 寡頭們為何選擇倫敦來存放他們的黑錢 | 經濟學人 (Why oligarchs choose London for their dirty money | The Economist)
Uploaded: 2022-07-11T02:20:22.000Z
Duration: 13 min 43 s

進階形容詞比較級句型

the british government is talking tough since the war began in Ukraine, it's imposed strong sanctions on Russia as well as individuals with Kremlin connections.

自烏克蘭戰爭開始以來，英國政府的態度很強硬，它對俄羅斯以及與克里姆林宮有聯繫的個人實施了強有力的制裁。

Oligarchs in London will have nowhere to hide.

These are homes valued at tens of millions of pounds.

這些是價值數千萬英鎊的房屋。

以至於它甚至贏得了一個綽號。

Oligarchs have come to London bought luxury properties in some cases football clubs, there was so much money coming in from that part of the world and it's not just Russians, billionaires from around the globe and their money love to call London home.

寡頭們來到倫敦，在一些情況下購買了豪華房產和足球俱樂部，有這麼多錢從世界的那個地方進來，而且不僅僅是俄羅斯人，來自全球各地的億萬富翁和他們的錢都喜歡把倫敦當成家。

This is wealth beyond anybody's imagination.

The trouble is, it's not all clean Britain is one of the best places in the world to launder dirty money.

問題是，這並不都是乾淨的，英國是世界上洗髒錢的最佳地方之一。

Fasten your seat belts and put yourself in the hands of a magician.

繫好安全帶，把自己交到魔術師手中。

It may seem natural that the super rich would want to live in the british capital, but the rise of London Grad wasn't a happy accident.

超級富豪想住在英國首都似乎很自然，但倫敦格拉德的崛起並不是一個快樂的意外。

This is a story that goes back to just after the Second World War in the 1950s Britain was really trying to deal with a loss of empire and looking for a new role in the world.

這個故事可以追溯到第二次世界大戰後的20世紀50年代，英國確實在努力應對帝國的喪失，並尋找世界上的新角色。

In 1956, the Suez Canal crisis led to massive sell offs of sterling around the world.

1956年，蘇伊士運河危機導致世界各地大量拋售英鎊。

In response, the Bank of England encouraged a radical new kind of market british banks started to borrow, not by american dollars to do deals because there are trading in U.

作為迴應，英格蘭銀行鼓勵一種激進的新型市場，英國銀行開始借貸，不以美圓做交易，因為有以美圓交易的。

This avoided Bank of England regulations, but because they hadn't actually bought the dollars, it avoided american ones too.

這避免了英格蘭銀行的規定，但由於他們沒有實際購買美元，也避免了美國的規定。

And that led to the development of what's called the euro markets, which essentially means trading currencies of different types outside of their home countries, Britain had taken offshore banking mainstream, the development of offshore banking was a big turning point because banks generally don't like regulation.

而這導致了所謂的歐元市場的發展，這基本上意味著在本國之外交易不同類型的貨幣，英國已經將離岸銀行業務納入主流，離岸銀行業務的發展是一個很大的轉捩點，因為銀行一般不喜歡監管。

And what offshore allowed you to do essentially was to to use jurisdictions that had lighter regulation and just allowed more freedom when it came to moving capital around the world and storing it, british banking had changed forever And by the swinging 60s business was booming.

離岸允許你做的事情基本上是使用監管較輕的司法管轄區，當涉及到在世界範圍內移動資本和儲存資本時，允許更多的自由，英國的銀行業已經永遠改變了。

London had become the place to skirt banking regulations.

倫敦已經成為規避銀行法規的地方。

And at the same time you had a whole bunch of offshore territories of the United Kingdom.

同時，你有一大堆聯合王國的離岸領土。

They were actually encouraged by Britain to develop into corporate services and finance from the british Virgin Island to Jersey.

他們實際上是在英國的鼓勵下，從英屬維爾京群島發展到澤西島的企業服務和金融。

By the 19 eighties Britain had a web of overseas territories and crown dependencies that were helping clients to hide their cash and no one seemed to mind where the money was coming from.

到20世紀80年代，英國有一個由海外領土和皇家屬地組成的網絡，幫助客戶隱藏他們的現金，似乎沒有人介意這些錢的來源。

Grand Caymans modern claim to fame is as an offshore tax and banking haven.

大開曼島的現代名聲是作為一個離岸稅收和銀行業的天堂。

Then in 1991, the game really changed when the USSR fell.

然後在1991年，當蘇聯解體時，遊戲真的改變了。

Ex soviet nationalized industries were sold off at a fraction of their true value.

前蘇聯國有化工業以其真實價值的一小部分被出售。

A few canny businessmen got very rich, very quickly Britain saw an opportunity, it goes back to john major in the 19 nineties, the major government introduced golden visas essentially if you were a wealthy foreigner and you wanted residency in the U.

一些精明的商人變得非常富有，很快英國就看到了一個機會，這要追溯到19世紀90年代的約翰大區，大區政府推出了黃金簽證，基本上如果你是一個富有的外國人，你想在美國居住。

Even if you didn't intend to spend all of your time there, you could pay a large investment to win that.

即使你不打算把所有的時間都花在那裡，你也可以付出大量的投資來贏得這一點。

Even at the time, the scheme had its critics seems quite astonishing to me, anybody who's laundered money simply to buy a ticket to to Britain.

即使在當時，該計劃也有批評者，對我來說似乎相當驚人，任何人只要為了買一張到英國的機票而洗錢。

But the bait worked, investing a million or two was a small price to pay for a billionaire.

但這個誘餌起了作用，投資一兩百萬對一個億萬富翁來說是個小代價。

Russia's super rich flocked to make London their second home.

俄羅斯的超級富豪蜂擁而至，將倫敦作為他們的第二個家。

A lot of the money that comes here is perfectly legal, but tens of billions of pounds of it isn't.

來到這裡的很多錢都是完全合法的，但有幾百億英鎊是不合法的。

So how does Britain help to hide dirty money?

那麼，英國是如何幫助隱藏髒錢的呢？

If I was an oligarch and I was looking to launder money, I'd probably hire a, a team, would hire a wealth manager and they would suggest various structures into which I could place my wealth.

如果我是一個寡頭，我想洗錢，我可能會僱用一個，一個團隊，會僱用一個財富經理，他們會建議各種結構，我可以把我的財富放入其中。

You would basically come up with a system that would diversify your money and make it virtually impossible for investigators to track that money.

你基本上會想出一個系統，使你的資金多樣化，並使調查人員幾乎不可能追蹤這些錢。

If money can't be tracked, No one can prove where it came from or see who owns it.

如果錢不能被追蹤，沒有人可以證明它來自哪裡，或者看到誰擁有它。

Now that's where shell companies come in.

現在，這就是空殼公司的作用。

If one of those owns the money, it doesn't leave any fingerprints and setting one up in Britain is easy, You can register a company for as little as £12 in the UK and then use that company to hold a bank account in in Latvia or Switzerland.

如果其中一個人擁有這些錢，它不會留下任何指紋，在英國設立一個公司很容易，你可以在英國註冊一個公司，只需12英鎊，然後用這個公司在拉脫維亞或瑞士持有一個銀行賬戶。

Registering a company at London's companies house takes just 24 hours.

在倫敦的公司總部註冊公司只需要24小時。

There are very few checks over a person's identity when you register a company that is changing as we speak and there are supposedly verification procedures being brought in.

當你註冊一個公司時，對一個人的身份檢查很少，而在我們說話的時候，這種情況正在改變，據說正在引入核查程序。

But up until now anybody could register a company.

但到目前為止，任何人都可以註冊公司。

You didn't need to produce a passport or any personal identification.

你不需要出示護照或任何個人身份證明。

You can register it online from, from overseas.

You don't even have to be the owner of the of the company according to the World Bank Britain is one of the easiest places anywhere to create a company.

根據世界銀行的數據，你甚至不需要是公司的所有者，英國是在任何地方創建公司最容易的地方之一。

The best place to set up A Shell company certainly would put the UK in the top five, let's say including the overseas territories because it's just so easy to register a company here and in one part of the U.

設立殼牌公司的最佳地點 當然，英國會被列入前五名，讓我們說包括海外領土，因為在這裡和美國的一個地方註冊公司是如此簡單。

Limited partnerships are type of company that is only available in Scotland and they have fewer reporting requirements than the rest of the U.

有限合夥企業是隻在蘇格蘭才有的公司類型，它們的報告要求比美國其他地區要少。

For example, if turnover is under a certain amount, you can actually say that the companies involved in business, but you can provide no record of what that business actually entails.

例如，如果營業額低於某一數額，你實際上可以說這些公司參與了業務，但你不能提供該業務的實際內容的記錄。

But on closer inspection, wealth hidden in a Shell company still looks like wealth.

但仔細觀察，隱藏在殼牌公司中的財富看起來仍然是財富。

Putting money into property is a great way of disguising it and keeping it safe.

把錢存入財產是一種掩飾和保持其安全性的好方法。

They're wrapping up building at this stage.

在這個階段，他們正在結束建設。

Arthur Doyennes activist group clamp K runs kleptocrats tours of London, showing people mega mansions bought with dirty money number 14 Walton Street, which is over here just behind these olive trees was the subject of the first unexplained wealth order that was brought to court by the N.

Arthur Doyennes活動組織 "鉗制K "在倫敦開展盜賊之旅，向人們展示用髒錢買來的巨型豪宅。"沃爾頓街14號 "就在這些橄欖樹後面，它是第一個被NPC提交法庭的不明財富令的對象。

It's completely unfair that the ordinary british citizen voter taxpayer has to compete for a british house with this foreign stolen money.

普通的英國公民選民納稅人要用這些外國的贓款來競爭英國的房子，這完全是不公平的。

We know there are thousands of properties in this part of London that are owned through these kind of shell companies, here's how that can work.

我們知道，在倫敦的這個地區有成千上萬的房產是通過這種空殼公司擁有的，這裡是如何運作的。

A house can be bought through an offshore bank account.

房子可以通過離岸銀行賬戶購買。

That bank account can be in the name of an offshore shell company.

該銀行賬戶可能是在一個離岸空殼公司的名下。

That shell company could be owned by a trust somewhere else.

那家空殼公司可能是由其他地方的信託公司擁有。

Suddenly the house with all that money in doesn't look like anything at all.

突然間，裝了那麼多錢的房子看起來一點都不像了。

It's a great trick for hiding dirty money.

Russians who have been accused of corruption or of having links to the Kremlin have bought at least £1..

被指控腐敗或與克里姆林宮有聯繫的俄羅斯人至少購買了1英鎊。

kleptocrats in town at the same time, Real estate prices in the capital have risen to eye watering levels, prices are actually rising.

與此同時，首都的房地產價格已經上升到令人瞠目結舌的水準，價格實際上正在上升。

They're being pushed up by wealthy buyers active in the market, it all means increased inequality.

他們被活躍在市場上的富裕買家推高了，這都意味著不平等的加劇。

And a lot of these houses aren't even lived in an estimated £41 billion pounds worth of property stands empty in London alone.

而這些房子中的很多甚至沒有人居住，僅在倫敦就有價值410億英鎊的房產空置。

That's more than the total value of all property in Liverpool.

這比利物浦所有財產的總價值還要高。

這是在一個有住房危機的城市。

But owning an empty house isn't illegal, which makes seeing when it involves dirty money very hard.

但擁有一個空房子並不違法，這使得看到它涉及髒錢時非常困難。

It's a challenge that Britain is finding tough to take on the UK talks a good game.

這是一個英國發現很難接受的挑戰，英國談的是一個好遊戲。

The one thing that's lacking at the moment is sufficient backing for the police, for the National Crime Agency and for other agencies that look into this.

目前缺乏的是對警察、國家犯罪署和其他調查機構的充分支持。

Some other european countries tend to invest a bit more on a sort of you know, pound by pound basis, so to speak, in anti corruption efforts.

其他一些歐洲國家傾向於在反腐工作中投入更多的資金，你知道的，可以說是一英鎊一英鎊的。

The British government spends just under £1 billion 100 times that.

英國政府的開支只有不到10億英鎊，是這個數字的100倍。

But weak enforcement isn't the only reason the U.

但執法不力並不是美國的唯一原因。

已經成為吸引骯髒現金的磁鐵。

It also has a name for cleaning reputations as well as money for someone who's been involved in money laundering or deals involving tainted cash, reputation laundering is useful in one particular way and that is to stymie investigation by for instance journalists or NGos, we've seen oligarchs and other foreigners doing this in the U.

它也有一個名字，就是為那些參與洗錢或涉及汙點現金的交易的人清洗名譽和金錢，名譽清洗在一個特定的方面是有用的，那就是阻止例如記者或非政府組織的調查，我們已經看到寡頭和其他外國人在美國這樣做。

If an investigative journalist is is looking into you, you can strike back a number of public relations and law firms have come to specialize in in helping helping wealthy foreigners to in some cases appear more safely than they might be in reality.

如果調查記者正在調查你，你可以反擊一些公共關係和律師事務所已經開始專門幫助幫助富有的外國人在某些情況下看起來比他們在現實中可能更安全。

But since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the charm offensive has stalled the british government has promised to clamp down on money laundering and has sanctioned individual oligarchs.

但自從俄羅斯入侵烏克蘭以來，魅力攻勢已經停滯不前，英國政府承諾打擊洗錢行為，並對個別寡頭進行制裁。

How will Britain cope without their money?

沒有他們的錢，英國將如何應對？

Rich Russians may spend big while they're here, but Britain gets less from them than you might think.

富裕的俄羅斯人在這裡可能會花大錢，但英國從他們那裡得到的東西比你想象的少。

In 2020, foreigners held roughly £13 trillion British assets.

在2020年，外國人持有大約13萬億英鎊的英國資產。