IT IS 13,500 miles from the City of London to the bamboo shack on the Pacific island of Nauru, but pounds 1m can cover the distance in a fifteenth of a second. The tiny sovereign state has become a safe haven for the proceeds of drug trafficking, prostitution, people smuggling and other rackets by gangs in Britain, Russia and America. Every day tens of millions of pounds are believed to be laundered through at least 200 banks and shell companies registered in the hut that houses the Nauru Agency Corporation (NAC). Investigators chasing dirty money were astonished that the island, whose main income was once from mining fossilised bird droppings for fertiliser, has become a huge financial washing machine. [continues 746 words]
POLICE are drawing up lists of Britain's wealthiest criminals in anticipation of proposals to confiscate their assets. They hope to use new legislation to strip suspected drugs barons and other criminals of their money, homes, yachts and valuables - even though they may never have been convicted of a crime. Under the legislation a National Confiscation Agency (NCA) would be set up to target alleged criminals and take away their assets if they could not prove they came by them honestly. [continues 473 words]
