Britain imposed asset freezes and travel bans on 22 people accused of bribery, corruption and fraud in its first use of new sanctions powers against corruption around the world.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab told politicians that the sanctions would prevent the UK from being used as “a haven for dirty money”.
The list includes 14 Russians implicated in a $230 million tax fraud and three members of the Gupta family business, who are enmeshed in a corruption scandal in South Africa.
Britain is also imposing sanctions on businessman Ashraf Al Cardinal, accused of stealing state assets in impoverished South Sudan, and people from Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala.
Britain previously imposed sanctions as part of the EU or under the auspices of the UN. Since leaving the EU in 2020, it has introduced its own sanctions regime.
The anti-corruption sanctions, imposed in co-ordination with the US, complement measures against human rights abuses that Britain introduced last year.
Both have been called “Magnitsky sanctions” after Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who died in a Moscow prison after exposing a tax fraud scheme involving Russian officials, including those hit with sanctions by the UK on Monday.
The UK has used the human rights sanctions against 78 people and entities, including senior Saudi intelligence officials accused of involvement in the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and military commanders involved in the February coup in Myanmar.
Those sanctioned are barred from entering Britain, channelling money through British banks or profiting from the UK economy.
Opposition politicians said the sanctions were welcome but did not go far enough, because they did not target corruption in Britain’s overseas territories and dependencies, several of which are tax havens, or clamp down on dirty money being funnelled through London’s financial district.
Labour Party foreign affairs spokeswoman Lisa Nandy said Britain remained a haven for “dark money” and urged Mr Raab to give financial crime investigators stronger powers.
“The current rate of prosecutions for economic crime is … woefully low, as he knows, and to put it bluntly, if he’s serious about what he’s saying today he needs to put his money where his mouth is,” Ms Nandy said.
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