Daily Times

In his ‘History of England’, famed economist and philosopher David Hume encapsulates the British Empire’s mindset. It reads: “The British conquerors in India directed their pursuits to one object exclusively, the acquisition of money. They considered in every transaction of war, peace or alliance what money could be drawn from the inhabitants. They pillaged not with the ferocity of soldiers but with the cool exactness of debtor and creditor”.

The British Empire exists no more. What is sermonized to us, the lesser mortals of this world, are the virtues of law and justice in an exemplary democracy. A stark contradiction has Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) reporting that “90 billion pounds is being laundered in the UK each year”. The amount is twice Britain’s total defense budget. NCA identified Pakistan as one of the top three countries who’s politically exposed persons (PEPs) invest siphoned public funds in the UK.

An Organized Crime and Corruption Report (OCCR) dubbed the vast money-laundering scheme as the ‘Laundromat’. During 2011-2014 alone, offshore companies based in Britain reportedly laundered 22.3 billion dollars. In today’s world, where FATF rides roughshod over lesser mortals with its black and grey lists, Corruption Watch asserts: “UK’s wealth management industry manages 800 billion dollars of global wealth at particular risk of laundering”. A TI (UK) report made the startling revelation that, “UK services and institutions played a significant role in some of the biggest corruption scandals as they allowed 325 billion pounds of suspect transactions to flow through the country’s financial system”.

This report identified 600 UK businesses, institutions and individuals that helped obtain, move and defend ill-gotten gains. The staggering payload involved 118 luxury goods and service firms, 81 law firms, 86 banks and financial institutions and 62 accountancy firms including the Big Four – KPMG, Deloitte, Ernst & Young and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

It will be befitting that Britain, a member of the global policing coalition, negates the moniker of Laundromat on the Thames and denies refuge to those seeking a safe haven to flaunt their looted billions.

The humongous numbers involved have spawned a plethora of high-end law firms that defend fugitive billionaires and their ill-gotten fortunes. These criminals have access to topnotch legal services to ensure their freedom by eluding efforts at their extradition or implementation of Interpol Red Warrants. The ultimate means to opulent freedom for these robber-barons is acquiring the British passport.

An OCCR found that 17 British banks including Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland and Coutts aka Queen’s bank, handled 600 million pounds of laundered money. It also released specific details of 70,000 transactions. Reportedly, at least 16 billion pounds was laundered from Russia alone; investigators put the actual figure at 65 billion pounds.

Private Eye Database confirms more than 100,000 prime UK land titles are registered to shell-companies in notorious havens such as Seychelles and the Marshall Islands.  A Deutsche Bank report says that, between 2006 and 2015, Britain received 129 billion dollars from asylum seekers. These (fugitive) individuals now reside in swanky properties of upscale neighborhoods like Mayfair, Knightsbridge and Belgravia.

Ironically, Home Secretary Priti Patel advocates that refugees, who can’t throw millions around, be marooned to Ascension Island, a remote British mid-Atlantic atoll surrounded by 800 miles of water.

Mirza Tahir, a British national, was accused of murdering Jamshed Khan, a Pakistani taxi driver. His death sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court. This led to the British monarchy, Tony Blair and British parliamentarians exerting undue pressure for Tahir’s release. Prince Charles warned to cancel his scheduled visit if the sentence was carried out. Pakistan would have survived the ‘cataclysmic’ royal absence but General Musharraf relented; Tahir flew to Britain a free man. As for Jamshed Khan’s murder, Pakistani blood is far thinner; our rulers proved it yet again.

That act involved two individuals; the fallout of siphoning off public funds leads to excruciating impoverishment, disease, suffering and deaths of a multitude. We now see Nawaz Sharif, a convicted felon, using British soil for Altaf like verbose to undermine Pakistani institutions. His children, British passport holders, along with other family members and cronies in London refuse to face corruption cases in Pakistan involving billions of rupees of looted public money. This is nothing new. Apart from corrupt PEPs, Britain has also become a haven for individuals involved in murder, sedition and terrorism in their once parent Pakistan.

London taxis and buses display ‘Free Baluchistan’ slogans; one can imagine the furor if ‘Free Ireland’ banners are displayed here. Altaf finds refuge despite his murderous rampages in Karachi. In the horrific Baldia factory arson alone that saw 270 people toiling for their livelihood reduced to cinders, the convicted minions were Altaf’s henchmen as were those who murdered Imran Farooq, a British citizen, on British soil and thousands who were murdered, tortured and kidnapped in Karachi.

A list itemizing and pricing weapons, mortars, grenades and bomb-making equipment was found at Altaf’s Edgware residence along with a large stash of unaccounted currency. In a judgment regarding the asylum plea of a Karachi police officer the judge, Lord Bannatyne, granted asylum on the grounds that: “the MQM has killed over 200 police officers who stood up to them in Karachi” yet Scotland Yard remains mired in never ending translations of Altaf’s numerous threats and hate ranting and his interviews under caution.  A smirking and smug Altaf displaying his British passport in his famous ‘catch me if you can’ 2002 photograph said it all.

Transparency International (UK) identifies Nawaz Sharif as the holder of five suspect prime properties in London. Britain is also where, in 1995, Asif Zardari bought the 15 bedroom Rockwood House aka Surrey Palace through Isle of Man shell companies. It boasted, among other extravagant oddities, a £120,000 Lalique glass dining table and a basement bar copied from the nearby Dog and Pheasant pub. In October 2006, Justice Lawrence Collins of the High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench held in a 47 page judgment that the money used for purchase of this property was earned through kickbacks received from Swiss pre-shipment inspection companies (SGS-Cotecna) in Pakistan. Pakistan never received a cent of these illegal proceeds.

It would be a misnomer to say the all-knowing British do not know the geese from the gander. The fact that they dub it an interpretation of justice and human-rights of the accused is an even greater fallacy. We in Pakistan have suffered at the hands of our rulers aided and abetted by their masters. It is not too distant a past that one forgets the Musharraf NRO brokered by Mark Lyall Grant on behalf of Britain and Mark Boucher representing the US.

The NRO granted amnesty to politicians, bureaucrats and political militants accused of murder, terrorism, kidnapping, torture, arson, corruption, embezzlement and money-laundering. Altaf, one of the biggest beneficiaries had 72 cases, including 31 of murder dropped against him. There is an irony to this criminal travesty, Mark Lyall being the descendant of James Broadwood Lyall, the British Empire’s Lieutenant Governor of Punjab.

Will London, of the “Domine dirige nos” (Lord guide us) motto ever bear a fraction against itself of what befalls Pakistan from its own soil; never. It will be befitting that Britain, a member of the global policing coalition, negates the moniker of Laundromat on the Thames and denies refuge to those seeking a safe haven to flaunt their looted billions.