[hartpuff]

> if the Maffia recycles money into legitimate assets in Italy then trades those assets in London, it's pretty rich for an Italian to try to pin that on London

It's not rich to criticise London if London is aware of or suspects that it's the Mafia they are dealing with and that the "legitimate" assets are simply laundered.

I also don't see why it's rich for an Italian to do the criticising. Perhaps you can explain that one.

[simonh]

If a bank has any reason to suspect that funds they are handling involve laundering they have very clear responsibilities to report them, and have strong incentives to do so as the watchdogs have real teeth.

It's rich because the police and banks in the UK can and do co-operate with the Italian authorities on criminal activities occurring in Italy, but at the end of the day the crime happened in Italy. Only someone with an axe to grind and predisposition against London would blame that on London.

[hartpuff]

So it's simply grinding an axe against London, and not that, according to the UK National Crime Agency, "hundreds of billions of US dollars of criminal money almost certainly continue to be laundered through UK banks, including their subsidiaries, each year”?