SARs are a formal mechanism by which banks, solicitors and other regulated parties can send the NCA, as the agency explains, details about “knowledge or suspicion of money laundering”.
They are not crime reports or proof of a crime, but as the NCA says, they are “a vital source of intelligence …[and] provide information and intelligence from the private sector that would otherwise not be visible to law enforcement”.
Re money going into Reform.
That’s how the legislation was drafted, yes. But that’s not how it turned out. Anything that doesn’t have jots and tittles correct is referred. There are 850,000 such references a year. For the incentive is to over-report. The penalties on a bank for not referring are huge. The costs of doing so the filling out of a form. So, the form gets filled out.
The important number is those investigated and found to be dodgy. Which is, at least as far as we know at present, zero.
But that’s not what The Guardian is running with, now is it?
I have absolutely zero knowledge of any details here but at this point my claim would be “hit job”.
This is just the problem with such regimes.
A proper money launderer isnt going to bank transfer cash around so it can be traced. It is just the govt snooping on the public.
As with so much else that is wrong with our country it stems from a monomaniacal obsession from Twat Ultimus Gordon Brown and consequently gold plated by over zealous Treasury officials.
850,000 referrals with no results sounds like a huge waste of time and effort.
Not just Brown. This all stems from US rules that they effectively impose on everyone that wants to do business there. This is probably a good description of the regime over there.
The entire body of law has moved in the same way… It’s become increasingly onerous on the law-abiding and increasingly ineffective on those that don’t give a s**t!
While I think its unequivocal now that Starmer/ Burnham are the worst government this planet has ever known they took that title over from Brown/ Blair which was basically a criminal cabal.
Was the Blair Family as bad as the Biden Family?
No it is not! I can remember Harold Wilson (” Harold will soon”), wrecking the economy, worse than halving the value of any £-denominated savings in less than five years, giving free rein to greedy, corrupt, incompetent trade unions, provoking Southern Rhodesia to declare UDI, renationalising steel, destroying the economy of the North-East [FYI, Labour closed more of Durham’s coal mines than Mrs Thatcher], protecting a known KGB agent because he was Chairman of the Labour Party, turning the HoC from a place for people who wanted to make a difference in government to a place for people who wanted to make money, abolishing the death penalty which was relatively merciful compared to being locked up in prison until you drop dead …
the death penalty which was relatively merciful compared to being locked up in prison until you drop dead
JS Mill made that argument in Parliament a century earlier.
Truth does not change.
I am not claiming originality.
Nigel should have spent the money on Specs ‘n Suits. That makes it just fine….
Meanwhile, every British town has ten Turkish barbers, half a dozen car washes, three or four vape shops, and a couple of Chinese restaurants, all of which will only take cash. Odd that.
My daughter, a City solicitor-advocate, was deeply involved in a case that involved cash car washes across the UK. Albanians, since you ask…
Were they ethnic Albanians or Roma?
The Guardian seems to be trying to tell us something about George Cottrell:
“…one of Farage’s closest associates, the convicted fraudster George Cottrell…”
“Fiona Cottrell’s funding of Reform is particularly interesting because of her son, George, whose relationship with Farage and Reform has been an enduring source of media commentary and intrigue. As the author of a book on money laundering, a renowned gambler and convicted fraudster…”
“…he was convicted of wire fraud and served several months in a US prison in 2017″
“…he is a convicted fraudster…”
“…George Cottrell’s criminal past…”
I wonder what it can be. 🙂
Doesn’t the left and Guardian in particular usually push that criminals shouldn’t have their past convictions held against them once the’ve done their time? Rehabilitation of offenders act being a case in point.
Added to that, does anyone think that Guardian will ever refer to: “Convicted fraudster Louise Haigh”?
H/T Guido Fawkes
Convicted? Took a plea deal for time served on remand. For a foreigner in the US justice system this is equivalent to being innocent. When the DoJ offers that, you take it. You have no chance in court and you may spend years in jail waiting for a trial which is biased against you.
Absolutely – if the likes of Femi or Owen Jones has been convicted in the US I very much doubt it would be mentioned at every juncture, but what it does show is that Reform poses an existential threat to the Gravy train and they have to stop at nothing to remove it.
I was pleased to see this week confirmation of my contention that you’ll learn far more about the world from the Mail than the Guardian.
The Mail is just the Guardian with the dog-whistle tuned to a different pitch. And better fact-checking.
Guardian readers hate it when you point this out.
That was inevitable whether it was Nigel Neat or Nigel Nefarious. Everyone, except Nigel it seems, knew a deep state hit job was coming.
So now he’s ended up in a runoff election with Count Binface. It’s a bold strategy, Cotton. Let’s see if it pays off for him.
Dominic Cummings in January, in the Speccie:
Think about what the old system will do to stop Nigel Farage getting in. It’s not going to be politics as usual. Keir Starmer has already signalled this, when he says that he can live with the Tories winning, but he can’t live with Farage winning. The people around Starmer and all through the upper echelons of the Whitehall system are looking at Donald Trump. They’re looking across Europe and they’re saying to themselves: ‘The lesson is to strike early and strike hard and not let these people in. We should never have let Vote Leave win the referendum on Brexit. That was the beginning of the disaster for us. We can’t make this mistake again. Let’s smash the absolute living shit out of Farage, and make sure that he doesn’t win, by fair means and foul.’ They will leak medical records. They will leak tax records. They will bug his phone and leak that. They will do anything that they need to.
That’s going to be happening all across Europe in parallel. And they will all be telling themselves that they’re fighting fascism. The European Commission has said publicly that they will use the tactics that they use for colour revolutions in eastern Europe to stop western European countries being taken over by parties that they don’t agree with. That is the official doctrine of the European Commission, and they will definitely try and do it.
They’re saying it on the record: it’s the opposite of conspiratorial. They have conferences by Lake Como to discuss how to do it. Over the next year, we’re going to have the Russiagate hoax coming back. Lots of people will be saying: ‘Where’s Carole Cadwalladr? Why did no one pay attention to her?’ Rory Stewart, Alastair Campbell and co are going to push for real investigations, this time into Brexit and the Russians. We will look at it initially and think it’s insane, that it won’t go anywhere. Then to mounting horror, [will come] the realisation that it actually is going to go somewhere.
There’s going to be an all-out attempt to decapitate Farage. His tax returns, his medical information: they will use the intelligence services and leak a bunch of shit that they would not normally do.
The big lesson they take away from the past ten years is not ‘we should have listened to the voters’. It’s that we should have jailed them all early, we should never have let Elon Musk buy Twitter.
What will Whitehall and Labour be hearing from their Democrat friends in London? ‘Strike early, strike hard. Don’t be squeamish. Just crush all of this shit, jail them all, they’re fascist. We have to destroy democracy to save democracy.’
Overall, the big picture is going to be a big push to rejoin the EU, and there’s going to be a big push for censorship. The whole lesson of the past ten years is that the system will never admit failure. The system will not change direction. It will only keep going. Everyone is racist. So: rejoin, censorship, and change the electoral system. The electoral system will lock everything in together. That way, there’s no escape.
I agree with every word of that. Which raises the question. Why do people still believe in the democratic system?
Because the system is still partially democratic and because most people don’t yet realise it isn’t sufficiently democratic…Back to the Overton Window, which politicians like Farage could move (but Lowe never could).
Censorship and propaganda are overrated tools. People know what’s what. The attempts to silence people for tweets has only led to even more support for the Wrong Sort of People.
We have to protect our phoney baloney jobs, gentlemen.
There are 850,000 such references a year.
Gamecock, being a red neck, LOVES this.
These requirements are effectively a general warrant. Turn of data without due process. A rank violation of the US 4th amendment. But the people have accepted it.
I’d like to see many millions of references a year. Choke ’em on their shit.
PJF says it’s bold of Nigel, but I think he’s just taking the best option available.
It’s bolder of the sniggering clowns on the green benches.
What do they think will happen if they nobble Farage? I don’t think the public will say “oh well, better go back to voting for the mass Islamic gang rape parties then?”. No.
Farage is the nice and reasonable option. His replacement won’t be. MP’s think they can act with impunity, but the British people are still here and we haven’t gone away, you know.
They already tried fighting the British people for years over Brexit and lost. They want to fight us over their last chance to peacefully and democratically rescue the British state? Good luck.
the British people are still here and we haven’t gone away, you know.
Really? A very few Brits have a tiny riot & get jailed for it & the rest of you cower behind your twitching curtains. Brits don’t have the stomach for it. The only people you’ll see on the streets are the left if they don’t get their way.
Thanks Dad
The only armed ones will be the Muslims.
If we outnumber them significantly, having a knife will not be enough. Machetes might, or might not, be a big problem.
Correct.
Farage is the nice and reasonable option. His replacement won’t be.
In your theory, Steve. However, any politicians outside of the Overton Window would be denigrated by the MSM and so largely ignored by most of the electorate. Insurgent politicians need to understand that winning requires building a coalition of people who agree with only parts of their programmes and then tailor their message. Lowe doesn’t get this!
Theo – you’re right, but the electorate’s mood is darkening. If they succeed in killing Reform, Restore will start winning by elections. The Overton Window the politicians are gazing, complacently out of isn’t the same window the average British citizen and you Nan is looking through.
Restore Party membership is greater than the Tories, and that’s despite the risk of “far right” social outcasting and other nasties. They only formed in February this year. They came third in the Burnham bi-election.
Not sure this applies any more. Pissing about with the “Overton Window” is basically trying to appeal to people who’ll never vote for you. Saying you can’t deport millions of foreigners isn’t going to bring “moderates” into your tent because there are plenty of treasonous cunts already offering that miserable surrender. The MSM doesn’t apply much anymore either, which is why the Traitor State is trying to destroy the alternatives that people are actually looking at. The MSM aren’t exactly doing a lot for Farage at the moment, are they? And he tried so hard to appeal them.
You were posting lots of “Amelia” memes earlier. Amelia would chuck a fiery wheelie bin through the MSM’s Overton Window and not give a fuck.
To be clear, Steve, I think the hit job is appalling no matter how inevitable.
But Farage going for melodrama with the entirely predictable result of his enemies leaving him hanging was his own doing. The best option? Never much rated him. Still don’t.
Let’s face it, if a senior politician who wasn’t one you supported ended up facing off against Count Binface, you’d find it hilarious. It is hilarious.
It is hilarious, even for some of us that vote for Nigel
I seem to remember that publishing SARs is illegal. So, who’se going to chokey?
no-one… Because this is for the Cause and the Narrative!!!