Over $20 billion has been illegally moved out of Russia via oligarchs, bankers and Russian spy agency FSB -- with British high street banks providing ‘laundromat’ services.

This is not just unethical: it’s in violation of British law.

We need an urgent government inquiry to look into why HSBC, Lloyds, Barclays, and RBS allowed this to happen.

We want a government inquiry into why British banks were involved in Russian money laundering!

British banks have repeatedly handled huge sums of corrupt cash and faced little sanction from regulators.

Murray Worthy, Senior Campaigner on Banks & Corruption, has said, “Senior executives have to be held personally accountable when their banks break the rules, or else [this] will keep happening. We have to overhaul the system, or we will keep giving the criminal and corrupt a free pass.”

In 2010, Global Witness reported how Barclays, HSBC and others accepted millions from corrupt Nigerian state governors. The same banks have been caught in the past handling over £1.3 billion in suspect money from Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha.

Why does this continue to happen? How did this pass by regulators? Why was nobody picking up on the criminal pattern of these transactions?

There are so many questions. With public trust in our financial system reaching rock bottom, it’s time we held a transparent inquiry, to answer them once and for all.

When the Australian government tried to foist TPP on its people through the back door, over 20,000 SumOfUs members signed the petition to hold a public inquiry into the trade deal, forcing the government to listen. If enough of us come together, we can force the government’s hand and hold these financial giants to account.

The British public have a lot of questions: we need government inquiry into the role of British banks in Russian money laundering!

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