London is known as "The Laundry" in Russia. No one in power has cared for two decades and only care now because it serves their interests to. Maybe they will crack down on it, maybe it will get swept under the rug again if the Russian invasion of Ukraine dies down as an important news story, either way, the root issue of why this was allowed in the first place won't be addressed and it will continue to occur with nationals of other countries.
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That no one in power has cared is less remarkable that the fact that democracy's supposed watchdogs (i.e. the media) don't care, until now that is. At least this is definitely the first I have heard of it.
EDIT: After fully reading the article, I realized that the author of the article deals with this issue: U.K.'s libel laws make it dangerous for media watchdogs to call out oligarchs explicitly.
All the weird American candy stores in London that never have any customers have suddenly shut up shop since the Ukraine invasion.
There's also this photo of a pit within one of the stores being filled with cement just before being shutting down: https://www.reddit.com/r/london/comments/tebfqa/almost_all_o...
I've been trying to find out more about what was going on other than money laundering but haven't been able to find much
This is covered in the last issue of Private Eye Issue 1568. There is no online version, only in print.
From memory, the owner set up multiple other business used to secure COVID loans from UK Gov and also had the candy store business buy those business from him. The business was/is a front for these other activities.
If you are interested then I can maybe scan the article.
I'm Russian and spent a fair amount of time there, but I was not aware of London being known as the laundry/laundromat until media coverage this month. Maybe I'm out of touch, but more likely the term is known not so much in Russia but among Russian oligarchs (which intersects with "in Russia" probably less than you might think).
It was never considered a "secret" in Russia. London was always the "default" destination for Russian wealth as well as for children of wealthy people.
A secret is different from something people are just unaware about. "London is known in Russia as a place to launder money" is factually incorrect and unfairly implicates the entire country.
It may be known as such among a tiny minority who have multiple citizenships and most likely do not reside in Russia. Where investing in stock market/index funds is quite uncommon for an ordinary person, what a handful of the top .0001% do to their finances is even further out there. I know a few somewhat well-off by Russian standards people and no one has been to GB much less use it for some shady financial schemes.
How's it going in Russia, as an aside?
I am not physically there. If you are about the recently relevant events, I am hearing prices are rising, thinking people roll their eyes at new Z-decorated lollipops and get arrested for walking solo holding empty pieces of paper, foreign currency is hard to obtain, etc. For apolitical or pro-government people generally life as usual I guess.