InvestigationA data leak reveals the extent of foreign investment in the emirate, one of the most opaque financial centers on the planet, particularly in luxury real estate.
With its artificial beaches, its sculptural skyscrapers and its ski resorts in the middle of the desert, Dubai appears as an extravagant paradise on earth for the world’s rich. But the flashiest of the United Arab Emirates is also one of the most opaque financial centers on the planet, a providential destination for illicit or suspicious money.
Since the war in Ukraine broke out on February 24, the fear that Russian oligarchs are relocating their fortunes there to escape sanctions has raised the fever. At the beginning of March, the global anti-money laundering body, the FATF, placed Dubai on the gray list of States asked to fill their loopholes in the fight against dirty money. In the viewfinder: finance, but also luxury real estate, a major vector of money laundering, over which reigns the greatest mystery.
A fear confirmed today by a database to which The world gained access, revealing the identities of 274,000 owners of 800,000 properties located in Dubai.
Obtained by the Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS), an American think tank – made up of former American officers and academics, it investigates crimes and international conflicts – these unpublished cadastral data dated 2020 served as a basis to the collaborative investigation “Dubai Uncovered”, bringing together twenty international media under the aegis of the Norwegian financial media E24.
Senior Russian politicians
This database, hitherto inaccessible to the general public as well as to the press and researchers, exposes the darkest side of Dubai. Because, in the list of real estate owners of the leaked are not only businessmen and women who have come to enjoy the economic dynamism of the small emirate and its fiscal generosity: there are also a large number of people involved in criminal activities (fraud, corruption, drug trafficking, etc.) , targeted by judicial investigations or under international sanctions.
Enough to feed the bad reputation of the emirate, whose name is regularly cited in major money laundering cases and where drug traffickers and criminals take refuge in the hope of escaping extradition. white-collar workers wanted by the international police.
The work of the investigative consortium Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), a partner in the investigation, has made it possible to identify two high-ranking Russian politicians, targeted by international sanctions.
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