Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2022/03/10
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Dirty money has had a fascination for countries otherwise used to sanctimonious muttering for decades and decades and decades. Why point fingers at Putin and his oligarchs alone? Countries like India, Russia and China are huge generators of illegal money, while most economically advanced states are the willing, complicit beneficiaries. Who is more at fault? Every oligarch worth his salt nowadays has his fingers in a football/sports team or two, a wonderful, obtuse way to hide shady, whitewashed money, second only to property. London property markets are driven by stolen public money from Russia, India and the Middle East. Every Indian undesirable, when rumbled, makes a bee line for London, lives in unparalleled luxury, and never gets extradited back to face the music. Canada and Australia have been on a hot streak in the property markets because of similar flight capital from China. Switzerland, the country singularly responsible for keeping most undesirable dictators firmly in power over the decades by brazenly hiding their hot money, is now ceding its preeminence as the bankers of choice to the corrupt to Singapore, Dubai and a host of other island states. All politicians make noises, but nobody wants these jurisdictions to quite close down. And so it goes..... Cheers Jayanand On Fri, Mar 11, 2022 at 5:05 AM Douglas Barry <imra at iol.ie> wrote: > I went for a walk down by Dun Laoghaire today and was looking at yachts > when I thought of this one. > Summer '19, I was in Juan-les-Pins in the south of France and took this > photo of the superyacht Eclipse owned by Putin's pal Roman Abramovich, > an oligarch who has finally just been sanctioned by the tardy Boris > Johnson's government. > > > http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/DouglasBray/France/Cote+dAzur+2019/Cap+d_Antibes+Eclipse+in+Golfe+Juan.jpg.html > > The yacht is currently in the Caribbean, but was moored a good bit off > Cap d'Antibes where I took the shot, so it looks almost small, but it > certainly isn't. It's over 500 feet long, was built by Blohm & Voss who > built the Bismarck, and is fitted with a mini submarine for quick > escapes, military level radar, missiles, helicopters, and cost a pretty > penny. Unfortunately, those pennies appear to have come from a dirty > source. > > I only had my Fuji X100S with me, so a 23mm lens didn't exactly cut the > mustard. > > Douglas > > > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information >