{"id":7613,"date":"2025-05-01T07:36:34","date_gmt":"2025-05-01T07:36:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newmoneyreview.com\/?p=7613"},"modified":"2025-11-13T18:09:56","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T18:09:56","slug":"unseen-money-10-the-uk-open-for-dodgy-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newmoneyreview.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/01\/unseen-money-10-the-uk-open-for-dodgy-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Unseen Money 10: The UK\u2014open for (dodgy) business"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The UK\u2019s company formation process is fast, easy and cheap. The net result of being open to almost any business is that up to half the companies on the UK\u2019s Companies House register may have no legitimate purpose.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, those companies are used by fraudsters as a vital tool in scams and money laundering schemes. Many are set up using fake identities and addresses. Often, they break the reporting rules and never file accounts. And Companies House has become a honeypot for organised crime groups from around the world.<\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"https:\/\/blubrry.com\/newmoneyreview\/145083971\/unseen-money-10-the-ukopen-for-dodgy-business\/\">the latest episode of the Unseen Money podcast<\/a>, Timur Yunusov and I are joined by dark money expert Graham Barrow, who has exposed some of the worst failings of the UK\u2019s company formation regime.<\/p>\n<p>Belatedly, the UK government is acting to address those failings. But will <a href=\"https:\/\/www.legislation.gov.uk\/ukpga\/2023\/56\">new legislation<\/a> go far and fast enough? <a href=\"https:\/\/blubrry.com\/newmoneyreview\/145083971\/unseen-money-10-the-ukopen-for-dodgy-business\/\">Listen to the podcast<\/a> to find out.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">*************<\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/blubrry.com\/newmoneyreview\/\">The New Money Review podcast<\/a> brings you the best minds from the world of money. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>From economics to payments, financial markets, technology, law, digital assets, crime and fraud, you&#8217;ll find an episode that interests you.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The UK\u2019s company formation process is fast, easy and cheap. The net result of being open to almost any business is that up to half the companies on the UK\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7615,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1013,1053,1026,1014],"tags":[2304,2106,2046,1922,2024,2207],"class_list":{"0":"post-7613","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-account","8":"category-featured-1","9":"category-latest-slider","10":"category-payment","11":"tag-burner","12":"tag-companies-house","13":"tag-dark-money","14":"tag-fraud","15":"tag-graham-barrow","16":"tag-scams"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Unseen Money 10: The UK\u2014open for (dodgy) business - New Money Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The UK prides itself on being open for business. But half the businesses on the UK company register may be there for one reason only--fraud.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/newmoneyreview.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/01\/unseen-money-10-the-uk-open-for-dodgy-business\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Unseen Money 10: The UK\u2014open for (dodgy) business - New Money Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The UK prides itself on being open for business. But half the businesses on the UK company register may be there for one reason only--fraud.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/newmoneyreview.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/01\/unseen-money-10-the-uk-open-for-dodgy-business\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"New Money Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-05-01T07:36:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-11-13T18:09:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/newmoneyreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/money-laundering.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1400\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"934\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Paul Amery\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ameryp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@newmoneyreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Paul Amery\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/newmoneyreview.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/01\/unseen-money-10-the-uk-open-for-dodgy-business\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/newmoneyreview.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/01\/unseen-money-10-the-uk-open-for-dodgy-business\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Paul Amery\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/newmoneyreview.com\/#\/schema\/person\/71bdc8f94d4973d4c5bd2a8fe5a83412\"},\"headline\":\"Unseen Money 10: The UK\u2014open for (dodgy) business\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-05-01T07:36:34+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-11-13T18:09:56+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/newmoneyreview.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/01\/unseen-money-10-the-uk-open-for-dodgy-business\/\"},\"wordCount\":197,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/newmoneyreview.com\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/newmoneyreview.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/01\/unseen-money-10-the-uk-open-for-dodgy-business\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/newmoneyreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/money-laundering.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"burner\",\"Companies House\",\"dark money\",\"Fraud\",\"Graham Barrow\",\"scams\"],\"articleSection\":[\"ACCOUNT\",\"Featured\",\"Latest\",\"PAYMENT\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/newmoneyreview.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/01\/unseen-money-10-the-uk-open-for-dodgy-business\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/newmoneyreview.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/01\/unseen-money-10-the-uk-open-for-dodgy-business\/\",\"name\":\"Unseen Money 10: The UK\u2014open for (dodgy) business - New Money Review\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/newmoneyreview.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/newmoneyreview.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/01\/unseen-money-10-the-uk-open-for-dodgy-business\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/newmoneyreview.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/01\/unseen-money-10-the-uk-open-for-dodgy-business\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/newmoneyreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/money-laundering.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-05-01T07:36:34+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-11-13T18:09:56+00:00\",\"description\":\"The UK prides itself on being open for business. 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