The Incumbency Advantage and the Enabler Effect: How Londongrad Beat the UK Anti-Money Laundering Regime


Heathershaw J. Mayne T. Prelec T. Tokubayev S.
2026Routledge

Europe-Asia Studies
2026#78Issue 2157 - 192 pp.

The emergence and survival of ‘Londongrad’, despite the UK anti-money laundering regime, is an intellectual and policy conundrum. We analyse an original dataset of £2 billion of domestic real estate in the United Kingdom owned by elites from post-Soviet states in the period 1998–2020. Our results show an incumbency advantage: exiles are more likely to lose their property, while incumbent elites—even from hostile states such as Russia—retain theirs. Cases that appear to diverge from this rule may be explained by effective legal enabling, which allows a small number of exiles to beat the odds.



Text of the article Перейти на текст статьи

University of Exeter, Amory Building, Rennes Drive, Devon, Exeter, EX4 4RJ, United Kingdom
University of Rijeka, 10, Trg braće Mažuranića, Rijeka, 51000, Croatia
Maqsut Narikbayev University, 8, Korgalzhyn Highway, Astana, 010000, Kazakhstan

University of Exeter
University of Rijeka
Maqsut Narikbayev University

10 лет помогаем публиковать статьи Международный издатель

Книга Публикация научной статьи Волощук 2026 Book Publication of a scientific article 2026