Matthew valencie is deputy business affairs editor at the economist. The primary motivation here for all these people bringing russian money in was tax break? Well, there are lots of reasons why they like london. One is britain's economy, which is relatively open to foreign investment. Britain also has the city of london, a huge financial district with relatively light touch regulation. It crucially provides a huge pool of capital where it's relatively easy foreign money of all shades to blend in. On top of all that, london has lots and lots of really nice luxury property. That's an ideal sort of asset to park large amounts of money that needs to be laundered.