Front companies in the UK are at the heart of an investigation into ... a conspiracy to make $20bn (12.5bn) of dirty money look legitimate. The funds are believed to have come from major criminals and corrupt officials around the world. An investigation by The Independent and the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, an NGO, has identified dozens of ... front companies in the UK which carried out massive phoney business deals between themselves. These front companies then sued each other in courts in Moldova, demanding the repayment of hundreds of millions of pounds of loans. A judge in Moldova ... would rule in favour of the claimant company, which would then receive the cash from the other front firm - with an all-important signed court document ordering the debt to be paid. But rather than being transferred from one legitimate British company to another, the funds were being routed from Russia, where gangs from around the world go to launder money from corruption, drug dealing, prostitution and people smuggling. Their tainted money would first be put into the UK front companies' accounts in Moldova before being transferred to another bank in Latvia. This final stage adds to the dirty money's "clean" appearance. The UK bank accounts involved include ones at UBS in London, HSBC, RBS, NatWest and Citibank.