Blair's dirty money: As his tentacles reach Mongolia, how the ex-PM is making millions from some of the world's most evil regimes
- Tony Blair is to advise Mongolian leaders on 'good governance'
- The former Prime Minister won't say how much he is earning from the deal
- Mr Blair is said to be worth between £60million and £80million
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Dirty money: Mr Blair has just struck up a deal with Mongolia to give leaders advice on 'good governance'
How else should we view the inexorable rise of his shadowy and quasi-political network of businesses, whose tentacles stretch from his smart offices next to the American Embassy in London into every corner of the globe?
This week, it was revealed the former Prime Minister has added a new country, Mongolia, to his burgeoning portfolio of business interests.
He has signed a contract to advise the Central Asian country’s leaders on ‘good governance’ through his money-making Government Advisory Practice.
And what does Mongolia have in common with most of the places Mr Blair does his business deals?
The answer is: pots of money. The once dirt-poor nation is about to strike it rich, thanks to vast copper and gold mines in the Gobi desert.
Blair won’t say how much he is earning from the tie-up — and his large team of spin doctors routinely deny almost any figures relating to his myriad international deals — but we can be sure it’ll run into millions.
How else could he bankroll 200 employees — a figure he’s set his sights on growing to 500 over the coming years — in his expanding network of offices around the world?
At the centre of this nexus of money and power is 60-year-old Blair himself, who is guaranteed a warm welcome — befitting an international statesman of the highest rank — when he is feted by some of the world’s most dirty and corrupt tin-pot leaders.
And political contacts in high places only help grease the wheels of his various opaque business ventures, which have propelled the ex-Labour leader into the ranks of the super-rich.
Depending on whom you believe, he is now worth £60 million to £80 million.
Sources close to Blair told me this week that the model for his growing organisation is the equally secretive U.S. global management consultancy McKinsey.
World traveller: Where the former Prime Minister is making money all over the world
Sure enough, staff lists of the ex-PM’s Africa Governance Initiative (AGI) — the charity he set up in 2008 — as well as Tony Blair Associates, the umbrella operation for his Government Advisory Practice (GAP), read like a Who’s Who of former McKinsey executives.
They include German-born Stephan Kriesel, the GAP head; Joe Capp, who runs Blair’s South American organisation; and Nnaemeka Okafor, who is the AGI’s head in Nigeria.
Blair, who has links to McKinsey going back to his time in office, has also copied the U.S. firm’s policy of hiring super-bright young graduates from Oxbridge, Harvard, Princeton and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, instead of relying on experienced business managers.
Increasingly, Blair’s UK headquarters — in a Georgian townhouse in London’s Grosvenor Square, for which he pays £550,000-a-year rent — resemble the seat of power of a president or prime minister. (On the mantelpiece in his cream-coloured office are pictures of him with elder statesmen such as Nelson Mandela.)
Wealthy: With millions flowing in, Blair has set up a byzantine network of inter-related companies to funnel his vast earnings
A team of staff is licensed by the Financial Services Authority so they have the power to advise clients and invest money on their behalf from this room, using the Reuters 3000 Xtra electronic trading platform.
With millions flowing in, Blair has set up a byzantine network of inter-related companies to funnel his vast earnings.
The effect is that his financial affairs are largely cloaked in a web of secrecy.
What we do know is that his Government Advisory Practice is administered through a company called Windrush Ventures.
Latest accounts show it had an income of £16 million and made profits of £3.6 million.
What we can be certain of is that those figures are just the tip of the iceberg.
For his part, Blair insists that, despite his globe-trotting, he is a UK taxpayer and his companies are registered here for tax purposes.
So just how far do the tentacles of Blair Inc reach around the world? And how ethical are the regimes that are enriching the former Labour leader to such an extraordinary degree?
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