£464m moved through 3,000+ UK shell companies posing as high-street shops

Up to £464m moved through 3,097 UK shell companies registered as beauty salons and convenience stores but suspected of money-laundering and terrorist-financing fronts, SmartSearch's analysis of Companies House records (2016–2026) found. The entities shared addresses, postcodes, and near-identical six-month lifespans. A single Cardiff area alone hosted 119 suspected companies.