The London property market has become a 'safe haven' for dirty foreign money, forcing ordinary people to leave the capital to find an affordable place to live, a report said.
It found that more than £4.2 billion worth of London property was bought with 'suspicious wealth'.
80 per cent of properties in the capital were bought by foreign investors in a survey of 2,066 homes.
Out of the 1,616 properties bought by foreigners, 40 per cent of buyers had a 'high corruption risk' or were companies based in secrecy havens.
Civil organisation Transparency UK said: 'The London property market is highly vulnerable to corrupt wealth flowing into it.'
The influx of foreign buyers in the housing market has also had an effect on ordinary Londoners and young people looking for affordable places to live.
Almost two thirds said the cost of housing made it difficult to work and live in London, according to a survey by Generation Rent.
Transparency UK wrote: 'The impact of the cost of housing on Londoners is clear: our survey results showed 41 per cent of Londoners had recently considered moving out of London due to the cost of living.'
Duncan Hames, director of policy at the group, told the Times: 'While Londoners find themselves priced out of the capital, many new homes are left unused by wealthy investors based overseas.'
But developers are sceptical of the report, saying that the figures may not be accurate.
Galliard homes told the Times that Transparency UK used data from three years ago.
The company said that 80 per cent of their properties are now bought by British people.
When Sadiq Khan was elected as London Mayor, he pledged to plough public money into helping to increase affordable housing.
He also promised to introduce a London Living Rent, where people earning less than the capital's average income could qualify to rent a two-bedroom house for just £1,000 a month.
Mr Khan also commissioned an independent report into the problem of foreign buyers and their effect on the housing market.
Reference: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4281184/London-property-safe-haven-dirty-money.html
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