Death in Westminster

Who’s hiding behind London’s empty mansions?

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In 2018, a man named Gyula Remes died just metres from the buildings that govern Britain, on a street surrounded by unimaginable wealth and rows of vacant properties. His death should have been impossible. Instead, it was treated as inevitable.

How could this happen on Parliament’s doorstep, at the centre of one of the richest cities on the planet?

In this podcast, Kojo Koram – author of Uncommon Wealth – traces Gyula’s story, asking how someone could die of homelessness in the shadow of British power, while so many nearby homes stood empty and untouched. But asking that question quickly takes him far beyond Westminster’s pavements.

Death in Westminster is a four-part investigative series that begins with one life lost but soon spirals outward – from a tube station tragedy to offshore tax havens, from imperial history to modern finance.

It’s a story about secrecy, stolen wealth, and how Britain’s imperial afterlife has turned its capital into a global money laundering machine – leaving people like Gyula in its wake.

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Episode 1

The Station

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In 2018, Gyula Remes died in the underpass at Westminster tube station, just steps from the Houses of Parliament and luxury developments worth millions. How could this happen in one of the richest cities on Earth?

Episode one introduces Gyula and the world he died in: a Westminster plagued by the twin crises of homelessness and empty homes. In a London borough where extreme wealth exists alongside extreme poverty, Kojo traces the circumstances of Gyula’s death and a troubling question emerges.

What begins as a local tragedy opens the door to a much larger system, which we open onto a strange land called ‘offshore’.

Episode 2

The Island

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To understand why Westminster is full of empty homes, Kojo has to look outside of Britain. Episode two follows the money to the Cayman Islands, one of the world’s most powerful tax havens and a British Overseas Territory.

Kojo finds out how offshore finance works, why secrecy is its greatest asset, and how Britain’s overseas empire quietly props up a global system designed to protect wealth from scrutiny. Drawing a line between shell companies in the Caribbean and spiralling property prices in London, he finds that housing has become a safety deposit box for global capital. So why don’t the politicians in Westminster do something about it?

Episode 3

The City

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Whenever there’s public uproar about offshore wealth – like the revelations in the Panama Papers – politicians are reluctant to take action. In episode three, Kojo discovers that the expansion of tax havens is no accident or oversight, but the result of decades of lobbying by powerful think tanks.

The City of London has become a facilitator of global wealth extraction, and offshore finance is now embedded in Britain’s political system. As Kojo finds out, the consequences are profound: rising inequality, hollowed-out cities, and a housing market increasingly detached from human need.

Episode 4

The Tunnel

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Kojo returns to the tunnel at Westminster tube station. Above ground, property prices are soaring and thousands of homes sit empty, all while homelessness worsens. Hearing from charities on the frontline and campaigners fighting a hidden system, he understands that Gyula’s death is not an anomaly, but a warning.

The final episode asks what it would take to build a city that values human life over hidden wealth – and what happens if we don’t.