Illicit money: how much is out there?
25 October 2011 – Criminals, especially drug traffickers, may have laundered around $1.6 trillion, or 2.7 per cent of global GDP, in 2009, according to a new report by UNODC. This figure is consistent with the 2 to 5 per cent range previously established by the International Monetary Fund to estimate the scale of money-laundering.
Less than 1 per cent of global illicit financial flows is currently being seized and frozen, according to the report Estimating illicit financial flows resulting from drug trafficking and other transnational organized crime. “Tracking the flows of illicit funds generated by drug trafficking and organized crime and analysing how they are laundered through the world’s financial systems remain daunting tasks,” acknowledged Yury Fedotov, Executive Director of UNODC.
Launching the report in Marrakech, Morocco, during the fourth session of the Conference of the States Parties to the United Nations Convention on Corruption, Mr. Fedotov said that the Conference served as an apt reminder that corruption could play a major role in facilitating the entry of illicit funds into legitimate global financial flows, adding that investments of “dirty money” could distort the economy and hamper investment and economic growth. The aim of the study is to shed light on the total amounts probably laundered across the globe and to advance research on the topic. “But as with all such reports, we will continue to refine the figures to provide the truest possible estimates,” said Mr. Fedotov.
Detail news: here
Case study report file: here