By Tom Cardamone, Guest Contributor

Diplomatic Courier

June 23, 2010

Last December an ageing Russian Ilyushin Il-76 cargo plane flying from Pyongyang, was detained during a scheduled refueling stop in Bangkok. When the belly of the plane was inspected security personnel found 35 tons of illicit military equipment that, it was later discovered, was on its way to Iran. While it is a positive development that the $18 million cargo of rockets, surface-to-air missile launchers and rocket-propelled grenades was detected before reaching its intended destination, the arms shipment was anything but a rare occurrence. Worse, the shadowy world of shell companies, nominee directors and multi-jurisdictional layering of corporate entities, which are at the heart of this affair, was left completely intact. Fortunately, the G20 nations can play a hugely positive role in ameliorating this growing problem.

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By Raymond Baker & Eva Joly

New York Review of Books

December 3, 2009

On May 4, the Obama administration announced a plan to crack down on offshore tax havens, which it said are costing the United States tens of billions of dollars each year. The President’s proposals were primarily aimed at finding ways to increase revenue from wealthy companies and investors who use loopholes in the law and offshore subsidiaries to reduce their US taxes. But the administration is largely missing a far more devastating problem related to offshore finance: money gained from criminal and other illicit sources. With the use of tax havens and other elements of an increasingly complex “shadow” financial network, vast sums of illegal money are being shifted throughout the global economy virtually undetected.

Illicit money is usually generated by one of three kinds of activities: bribery and theft; organized crime; and corporate dealings such as tax evasion and false commercial transactions. Because they are largely invisible, flows of illicit money across borders are difficult to measure. The World Bank estimates that they range from $1 trillion to $1.6 trillion annually, of which about half—$500 billion to $800 billion—comes out of developing countries ranging from Equatorial Guinea to Kazakhstan to Peru.

What Can Be Done about This Major Source of Poverty?

By Krishen Mehta, GFI Advisor

Japan Spotlight Magazine

November / December 2009

What are some examples of major global issues that are still unresolved today? One can say that they are the environment and the effect of climate change, the arms race and resultant proliferation of nuclear weapons, the pressure on the earth’s resources in terms of food and water, and the challenges that societies face with respect to education and healthcare.

But there is one very important issue the public is not generally aware of. It has the effect of increasing poverty in developing countries, and making it more difficult for them to invest in infrastructure, healthcare, education, and other priorities. And that is the outflow of capital from developing countries through corruption, business mispricing, money laundering, and other means.

Por Raymond Baker y Monique Perry Danziger
Economía Exterior Nº49, Verano 2009
Estudios de Politica Exterior

Estados Unidos afronta una grave crisis económica interna y un entorno mundial cambiante para la banca y las prácticas comerciales. La manera en que la nación aborde estos dos cambios influirá en la forma en que se manejen las finanzas y los negocios en el país y en el extranjero en años venideros.

Indian Express
April 30, 2009

By Dev Kar

Economists use two basic models to estimate illicit financial flows (IFFs), also known as illegal capital flight. According to the first method, if the source of funds (borrowing abroad and foreign direct investment) is higher than recorded use, the excess must have leaked out as unrecorded transactions and are therefore illicit by definition. The second method tracks the over-invoicing of imports and under-invoicing of exports by domestic residents in order to capture their illicit holdings of foreign currency abroad. The Global Financial Integrity (GFI) study estimated that black money to the tune of $22.7-$27.3 billion left India annually during 2002-2006.

That issue, of black money leaving India, and the total stock of slush funds held abroad by Indians, has become a hot-button political issue. Unfortunately, in the political fray a number of commentators have misinterpreted the GFI report and have confused the issues.