Financial Transparency Coalition

Sometimes, it is easy to lose sight of the big picture when talking about illicit financial flows. We either spend time talking and reading about big numbers–the total amount of money flowing out of countries–or individual events, like the horrible things facilitated by HSBC. Today, Task Force and Global Financial Integrity Director Raymond Baker took a step back and discussed the big-picture implications of illicit financial flows, and what they do to a society, in the Huffington Post.

He writes,

For most of my professional life, I owned and operated a number of businesses in Nigeria. My partners and I would find a failing company, buy it out, and rebuild it as an efficient, well-run enterprise that turned a profit. We paid our taxes, refused to participate in bribery or corruption, and created jobs.

I am sad to say that when Nigerians look into the future, they do not see the optimism that I experienced back in the 1960s and ’70s. Their country has been torn apart not just by civil war, but also by the terrible forces of crime, corruption, and tax evasion. After years of seeing the quality of life for so many people in Nigeria decrease, I decided that I was obligated to do something about it. I founded Global Financial integrity, an organization dedicated to curtailing illicit money leaving countries like Nigeria around the world.

Late last month, we released a new report showing that $5.86 trillion left the developing world due to crime, corruption, and tax evasion from 2001-2010, including $859 billion in 2010 alone. These illicit transfers of money away from developing countries are known as illicit financial flows, and they are one of the least talked about challenges that the world needs to overcome in order to fight global poverty.

You can read the rest of the article here.

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