Financial Transparency Coalition

Jim Henry's book The Blood Bankers, published in 2005, is one of the best ever (and probably the best) investigative exposés of the blood and guts of the operations of global private banks (or pirate banks, as some call them) in developing countries. These institutions aggressively fostered and encouraged vast illicit financial flows, making large profits and leading to many countries being saddled with unsupportable debt, while their élites who had gorged on the borrowing salted away their winnings offshore. In Africa, the problem was bad enough, as this study...

In America in the 1920s, during the years of prohibition, bootlegging became a pervasive and widespread problem. Bootlegging, named after the practice of concealing illicit liquor in boot tops, was the illegal traffic in liquor in violation of restrictions on sale and transportation of alcohol. As with drugs, human trafficking, or endangered species, when a government restricts the supply of a good with a demand, a black market emerges. Though there was a generous domestic supply—underground distilleries often made liquor out of corn and of course there was “medical” whiskey prescribed by doctors—many Americans got liquor from...

Eurodad and the Task Force on Financial Integrity and Economic Development invite you to the conference “Fighting illicit flows from developing countries – what next for the EU agenda?” in Brussels on December 7^th and 8^th 2010. In the past few months, G20 leaders have expressed concern about the financial integrity of secrecy jurisdictions and the need to regulate them. In November 2009, they committed to ensuring that developing countries fully benefit from international measures to establish a more transparent and cooperative framework. In June 2010, EU Heads of State...

U.S. and Canadian officials on Wednesday signed an agreement that requires the countries to alert one another when border officers seize more than $10,000.