Financial Transparency Coalition

Last week, Task Force member Global Financial Integrity hosted a panel discussion to discuss Laurence Cockcroft's new book, Global Corruption: Power, Money, and Ethics in the Modern World. Panelists include Cockcroft, GFI and Task Force Director Raymond Baker, Center for Concern President Les Myers, and Fairfax Group CEO Michael Hershman. Cockcroft is a prominent development economist, and a founding member of Transparency International-UK.

WASHINGTON, DC – The Russian economy hemorrhaged US$211.5 billion in illicit financial outflows from 1994—the earliest year for which data is available following the dissolution of the Soviet Union—through 2011, according to a new report released Wednesday by Global Financial Integrity (GFI), a Washington, DC-based research and advocacy organization. The study, titled “Russia: Illicit Financial Flows and the Role of the Underground Economy,” also measures massive illicit inflows to the Russian economy of $552.9 billion over the 18-year time-span, raising serious questions about the economic and political stability of the nation currently chairing the G20.

Exactly a year ago, in the clinical hall which once housed an infamous women’s prison, South Africa’s Corruption Watch was born. The imposing space was packed to capacity with political heavyweights, anti-apartheid luminaries, journalists and human rights activists who had come to welcome the launch of the first civil society watchdog of its kind in the country.

Task Force member Global Financial Integrity will be holding a panel discussion about the new book, Global Corruption: Money, Power and Ethics in the Modern World, by Transparency International's Laurence Cockcroft. All are invited to attend. If you are outside the Washington, DC area, the event will be filmed and posted online shortly afterwards.