Financial Transparency Coalition

LISBON - Angola, Africa's second-biggest crude oil producer, has denied a report that it lost almost $6 billion in illicit capital flows in 2009.

In Thailand, corruption in customs enforcement is a fact of life.  The Bangkok Post notes that customs officials almost universally demand “tea money,” or bribes, and bonuses to customs officials based on a percentage of a confiscated shipment’s value cause the length of inspections to stretch out interminably.  These specific customs procedures and rules, along with the flawed incentive structures they create, have led to an increase in illicit financial flows (IFFs) from Thailand due to trade mispricing. Illicit financial outflows due to trade mispricing occur when individuals or companies use export under-invoicing and import over-invoicing to transfer funds...

JOHANNESBURG – Almost $6 billion was spirited out of Angola in 2009, according to new data on Wednesday that highlight how much of the war-scarred African nation's oil wealth is stolen by a corrupt elite.

This wasn’t meant to happen in the last decade. Money laundering regulation was meant to have stopped the handling of drug cash in the USA. The Patriot Act was meant to have closed down such things. The FATF 49 recommendations were meant to have been in place. But as the Observer reported yesterday, US bank Wachovia, now part of Wells Fargo, money laundered hundreds of billions for Mexican drug gangs in the USA. And, when the activity was questioned internally from London, the money laundering officer who did so was driven out.