Financial Transparency Coalition

WASHINGTON, DC – The allegations levied yesterday by the New York State Department of Financial Services against British banking giant Standard Chartered demonstrate a systemic, widespread pattern of disregard for anti-money laundering policies at one of the world’s biggest banks, according to Global Financial Integrity, a Washington, DC-based research and advocacy organization.

Recognizing the relationship between anonymous shell corporations and stolen assets, the World Bank released a collection of case studies entitled “The Grand Corruption Cases Database Project” last week. Part of a larger anti-corruption report The Puppet Masters: How the Corrupt Use Legal Structures to Hide Stolen Assets and What to Do About It, the global collection has made 150 beneficial ownership case studies available online. Thus, users can compare instances of shell corporations between countries and see the state of individual cases and appeals.

While Iran claims its nuclear ambitions are benign—Tehran continues to maintain it is perusing nuclear power for "energy purposes"—the rest of the world has remained skeptical. For years, the international community has grown increasingly alarmed by Tehran's growing ambitions. Mostly they watch, sometimes they speak, and occasionally they act with adequate decisiveness. Among OECD countries, the United States has been the most willing to act. In fact, the United States has maintained some kind of sanctions on Iran—with varying degrees of severity—since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. These have, largely, been to no avail. Analysts generally agree that previous...

Today, Global Financial Integrity released our newest report, Illicit Financial Flows from Developing Countries Over the Decade Ending 2009. In the report, we found that despite the global financial crisis and subsequent drop in international trade and foreign direct investment, illicit financial flows still approached US$1 trillion out of the developing world. This represents a decline from the US$1.55 trillion we estimated flowed out of the developing world in 2008, but still represents a horrible tragedy for developing countries.