Financial Transparency Coalition

As tremors of distrust resonate throughout Russia due to widely-believed allegations of fraud in Sunday’s Parliamentary elections, new research reveals that US$152 billion in illicit money has left the country in the ten years (2001-2010) following Vladimir Putin’s rise to power. The report, Illicit Financial Flows from Developing Countries 2001-2010, was published in December by Global Financial Integrity (GFI). To make matters worse, The Wall Street Journal reports that Finance Minister Anton Siluanov has predicted net capital flight upwards of US$85 billion for this year, further adding to the illicit component of GFI’s estimates.

Since the 1999 Duma election, which was widely considered free and fair, Russia has descended from a “Partly Free” society, according to Freedom House’s Freedom in the World Rankings, to “Not Free” this year. In the last six years, Russia has passed a law giving bureaucrats discretion to shut down NGOs; an assassin murdered Anna Politkovskaya, an investigative journalist who was critical of the Kremlin, in cold blood; and the government heavily manipulated the parliamentary elections to give a majority to pro-government parties. Corruption has been an endemic part of Russia’s public and private sectors for decades. Global Financial Integrity...

In this Prezi, the final installment of a three-part series, I put illicit financial flows into context around the world.

Following traces of money flowing through the criminal underworld has long been an important strategy for law enforcement. German investigators were trying to do just that, following US$150 million in corrupt money back from Germany to a number of Russian officials. However, the investigators were forced to give up their search after the trail brought them to an anonymous corporation, and uncooperative Russian officials.