This story resurfaced in my RSS feeds today, I remember it passing like indigestion through the media in December, it was soon forgotten, momentary discomfort followed by lots of meaning less diarrhea. This seem like the perfect time to resurrect the story and maybe even prosecute some criminals. The politicos and the press are looking for economic scandal, but maybe this one is just too hot to handel.
Read entire articleDrugs and crime chief says $352bn in criminal proceeds was effectively laundered by financial institutions
Rajeev Syal
The Observer, Sunday 13 December 2009
Drugs money worth billions of dollars kept the financial system afloat at the height of the global crisis, the United Nations’ drugs and crime tsar has told the Observer.
Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said he has seen evidence that the proceeds of organised crime were “the only liquid investment capital” available to some banks on the brink of collapse last year. He said that a majority of the $352bn (£216bn) of drugs profits was absorbed into the economic system as a result.
