Global Financial Integrity estimates India lost US$13.0 billion in potential revenue to trade misinvoicing in 2016 alone. How did we get that estimate? This blog breaks down the findings and methodology of our latest report.
By Daniel Neale, January 9, 2019
A systemic problem persists in banks’ ability and willingness to stop dirty money from flowing through the financial system. But when will it stop, or even diminish?
This year, Global Financial Integrity and Academics Stand Against Poverty will be awarding the fifth annual Amartya Sen Prizes to the two best original essays on assessing the human impact of illicit financial flows out of Africa....
By Channing Mavrellis, CAMS, April 26, 2017
In the illegal wildlife trade, like all transnational crime, the majority of participants are involved for financial gain. Retailers generally face little enforcement risk while realizing strong profits, as the value of a particular commodity, be it a wild African grey parrot or grams of bear bile, increases dramatically as it makes its way from source to market country.
By Channing Mavrellis, CAMS, April 11, 2017
The groups engaged in transnational organized crime—from criminal networks to insurgent groups to terrorist organizations—are united by a common thread: money. All of the crimes covered in Global Financial Integrity’s new report Transnational Crime and the Developing World are overwhelmingly profit-motivated. Globally, transnational crime has an average annual retail value of $1.6 billion to $2.2 billion, based on 11 “industries”: counterfeiting and piracy, drug trafficking, illegal logging, human trafficking, illegal mining, illegal fishing, the illegal wildlife trade, crude oil theft, the trafficking of small arms and light weapons, the illegal organ trade, and the trafficking of cultural property.
By Joseph Spanjers, November 9, 2016
Today, GFI is pleased to announce the launch of GFTrade, a proprietary trade risk assessment application that enables customs officials to determine if goods are priced outside typical ranges for comparable products. A cloud-based system developed over the past year, GFTrade provides officials with real-time price analyses for goods in the port using price ranges for the same product based on global trade information. This information can help to determine if further investigation into potential misinvoicing is warranted, and it has the potential to substantially increase domestic revenue mobilization.
By Raymond Baker, October 21, 2016
Global Financial Integrity is pleased to note growing interest in the estimation of illicit financial flows and their effect on emerging market and developing countries. We are writing to offer a series of thoughts surrounding the reality of this concern and its political significance.
A recent Global Financial Integrity study concluded that measurable illicit financial outflows topped the $1 trillion mark in 2013. The inclusion of illicit financial flows (IFFs) in the Sustainable Development Goals was an affirmation of the detrimental impact these flows have on the development of low income countries. Amongst the most keenly affected are children, who lose out on quality education due to insufficient government funding. I was able to witness just this, when I spent the 2013 academic year at a village school just outside the city of Zomba, Malawi, a country that GFI estimates loses on average US$650 million per year in illicit outflows.