Money Laundering Dwarfed by Transfer Pricing of Multinational Companies.

I asked a colleague of mine with expertise in organised crime and money laundering to give me an idea of the current situation.

His comment: 

Now – money laundering – best start with Global Financial Integrity – http://www.gfintegrity.org/.  Follow their links to the Tax Justice Network and others.

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The Retail Value of Transnational Crime

This is a reasonable attempt to estimate the global criminal sources of laundered money, but I believe these numbers are dwarfed by the money shifted around by multi-national companies using transfer pricing techniques (that involve lying about the true nature of their business transactions to avoid paying tax).  Last year, I suggested that in Australia alone this could be $4billion per year, and my figure was treated with scepticism, until the Aust Tax Office announced that they had identified – guess what – transfer pricing to the extent of around $4billion per year!  That means the real figure is much greater, of course!