‘How real are the figures on black money abroad?’
A lot of ‘black wealth’ from India flows to Switzerland every year. This is not what LK Advani is saying, but is something Dominique Dreyer, the Swiss Ambassador to India, said at the 60th anniversary of the Indo-Swiss Friendship Treaty last year. The first serious work on the global stock of illicit money was done by Raymond W Baker, a Harvard and Brookings scholar. His book Capitalism’s Achilles Heel — Dirty Money and How to Renew Free Market System (2005) estimates the stock of illicit money at $11.5 trillion, to which one trillion gets added annually. Around $500 billion a year flow to the rich from the rest, according to Baker. Aided by the Ford Foundation, the Baker-headed Global Financial Integrity (the GFI is a programme of the Washington-based Centre for International Policy) has estimated the country-wise flows of illicit money. It puts the outflow from India during 2002-06 at $137.5 billion (Rs 6.88 lakh crore). How much more could the loot since 1947 be? Dev Kar, who was involved in the GFI study, has clarified that the GFI estimates of the loot from India are an understatement.
