African kleptocrats are finding it tougher to stash cash in the West
African kleptocrats are finding it tougher to stash cash in the West
The days of brazen looting and laundering have passed
Middle East and AfricaOct 10th 2019 edition
NAIROBI
https://amp.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2019/10/10/african-kleptocrats-are-finding-it-tougher-to-stash-cash-in-the-west?__twitter_impression=true
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Light-fingered tyrants are looking back wistfully. In past decades they could stash their illicit wealth in the West. Friendly lawyers, banks and middlemen were on hand to park the loot. Sani Abacha, the military dictator who ran Nigeria in the 1990s, deposited billions of dollars in banks across the rich world, no questions asked. Western governments often seemed equally unfussed. Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, a former president of France, attended soirées in chateaux owned by the late Emperor Jean-Bedel Bokassa of Central Africa. Mr Bokassa would slip his guest diamonds to thank him for France’s support.
Such brazenness is becoming a bit harder to get away with. Anti-corruption campaigners and muckraking journalists have busied themselves trying to uncover stolen assets. Western governments, tired of seeing aid money stolen, have toughened up money-laundering and bribery laws.
On September 29th Swiss authorities auctioned a fleet of sports cars seized from Teodorin Obiang, son and heir apparent to the president of Equatorial Guinea. The $27m raised is to be returned to Mr Obiang’s benighted people. Days earlier San Marino confiscated €19m ($21m) from accounts linked to Denis Sassou Nguesso, the president of Congo-Brazzaville.
Yet so much has been pilfered from Africa that tracking it all is tricky. Chatham House, a British think-tank, estimates that $582bn has been stolen from Nigeria alone since it won independence in 1960. Britain’s International Corruption Unit says its investigations have led to the confiscation of £76m ($117m) in laundered loot since 2006. Another £791m has been frozen worldwide thanks to its work. Yet that barely makes a dent in the £100bn of illicit funds which Steve Goodrich at Transparency International, a watchdog, reckons enters Britain every year. “Seizures are still the exception,” says Jason Sharman, an expert in international corruption at Cambridge University. “Dirty money still gets through most of the time.”
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Imagine if that money stayed invested in africa. Or was not stolen in the first place. Graft is the most dangerous thing to the planet. Big oil has legalized corruption in the USA to say climate change does not exist (or as is said this year 'exists but has nothing to do with carbon being burned...it has always varied'). Graft keeps many parts of the world undemocratic.
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