Rs 18,86,000 crore laundered out of India in 10 years

The menace of corruption in the country is pegged at Rs 15,55,000 crore (Rs 15,550 billion) in the last decade and a lot more than that has been laundered out of India using illicit gateways, a recent study has claimed.

According to a first of its kind report on 'Ascertaining size of corruption in India with respect to money laundering', an individual spent over Rs 2,000 as a cost of corruption in 2009, which is 260 per cent higher than the amount borne by a citizen ten years back.

"In the past decade, money laundered out of India was at least Rs 18,86,000 crore or $419 billion. This quantification of the laundering is worked out on the most pessimistic manner and by considering the global parameters," it said.

"If the gross domestic product-based money laundering model is translated to quantify the corruption, then the size of corruption in the last decade is Rs 15,55,000 crore or $345 billion in India," the report said.

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The study was conducted by a Pune-based company Indiaforensic, which has pioneered in fraud examination, security, risk management and forensic accounting research and has been for long helping the country's investigating agencies, like the Central Bureau of Investigation, in several high profile cases.

It is based on the analysis of scarce data available for measuring money laundering described through three models -- property recovery, crime based and GDP based.

"The three models gave details of quantum of money laundering. They are based on the statistics by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB)," said Mayur Joshi, an anti-fraud and money laundering expert and founder member of the firm which had assisted CBI in the multi-crore Satyam scam.

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According to property recovery based model developed on the data by NCRB, the total amount of recovery from the crime proceeds is Rs 190 crore (Rs 1.90 billion). In total 70,773 cases were investigated between 2000 and 2009.

Whereas, the total loss to the Indian economy due to the various crimes including commercial fraud, smuggling, drug trafficking, bank frauds, tax evasion and corruption was pegged at Rs 22,528 crore (Rs 225.28 billion), the study said, citing its second model to ascertain the size of corruption.

The study, based on GDP model, estimated at Rs 18,86,000 crore to be the quantum of money laundering using corrupt ways, citing international standards.

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"According to studies conducted by International Monetary Fund, it was estimated that the quantum of money laundered is approximately 2 to 5 per cent of GDP of the world," the report said.

Considering that 5 per cent of the amount equivalent to the size of GDP is laundered, "it is possible to conclude that the size of money laundered is Rs 18,86,000 crore and the corruption in India could be more than Rs 15,55,000 crore."

And as "the total population of India has grown up from 1.016 billion to 1.155 billion in the last decade, corruption has grown up from Rs 836 per person per year to Rs 2,218 per person per year," it said.

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The assumptions were made taking into account the GDP receipts between 2000 and 2009, the study said.

"Other than cooperation from different investigating and enforcement agencies, the Securities and Exchange Board of India, which is the stock market regulator, can play a significant role in preventing the corruption in India," Joshi said.

"Call centre like structure to receive the corruption complaints from the citizens as well as the government employees will be an added advantage," he said.