Why the World Is So Bad at Tracking Dirty Money
Global regulations on money laundering are expensive to enforce and unfair to poor countries. They don't work very well, either
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The leaked revelations about the tax-evading activities of the Swiss subsidiary of HSBC Bank rumble on. Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer has faced questions as to why, despite evidence of 1,100 tax-evading accounts being passed to the government in 2010, there has been only one prosecution—and why the chairman of HSBC was subsequently made a government minister.
The scandal is a reminder that the global institutions which try to prevent money laundering are not just ineffective—they're also incredibly expensive to maintain. It's time to cut them down to size.