Money Laundering in India??!

All day long I have been closely following a discussion in my school group... It is about a report that is supposedly issued by the Swiss Bank about the nationality of its account holders. I will place the major parts of the report as claimed by a user... And then my response to it.... Might be right... Might not be... But I wanted to speak and hear from ppl....

Who Says India is a poor Country?

This is so shocking…….wish black money deposits was an Olympics event….India would have won a gold medal hands down. The second best Russia has 4 times lesser deposit. US is not even there in the counting in top five !! India has more money in swiss banks than all the other countries combined.DISHONEST INDUSTRIALISTS, scandalous politicians and corrupt IAS, IRS, IPS officers have deposited in foreign banks in their illegal personal accounts a sum of about $ 1500 billion, which have been misappropriated by them.

Black money in Swiss banks — Swiss Banking Association report, 2006 details bank deposits in the territory of Switzerland by nationals of following countries:

Top five

India—- $1,456 billion

Russia —$ 470 billion

UK ——-$390 billion

Ukraine - $100 billion

China —–$ 96 billion

Naturally, the secrecy associated with the bank accounts in such places is central to the issue, not their low tax rates as the term 'tax havens' suggests. Remember Bofors and how India could not trace the ultimate beneficiary of those transactions because of the secrecy associated with.

My response to it was this:
Authenticity.. That's a concern when it comes to such numbers... Well, I was shocked reading this post because we, as a country are decently advancing in AML (anti-money laundering) when compared to other countries across the globe (though we aren't the best). I tried running down to the source, the basics of negative entropy!! This is the link to the Swiss Banking Association report 2006 that has reeled out the story... http://www.swissbanking.org/en/d_jb_06-07.pdf. The mention of India is there only in two places in the entire report and here is the text...

It runs, "For some years now the Asian markets have been a key pillar of the international expansion plans of certain Swiss banks. With this in mind it is only logical for the SBA to promote its agenda in these countries as well – specifically China(including Hong Kong) and Singapore. As a result the SBA is helping Swiss banks to enter these markets by lobbying for better framework conditions. At the same time we are making a huge effort to establish a network of contacts in this growth region. In order to achieve these goals we have increased the frequency of our visits to the area and have also welcomed delegations from China to Switzerland. A delegation is provisionally scheduled to make a first visit to India early in 2008 with the aim, amongst other things, of explaining the conditions governing the Swiss banking system."
Does that say something of the laundered money and stuff?!

I know you can still say, "There might be some other report... Possible!" But even without perusing the relevant report, I am not convinced of certain facts put in here.... Let me tell you why.

As I have already mentioned, our AML systems are strong enough to tap such abnormal fund transfers... Well, the systems work only when there is a transfer from an Indian bank to any other bank across the world. What if the money was hand delivered? Smuggled out of India? - Fair enough, I don't hold any more defence.

If ever there was such report, do you think that our media wouldn't have even looked into it? I know they aren't so bothered of the national interest... But TRPs?? They can't do the blunder of missing to have two chat shows with ppl not even linked to finance come and talk about it! My guesses of the celebrities would be Katrina Kaif and John Abraham...

Well, into more serious reasons, the report (as claimed by the author) says the money is deposited by Indian nationals. Does that explicitly avoid Indians working in Europe or elsewhere? My view is that this money need not have essentially gone from India. The categorization has been based on the nation of origin of the account holder. Now, I am not totally defending our law executors and creators. There surely is a huge contribution from them to the whatever trillion was mentioned. But not all is from them... is my take on it.

And now the global view... As rightly mentioned, many European countries are tax havens. They attract foreign funds with unbelievable returns and tax concessions and use them for the development of their countries. Now thats not a fact known just to India.. the whole world knows it. So every damn rich unethical being would want to burrow his resources in there. But how?! "These cops watch every single move of mine!!" That's what they would be saying for their AML systems are very strong. Many countries have free funds flow treaties with India (Thanks to Ma'am Indira who initiated this with good intents!) and India has been liberalising its foreign policy over the past two decades. That makes funds flow to India a lot more easier to the unethical being I told you earlier. And there is some easy Indian prey to transfer the funds to the Swiss bank on his own account! And that feeds the data we read about.

Whatever be it... AML is growing.. So is ML equivalently. Let's not just look at this and enjoy the "24 hour ground zero coverage" of NDTV or Times Now or..... and pity for the results ML is causing to our country. Didn't that strike you?! Who funds terrorists?! Might be one money launderer in India who unknowingly feeds the global terror! You never know how your funds are used after you have deposited in the banks... Keep thinking... Keep staying awake!!!

Regards,
Sri!!

PS: N yeah, I wanted to hear from ppl... Please opine!!