North Korean dirty money and tax evasion: two rails in the same system

From the Washington Post:

A top U.S. nonprofileration official outlined a plan Monday to penalize North Korea by choking off the international network of companies and banks that largely fund its nuclear weapons program and the lifestyles of its elite."

This follows our recent blog about North Korea and the complicity in these crimes of secrecy jurisidctions such as Luxembourg.

Now, we turn to Raymond Baker's 2005 book Capitalism's Achilles Heel:

“Laundered proceeds of drug trafficking, racketeering, corruption, and terrorism tag along with other forms of dirty money to which the United States and Europe lend a welcoming hand. These are two rails on the same tracks through the international financial system."

U.S.Treasury officials told Baker that in a good year they caught 0.1 percent of the illicit inflows
into the country—a 99.9 percent failure rate. A Swiss central banker told him his country’s record was probably worse: 99.99 percent. To try to tackle terrorists’ financing or the looting of African treasuries without tackling tax evasion by western companies and individuals, is to set yourself up to fail.

As we said in a recent Ukranian blog on a different but related matter. . . go figure.