Links Apr 5

Kenya flower industry's taxing question Guardian
Apr 1- A revealing and enlightening film collaboration between The Guardian and Christian Aid, supported by TJN Africa. Christian Aid's Alex Cobham says Kenya may be losing as much as $500m (£312m) a year on its flower exports in flight of capital to northern countries. See also Kenya's flower industry shows budding improvement Guardian Apr 1

How a big US bank laundered billions from Mexico's murderous drug gangs Guardian
Apr 3 - As the violence spread, billions of dollars of cartel cash began to seep into the global financial system. But a special investigation reveals how the increasingly frantic warnings of one London whistleblower were ignored. On the laundering of blood money.

Little progress achieved in G20 fight against tax evasion Eurodad
Apr 5 - From our friends at Eurodad on how the financial crisis in 2008 highlighted the harmful effect of tax havens on the economy of developed and developing countries - and, while it was a key issue at the G20 London Summit in April 2009, that initial drive has gradually lost momentum.

Here, there and everywhere naked capitalism
Apr 5 - On Standard Chartered might go to Hong Kong, HSBC is all of a tizzy, Barclays meanwhile feels the call of New York...

London, the playground of the rich The Times
Apr 5 - The article is behind a paywall, but the message is spreading. On London’s huge influx of foreign wealth - sordid allegations of money-laundering and corruption, tax avoidance and evasionon a massive scale, all taking place under an apparent umbrella of government complacency. According to TransparencyInternational (TI), £15 billion of dirty money is laundered through the UK each year, the vast majority through London.

Dirty little secrets: tax havens in the U.S. and the U.K. Open Society
Event on Apr 14 - The Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency (FACT) coalition and the Open Society Foundations present a discussion with Nicholas Shaxson, of TJN and author of Treasure Islands, and Rebecca Wilkins, an expert on offshore financing and tax evasion with Citizens for Tax Justice. The panelists will discuss how the United States and the UK perpetuate the use of tax havens and its impact on the global economy and developing world.

UK High Court Orders Rogue Banker, Erastus Akingbola, To Surrender £68 Million Loot To Intercontinental Bank Sahara Reporters
Apr 4 - A case that "reflects pervasive greed not only in Nigerian financial institutions, but often in her places of worship, where flamboyant pastors are perennially preaching messages of prosperity" - huge sums of monies paid into various shell companies set up in the Cayman Islands and purchase of expensive properties in the UK and beyond.