The City of London is one of the biggest tax havens in the world – it is the biggest money laundering centre in the world".
To earn income, Nauru briefly became a tax haven and illegal money laundering centre.
Maria Fekter, the Austrian finance minister, spoke for many continental leaders when she attacked the UK for wanting an end to her country's bank secrecy laws while it maintained "many money-laundering centres and tax havens in its immediate legal remit".
Peru is now the world's biggest source of cocaine and supplier of counterfeit money, and a rising money-laundering centre.
In any case, if Russians buying property are factors in what determines a money-laundering centre then maybe you should focus your attention on London.
Russia, the Philippines and the tiny Pacific island of Nauru were warned yesterday they may be penalised if they do not take urgent steps to prevent their banking systems from being used as money-laundering centres for organised crime.
Closer in atmosphere to Asian trading cities such as Hong Kong (due, no doubt, to similar bank secrecy laws and the consequent drug dollar), Panama City's urban sprawl of shimmering skyscrapers is, like all money-laundering centres, a hive of intrigue with its empty dark high-rise luxury apartments for which fictitious occupants pay astronomical rents.
Now that central London has been transmuted into a hollowed-out non-dom tax shelter and money laundering facility, Centre Point is now fulfilling its destiny.
Equally it is right to work against money laundering through Western financial centres.
Proceeds are laundered through world financial centres and used to buy assets in and outside Nigeria, polluting markets and financial institutions overseas, and creating reputational, political and legal hazards," it says.
