THE LARGEST COLLECTION OF LEGAL JOBS ON EARTH
LawCrossing Legal Daily News Feature
Crime Pays: Crime Generates 3.6% of the World’s GDP While few citizens would support the adolescent remark on the internet, “When I grow up, I want to be a criminal: The pay and perks are good!” the figures tabled by the UNODC and the World Bank on Monday are eye-openers. Based on the data for 2009, the UNODC and the World Bank calculated for the first time, how much does crime pay across the world.
04/24/12
A senior U.S. official, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Brian Nichols, told the meeting at Vienna
The results found are stunning. As Yury Fedotov, head
that “Today, most criminal organizations bear no
of the UNODC puts it, “It makes the criminal business
resemblance to the hierarchical organized crime family
one of the largest economies in the world, one of the
groups of the past.” Nichols added that criminal groups
top 20 economies.”
exhibit “impressive adaptability” to accommodate law enforcement actions and find ways to exploit new
If the criminals of the world were put into a separate
opportunities.
country, it would be within the top 20 economies of the world based solely on their current activities. And
According to Nichols, today’s criminal organizations
if you bring out from behind the bars the multitude of
“consist of loose and informal networks that often
geniuses locked away from practicing their art, they’ll
converge when it is convenient and engage in a diverse
be sure to lead the world, as they do even now in most
array of criminal activities.”
regions of the earth. Terrorist groups often turn to crime to fund their That in many places, only criminals lead the society and
operations and “There are even instances where
corridors of power is proved by the figure of an annual
terrorists are evolving into criminal entrepreneurs in
loss of $40 billion through corruption in developing
their own right.”
countries, and an illicit income of $32 billion in human trafficking every year. This is on what is ‘reported.’ The
The figures do not take into account the immense
figures might be quite different if what is not reported
amounts fined or recovered from legal companies found
or found is taken into account.
committing offenses, nor do they take into account the billions that passed hands in mortgage fraud committed
According to Fedotov, right now on this 21st century
by large banks and companies bailed by government.
world, at any given moment, at least “2.4 million people suffer the misery of human trafficking, a shameful crime of modern day slavery.”
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