Indians hold over $500 billion in secret bank accounts overseas: CBI

Corrupt Indians have stashed away more than $500 billion (around Rs24,50,000 crore) illegally in tax havens such as Mauritius, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, British Virgin Islands etc, CBI director A P Singh said today.

Speaking at the inauguration of the first interpol global programme on anti-corruption and asset recovery, the CBI director said Indians have emerged the largest depositors in banks in tax havens such as Mauritius, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, British Virgin islands etc, accounting for almost half of the global flows of illegal cash.
 
"It is estimated that around $500 billion of illegal money belonging to Indians is deposited in tax havens abroad,'' Singh said, adding, ''The largest depositors in Swiss banks are also reported to be Indians."

However, getting details of such illegal transactions is a cumbersome process with investigators having to send judicial requests each time and go through layers of data to find the whereabouts of the deposits, he said.

He said those countries that are said to be the least corrupt are also countries that have the largest amounts of unaccounted foreign money in their banks.

"Fifty-three per cent of the countries said to be least corrupt by the Transparency International Index are offshore tax havens, where most of the corrupt money goes. The tax havens include New Zealand, which is ranked as the least corrupt country, Singapore ranked number five and Switzerland number seven," Singh said.
 
He said tracing illegal capital flows is a complex process while freezing and repatriation of such funds to poor countries of their origin calls for political will on the part of the host countries.

Also, because these rich countries are now "geared to this flow of illegal capitals from the poorer countries," any sudden reversal of such fund flows could also harm these economies.