How the West built a financial empire on hypocrisy

FROM Paris, a city of revolutionary ideals, now emanates a different kind of doctrine, one of financial control.

- SHABODIEN ROOMANAY

THE FATF's financial regulations serve as a smokescreen for Western hypocrisy, impacting developing nations while allowing illicit financial flows to thrive, writes Shabodien Roomamay. | IOL Ron Al

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) sets the global rules for combating money laundering and terrorist financing. Countries are graded on their compliance, facing serious economic ostracism if they fail.Not unlike west leaning "ratings agencies". Yet this entire system is a masterpiece of subterfuge, a smokescreen of regulations designed not to stop illicit finance, but to control its flow. The brutal truth is this: the primary architects of this system are also its greatest violators.

The United States and United Kingdom, with their intelligence agencies and satellite tax havens, have constructed the world's most sophisticated laundromat for dirty money, all while bullying developing nations to "clean house".

The mechanism is elegant in its corruption. The FATF's 40 Recommendations demand transparency, criminalisation of illicit flows and international cooperation. Developing nations, from Pakistan to Nigeria, are subjected to relentless scrutiny.

When they are placed on the FATF "grey list" capital flees, loans (from guess who?) become prohibitively expensive and their economies are strangled. They are forced to spend millions enacting complex laws to trace every small transaction.

And then, the coffers of developing nations are emptied when huge interest bills become due that ensures continued allegiance to the hegemonic "benefactors" - which, by the way, may include the World Bank and IMF.