THE CBI director A P Singh has taken a dig at tax havens yet again and has declared that US$500 billion ($602 billion) has so far been stashed away in the kitties of these tax havens. Indians have been stowing away their loot in these tax havens for years now and authorities have been unable to make any crackdowns so far. Slamming the countries that have been titled as the least corrupt according to the transparency international index, Mr. Singh said that 53 percent of the countries titled as such were actually tax havens that are robustly harboring all the corrupt cash.

Speaking of New Zealand he said that a number of link companies were responsible for the millions of dollars that did the vanishing act during the CWG event and has ordered the CBI to probe into the matter. A New Zealand Justice Ministry paper has stated that while New Zealand has robust domestic laws and law enforcement, low levels of corruption and high levels of international engagement, it is not immune to domestically and trans-nationally generated organised criminal activity. The paper states that the amount of laundered money passing through New Zealand entities was difficult to quantify but could range from $1 billion to $1.5 billion.