Money laundering is fundamentally an illicit activity, conducted by criminals, which by its very nature operates outside the scope of standard financial and economic data collection. Like other aspects of the hidden economy, it’s challenging to measure precisely, but estimations help to grasp the scale of this issue.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) undertook a detailed study to assess the volume of illegal money generated from drug trafficking and organized crime, and to determine how much of this is laundered. Their findings indicated that in 2009, criminal proceeds reached 3.6% of the global GDP, with 2.7% – approximately USD 1.6 trillion – being laundered.
This figure aligns with a widely recognized estimate from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In 1998, the IMF suggested that global money laundering could range between two and five percent of the world’s total gross domestic product. Based on 1998 economic figures, these percentages translated to an estimated USD 590 billion to USD 1.5 trillion being laundered. To put this into perspective, the lower end of this range was comparable to the entire economic output of Spain at that time.
It’s crucial to interpret these figures cautiously. They are intended to provide an idea of the magnitude of money laundering. Due to the clandestine nature of these transactions, obtaining precise statistics is impossible, making it unfeasible to produce a definitive annual global money laundering amount. Consequently, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global standard setter for combating money laundering and terrorist financing, refrains from publishing specific figures on this matter.
