China remains awash in dirty money, despite official attempts to bring its money laundering laws and enforcement systems up to international standards.
On October 30, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) issued its first report on the money-laundering of foreign exchange, which said that as of the end of June this year, it had investigated more than 100 cases involving US$57 million, and was working on a further 100 involving US$470 million.
In a speech on August 27 on the first meeting of a joint ministerial conference on money laundering, central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan said that since March last year, his bank had received 3,061 reports of suspicious yuan payments and the SAFE had received 170,500 reports of suspicious foreign currency payments totalling US$9.72 billion.
According to official estimates presented at a conference on the issue in March, at least 200 billion yuan is leaving the country each year through illegal channels, a sum equivalent to 2 per cent of China's annual GDP.
Suspect funds may include the proceeds of bribery, corruption, drug trading, smuggling of people and goods, fraud, tax evasion, cheating on tax rebates and other crimes.
In a report, SAFE said the primary responsibility for tracking illicit money flows lay with the banks.