In the first-ever official count of Indian black money stashed abroad, central bureau of investigation (CBI) chief Amar Pratap Singh on Monday disclosed that the agency estimated nearly US$ 500 billion or nearly Rs 25 lakh crore is parked in tax havens.

Three separate committees appointed by the government are still trying to figure out the menace of the black money illegally siphoned off to foreign countries and hence it could not be ascertain what is basis of the CBI chief's claim.

"Largest depositors in Swiss Banks are also reported to be Indians," he said when identifying Mauritius, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, British Virgin islands, Singapore and New Zealand where their black money is flowing.

The text of CBI director's full speech: attached below

The disclosure came at the opening session of a six-day international meet on corruption and asset recovery, attended by 39 police officers, investigators and prosecutors from various Interpol countries, including China, United Kingdom, Nepal, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Hongkong, Australia, Indonesia, Fiji, Malaysia, Singapore , Philippines and India.

Singh also quoted from a World Bank report on around US $1.5 trillion estimated to be involved in the cross border flow of money from criminal activities and tax evasion, $40 billion of which is bribe paid to government servants in developing countries. He said the fertile breeding ground for corruption is the systems and procedures that are opaque, complicated, centralized and discretionary.

Interpol and CBI are jointly hosting the meet, formally inaugurated by MoS in PMO V Narayanasamy, to enhance the knowledge and skills of investigators and prosecutors in tracking assets of mass corruption, and making effective use of legal assistance in international and trans-border investigations.

Highlighting importance of the meet where the top sleuths from across the world will put their minds together to tackle the menace of the black money, he said such global training programmes enhance the knowledge of investigators in tracking assets created out of corrupt and criminal acts.

"There are many obstacles to asset recovery. Not only is it a specialised legal process filled with delays and uncertainty, but there are also language barriers and a lack of trust when working with other countries," he underlined.

The CBI chief said getting information about such illegal transactions is a time taking process as investigators have to peel each layer by sending judicial requests to the country where such deposits have been made.

He highlighted the complex issue of jurisdiction in asset recovery, exploited by criminals by spreading the crime over multiple countries, taking the advantage of the global financial market, which allows money to travel further and faster than ever before, "while inadequate international cooperation , high costs and differences in legal systems make it difficult to track down the money trail and recover such assets."

Lack of political will in the leading tax haven States to part with information also adds to the challenge to trace the ill-gotten assets, particularly when their economies have become "geared to this flow of illegal capitals from the poorer countries," Singh said

He said criminals are using the territorial issues of investigating agencies to their advantage by spreading their crimes to at least two countries and investing in a third.

"In some of the recent important cases being investigated by the CBI such as 2G, CWG and Madhu Koda, we find that money is taken to Dubai/Singapore/Mauritius from where it goes to Switzerland and other such tax havens," he pointed out.

Their modus operandi is to set up a few shell companies and then make layered transfers from one account to another in a matter of hours as there are no boundaries in banking transactions, he said. "For criminals all it involves is setting up of a few shell companies and then making layered transfers from account to another in a matter of hours as there are no boundaries in banking transactions," he added.

Read the PTI report: Black money: CBI says nearly Rs 25 lakh cr abroad