A Torrent of Dirty Dollars

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Yet there is still a deep-seated reluctance to take drastic measures. Briefing reporters after a Paris conclave on money laundering last September, a senior U.S. official declared that global efforts to trace drug money will have to be balanced against the freedom from unnecessary red tape. Too many controls, he declared, could "constipate" the financial exchanges. That is the kind of attitude that has brought the system to its current state, in which drug money freely mingles with the life force of the world economy, like a virus in the bloodstream.