The Smoking Gun of the Drug Wars?

Always “follow the buck” I say. I have long believed that the people who are most shrill in their denunciation of treating addiction as a health problem and of decriminalization have some financial reason to be in favour of the black market in drugs. It is also obvious that with the illegal drug trade running in excess of $300 billion per year, the usual suspects – the bikers and mafia – must be bit players only. Someone else is raking in the bulk of the cash. Mike Ruppert claimed it was the banking system, laundering the drug money through front companies and injecting it into Wall Street. Now those who are on the take, dismiss Mike as a “conspiracy theorist” , but they will have a lot more trouble dismissing the following:

Drugs money worth billions of dollars kept the financial system afloat at the height of the global crisis, the United Nations' drugs and crime tsar has told the Observer.

Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said he has seen evidence that the proceeds of organised crime were "the only liquid investment capital" available to some banks on the brink of collapse last year. He said that a majority of the $352bn (£216bn) of drugs profits was absorbed into the economic system as a result.

This will raise questions about crime's influence on the economic system at times of crisis. It will also prompt further examination of the banking sector as world leaders, including Barack Obama and Gordon Brown, call for new International Monetary Fund regulations. Speaking from his office in Vienna, Costa said evidence that illegal money was being absorbed into the financial system was first drawn to his attention by intelligence agencies and prosecutors around 18 months ago. "In many instances, the money from drugs was the only liquid investment capital. In the second half of 2008, liquidity was the banking system's main problem and hence liquid capital became an important factor," he said.

I Googled this story – not a single US or Can paper seems to have picked it up. Hmm. Wonder why? Don't want to blow your scam?

This story is from the Guardian and brought to my attention by Rusty Idols.