WASHINGTON: The international community loses hundreds of billions of dollars every year due to trade-based money laundering, says a US report which identifies China, Russia, Mexico and India as the top four sources of illicit financial outflows.

The practice also costs Pakistan more than $10bn a year.

Nigeria has filed criminal charges of corruption against oil multinationals Royal Dutch Shell and Eni over the $1.1 billion sale of one of Africa's richest oil blocks.

Both companies have denied any wrongdoing.

South Korea’s special prosecutor accused Jay Y. Lee and other Samsung Group executives of conspiring to create fake documents to mask millions of dollars in bribes funneled to a confidante of the nation’s president.

Banks globally have paid $321 billion in fines since 2008 for an abundance of regulatory failings from money laundering to market manipulation and terrorist financing, according to data from Boston Consulting Group.

A new report by TRACE International finds that enforcement actions against bribing government officials are rising globally. In its 2016 Global Enforcement Report, the anti-bribery organization observes a doubling in US enforcements last year and non-US actions doubled since 2015.

The main problem facing Colombian citizens today is not security or economic stability but in fact corruption, according to the results of a bimonthly poll released on Wednesday.

30% of those who responded to pollster Gallup cited corruption as the biggest drawback facing the South American country today.

Alexei Navalny, the Russian anti-corruption campaigner and opposition leader, has accused the country’s prime minister of amassing property portfolio worth millions of pounds via questionable deals.   

Dmitry Medvedev, who served as Russian president between 2008 and 2012, uses a network of charities run by close associates to hide his control of assets including mansions, yachts, and even a vineyard, Mr Navalny claimed.

So-called Islamic State (IS) will never be defeated unless the corrupt conditions that help it to thrive are addressed, a new report claims.

Transparency International accuses western governments, including the UK and the US, of ignoring corruption as a major driver towards terrorism, notably in the Middle East.

It calls on them to press far harder for accountability in military budgets.

U.S. corporations that have long resisted bending to the demands of computer hackers who take their networks hostage are increasingly stockpiling bitcoin, the digital currency, so that they can quickly meet ransom demands rather than lose valuable corporate data.

The almost three-year-old conflict in eastern Ukraine has weighed on efforts to remake the former Soviet economy. But when it comes to investments, it’s not been the biggest drag.