By- Staff Reporter | Date- February 14, 2012
Proving almost what everyone knew, the Director of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) A P Singh declared that Indians are the largest depositors in banks abroad with an estimated $500 billion (nearly Rs 245, 00,000,000,000) of illegal money stashed by them in tax havens.
Strangely, his figures were a far less than the previously reported numbers of around close to 1450 billion dollar which is equivalent to around 65,785,630,000,000 Indian Rupees. None was found questioning on how he arrived at 500 Billion dollars coming down from 1450 billion dollars.
Also, the CBI Chief stated with pessimism that getting information about such illegal transactions was a time taking process as investigators had to peel each layer by sending judicial requests to the country where such deposits have been made and that there was a lack of political will in the leading tax haven states to part with the information because they were aware of the extent to which their economies had become geared to this flow of illegal capitals from the poorer countries.
The fact that Indians have the highest amount of money in the world deposited in Swiss Bank Accounts (more than 1450 billion dollar which is equivalent to around 65,785,630,000,000 Indian Rupees) and the acknowledgement by Swiss Bank officials that Indians have more black money hidden in Swiss Banks than rest of the world put together has always been shamefully given a deaf ear by the Government of India. Popular Movements like that of Baba Ramdev to bring back this huge sum of Black Money and to punish the culprits has been crushed smartly by the Rulers. Understandably, most of the people whose money are secretly hidden are either sponsors of the ruling political parties, big bureaucrats or capitalists whose interest the Government has time and again given more importance. And some of them are, in all likelihood, members of the ruling Government themselves. Even Congress Chief Sonia Gandhi is accused of possessing huge secret wealth in Swiss Banks.
