Turnover of organized crime and money laundering: some preliminary empirical findings

After a short literature review, the paper quantifies the turnover of organized crime with the help of a MIMIC estimation procedure for the years 1995 to 2006 for 20 highly developed OECD countries. The volume of turnover from organized crime was US-$ 270 billion in the year 1995 for these 20 OECD countries, rising to $ 614 billion in 2006. The worldwide turnover in organized crime had a value of $ 595 billion in 2001 and rose to $ 790 billion in 2006. These figures are very preliminary but clearly indicate the importance of the turnover of organized crime or the extent of money laundering.