$3.8 TRILLION leaves Russia in the first 9 months of 2010

that's an astounding figure... where the hell is it going and what the hell is it being used for...?

Russian financial institutions reported 120 trillion roubles ($3.8 trillion) of suspicious transactions to the anti-money laundering watchdog in the first nine months of 2010, the Kommersant daily reported on Monday.

Russian businessmen sent hundreds of billions of dollars abroad in the years following the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, though such a high volume of suspicious transactions could fuel fears of increased capital flight and money laundering.

Kommersant cited an unidentified spokesman for the anti-money laundering watchdog as saying banks, insurance companies and financials services companies had made 5.6 million filings about suspect transactions in the first nine months.

The paper said the volume of the suspicious transactions was more than double the 57 trillion rouble figure reported for the same period of last year and is over three times Russia's nominal gross domestic product. Kommersant quoted bankers and analysts as saying the high figure could be due to increased economic activity as Russia emerges from the worst crisis in over a decade, and to better reporting of suspicious transactions.

this is being reported as more or less "incidental" news but it seems to me to be one humongous story...

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