Migration and money laundering

The main drivers of migration are always diverse and complex. The migration has categories such as economic migrants, “desperation migrants”, “aspiration migrants”, “environmental refugees” and others travel together irregularly including people inspired by adventurism or simple wanderlust, or those yearning for personal freedoms which their own societies are not ready to offer — in other words, a desire to shrug off social, cultural, religious, political or sexual constraints.

The Mixed Migration Monitoring Mechanism Initiative (4Mi), a research organization conducted study between May 2017 and March 2019, along 5 different migration routes out of West and East Africa. In the study, 19% (1,941) of 10,472 respondents cited a lack of social services or poor governance as a main driver. Of those, 74 per cent along all five routes, and close to 90 per cent of the respondents interviewed further specified that corruption in government, politics and police was the major factor.

Bangladesh is one of the worst suffering countries in the world of the phenomenon called brain drain and siphoning of money by the migrant to the Western world. A section of migrants is shifting all their wealth to their new home counties. There is a perception that some unscrupulous businesspersons are siphoning their money through over invoicing of the import. This idea generated from the report of global Financial Indignity Report (GFI) that Bangladesh lost a staggering $7.53 billion on an average between 2008 and 2017 to trade misinvoicing during its foreign commerce with its 135 trading partners. This study used common methodology with same indicator many countries and may not be suitable for country specific conditions.

There is no basic research within the country about money laundering methods followed by citizen of Bangladesh. A recent statement of the foreign minister revealed that bureaucrats are the highest number of buyers of properties in Western countries. His observation is based on the recent discovery of the information that bureaucrats are the major illegal transferee of money from Bangladesh to other countries to buy properties in posh localities in Western cities and obtain migration. An area in Toronto is known as “Begum Para” as has been mentioned in different media outlets. The wives live with their children there and the husbands are staying the country to ‘serve the nation’. Many Bangladeshis are also keeping their money abroad even without any return -- at zero interest -- though the interest rate on deposit is one of highest in the world.

There are many reasons of migration to other countries. Europe competes globally to attract skilled workers, especially in such sectors as science, technology, engineering and healthcare. There is a global race for talent in the highly developed economies of Europe, North America and Australia and in emerging global economies such as the Gulf, Singapore and China, to attract the ‘brightest and best’.

Over the recent decades, the international migration of the highly skilled persons has increased its share in the number of total migrations. For Europe as a whole, the share of highly skilled workers (those with graduate qualifications) increased from 15 per cent in 1991 to more than a quarter through the 2000s.

This global competition also includes international students, the highly qualified workers of the future. The universities in the West are competing with each other to attract the best students from developing counties and finally naturalized them in their own countries. Apart from migration of talents, many unskilled workers are going for migration to work in those countries to build their future outside their native countries.

There are some other legal and illegal methods of migration. They illegally go or enter with valid visa but remain to stay there and take opportunity of various migration programmes to obtain citizenship. These primary migrants are ventured by males and that, at some point, he can decide – or be permitted by the host state – to ‘bring over’ his wife and dependent children. These talents or unskilled workers obtain citizenship and take their other family members to their new home countries.

Western world also has immigration programmes under skilled and business categories. Skilled persons are selected based on education, work experience, etc. The business migration is another programme to attract overseas investment mostly from developing countries. The second home programme of Malaysia and some other countries offer citizenship or resident permit offered in lieu of immigration fees and investment in real estate and business.

There are other push factors of immigration. Black money holders do not feel safe to keep money in their own country as there will be questions when the money is invested, be it in property or business. Bangladesh is one of the corrupt countries in the world and citizens of all professions laundered their black money to other countries for whitening and keep in a safe place. The Western world is safe place to hide black money without any fear of punishment. Those countries are concerned about money laundering by their citizens but welcome illegal money of other countries to invest in their countries.

The recent trend of migration from Bangladesh to Western countries starts with the sending children to schools and universities. They get the education, obtain citizenship and buy properties, even invest in the properties during their study period in the educational institutions. Such properties are bought mostly with ill-gotten money, which is being siphoned off by their parents from Bangladesh through unauthorised financial channels such as hundi to countries that openly offer fast immigration opportunities through investment. There indeed is a remarkable story of money laundering of their parents in collaboration of these children. Their parents join them after retirement from their profession.

There is hardly any research on such migration and money laundering of citizens of Bangladesh. A study on the link between corruption and the causes of migration and forced displacement shows how corruption impairs various components of human security, which in turn, drives outward migration. 4Mi findings are reaffirmed by many literatures on the relationship between corruption and migration, which concludes that increased corruption correlates directly with an increase in the levels of migration from a country. Other researchers have identified that corruption increases emigration among workers at all education levels, and that countries where corruption is perceived to be widespread are largely countries of immigration.

The 4Mi finding is that corruption is an important migration driver for African refugees and migrants is not surprising considering that Sub-Saharan Africa is the lowest scoring region in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, an annual ranking of countries by their perceived levels of public sector corruption. Furthermore, corruption has also been linked to violent conflicts, which is a major cause of migration. Corruption creates tensions between groups and black holders don’t feel safe in own country. Therefore, corruption and other governance failures are push factors for human migration.

The migration and laundering of illegally earned money are correlated. Migration and purchase of properties in other countries are very much linked to corruption and laundering of illegally earned money to other countries. The authorities should look into migration and corruption with due diligence.

The writer is a Legal Economist. He can be contacted at mssiddiqui2035@gmail.com