Hunt for Iraqi assets finds $4bn

Washington, DC - It is the mother of all anti-money laundering cases. An international group of money laundering experts and government agencies are working to trace funds secreted by the Hussain regime outside of Iraq and are attempting to repatriate the funds to Iraq to help in the rebuilding of the country. Mid-March testimony by Juan Zarate, deputy assistant secretary of the Executive Office for Terrorist Financing & Financial Crimes at the US Department of the Treasury in front of a Congressional committee makes for fascinating reading.

Since March 20, 2003, almost $2 billion of Iraqi assets have been newly identified and frozen outside the US and Iraq and approximately three-quarters of a billion dollars have been transferred by other countries to the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI). In total, the United States, foreign countries and the Bank for International Settlements have transferred back to Iraq over $2.5 billion in frozen Iraqi funds.

The US-led team, seeking to recover assets transferred outside the nation, have