Odd Lots · Monday, September 7, 2026
Oliver Bullough, author of "Everybody Loves Our Dollars," estimates that between 2% and 5% of global GDP, approximately $2 to $5 trillion annually, is laundered worldwide. This figure, largely unchanged since the 1990s, suggests that anti-money laundering efforts have failed to curb the growth of the criminal economy relative to the global economy.
“But the most widely used estimate is that We're talking about between 2% and 5% of global GDP. And since global GDP is approximately $ 100 trillion, that means between $ 2 and $ 5 trillion being laundered globally.”
“And the fact that their share of the global economy just grows alongside the global economy is proof of that.”