Russia’s economy is losing billions of dollars because of corruption at the top.  This, from Russia’s central bank Governor Sergei Ignatiev.

The banker says the Russia lost $49 Billion just during last year, and half of it was in the form of dubious cash transfers that might have been used in narcotics, bribes, and tax evasion.  2.5 percent of Russia’s annual economic output, he says, is controlled by a “well-organised group of individuals” whom he declined to name. 

A spokesman for President Vladimir Putin says Ignatiev is exaggerating the problem.

But the Washington-based watchdog “Global Financial Integrity” said Ignatiev wasn’t aiming high enough, funding that every year $62 Billion flows in and out of Russia’s black markets in bribery, weapons smuggling, human trafficking, and other illicit.