World Bank: $40bn stolen from Nigeria,

The World Bank has revealed that about $40 billion is stolen annually from Nigeria and other third world countries by their leaders. The bank, through its Stolen Assets Recovery (StAR) initiative, said the staggering amount was about 20 to 40 per cent of annual international development assistance given out to developing countries by donor agencies and financial institutions globaly.

It, however, regretted that of this amount, only about US$5 billion had been recovered till date, noting that countries were still facing enormous challenges in their efforts to recover the looted funds.
In a release at the ongoing Annual General Meeting of the World Bank and the International Monatery Fund (IMF) at Washingtion DC, United States of America, the World Bank specifically mentioned the billions of dollars looted from Nigeria by the late military ruler, Sani Abacha, saying efforts to recover stolen funds had always ran into a hitch.

This, it noted, was because of some noticeable drawbacks such as investigating complex international corruption cases and generating evidences of corrupt acts.

Others are tracking the proceeds of corruption, which it said were often disguised and mingled with legitimate funds; conducting legal proceedings to recover assets in cases where the accused had died, were fugitives or had immunity from prosecution and the issue of navigating through different legal systems across jurisdictions where the theft occured and where the money was laundered