Chief Justice of India Surya Kant has highlighted the enormous scale of global money laundering and economic crime, saying the amount of money laundered worldwide in a year could be enough to buy a modest laptop for every person on Earth. Speaking at the closing session of the 43rd International Symposium on Economic Crime in Cambridge, Kant used the comparison to underline the huge gap between the scale of illicit financial activity and the ability of governments and legal institutions to recover stolen or illegally acquired wealth.

Kant said that even by generous estimates, less than one per cent of illicit wealth is ultimately recovered. He argued that this disparity shows why the fight against economic crime cannot focus only on identifying and punishing offenders. Instead, legal systems must place greater emphasis on tracing, freezing, confiscating and returning assets obtained through illegal activity. He said the objective should be to ensure that criminals do not retain the financial benefits of their wrongdoing while victims and affected institutions are left without adequate relief.

The CJI described economic crime as ultimately being about “taking the profit out of crime” and referred to two legal principles that reinforce this approach. One states that fraud corrupts everything it touches, while another establishes that no person should become enriched through another person's loss. He also pointed to India's legal framework, including the Prevention of Money Laundering Act and the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, as well as mechanisms for attachment, adjudication and confiscation of proceeds linked to criminal activity.

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Kant stressed that recovering illicit wealth becomes particularly difficult when assets are moved across international borders. He said mutual legal assistance between countries can often prove more useful for recovering assets than extradition proceedings alone. Referring to India's efforts involving fugitive economic offenders such as Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi, he noted the difficulties countries face when pursuing individuals and financial assets across jurisdictions. He argued that illicit wealth can move faster than international agreements can be negotiated and that no country, regardless of the resources available to it, can effectively tackle cross-border economic crime in isolation.

The CJI called for greater international cooperation through mechanisms such as beneficial ownership registries, financial intelligence sharing, unexplained wealth orders and non-conviction-based forfeiture. According to him, the international community already possesses many of the legal and financial tools required to tackle illicit wealth, but their effectiveness is limited when countries fail to use them collectively. He also cautioned that India's own enforcement framework is not beyond scrutiny, stressing the importance of due process, proportionality and the presumption of innocence while referring to Supreme Court interventions concerning arrest procedures and prolonged pre-trial detention.

Kant also drew attention to the growing threat of digital arrest scams, in which fraudsters impersonate police officers, judges or government officials through video calls and pressure victims into transferring money. He said the response to economic crime must combine stronger enforcement with judicial safeguards and international cooperation. Concluding his address, he urged countries to focus not merely on documenting the scale of illicit wealth but on improving their ability to trace, freeze and return criminal proceeds. He said vigilance, cooperation and the rule of law should remain central to narrowing the gap between what legal systems promise and what they ultimately deliver.

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