An economist has told drug enforcement agencies at a conference in Mexico City that targeting money-laundering as a way of cracking down on drug trafficking is a waste of resources.
Professor Peter Royte from the University of Maryland said the international drugs trade was much smaller than previously thought, with only about twenty-five-billion dollars flowing across international borders and needing laundering.
Resources should be shifted from stopping the suppliers to reducing the demand.
The United States currently spends about thirty-five billion dollars a year on controlling the drugs problem - but most of this is directed towards choking off the supply.
From the newsroom of the BBC World Service
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