BBC News Online: Business

Suspect financial centres named

The Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering - which was set up by the G7 group of major industrialised nations - said it had investigated 31 countries, before drawing up the list.

French Finance Minister Laurent Fabius immediately said that France was ready to take sanctions and even to end all financial relations of any type with the 15 countries listed.

Most of the culprits are Caribbean islands - such as the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands - well-known as offshore banking havens.

Other states which the FATF says need to implement stricter controls and checks on international movements of money include Israel, Russia, Liechtenstein and the Philippines.

"Caribbean countries feel there is a second agenda ... to claw back revenues coming to the offshore centres because of their competitiveness," said Calvin Wilson, the region's chief money-laundering regulatory official.

Many Caribbean nations depend on offshore banking for much of their revenue.

The United Nations estimates that $600bn in criminal funds is laundered every year, and about $60bn is estimated to pass through Caribbean offshore centres.