Crime generates $2.1 trillion a year globally: UN

Criminal activity worldwide generates proceeds in the trillions of dollars each year, making crime one of the world's "top 20 economies", a senior United Nations official said on Monday.

With the scope of global crime, particularly organised crime, threatening emerging economies and fomenting international instability, Yury Fedotov, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), called for concerted world action to combat the trend.

"We need to recognise that the problem requires a global solution," Fedotov told reporters on the sidelines of an international conference in Vienna that focused on preventing the exploitation of illegal migrants and other crimes linked to human trafficking. "No country can handle this problem alone."

Fedotov said "criminal business" earns those behind it $2.1 trillion a year, which, he said, is equivalent to nearly 7 per cent of the size of the global economy.

He also said the UN wants corporate aid to fight corruption; and is in talks with a ''handful'' of companies willing to donate $2 million each to fund anti-corruption programmes.

Fedotov said he hatched the idea in Davos, Switzerland, during the World Economic Forum.