The key point is still not getting through to banks that accept dirty money, and governments that let them get away with it. If banks didn’t take the cash, it wouldn’t be possible for corruption to occur on such a massive scale.

You can’t keep looted billions under the bed, they don’t fit – and what would be the point, anyway? The whole point of looting your state is to blow the dosh on fast cars, yachts and ghastly interior décor, then line up some foreign bolt-holes for when your populace gets so irate at your theft that you get pushed out of power.

On a related note, the US Department of Justice has just announced that it is seeking to recover almost half a billion dollars of assets that it alleges is linked to Sani Abacha, the late Nigerian dictator and kleptocrat-in-chief. The US authorities have said that major banks including HSBC, Deutsche Bank and Standard Bank all held Abacha-linked accounts, in Jersey, France and the UK. It just goes on and on.

Global Witness’ investigations have repeatedly shown how easy it is for corrupt politicians to access the financial system. The problem is that it is all too easy for banks to turn a blind eye and accept suspect funds. They face very little challenge from the regulators. At the very worst they might get a slap on the wrist and a fine.

We think this needs to change. That’s why we’re fighting for legislation to hold senior bankers to account when their bank takes dirty money. We’ve made some real progress in the UK. In the EU the European Parliament is about tosupport legislation that would require a member of a bank’s management board to be responsible for ensuring that the bank carries out proper checks on their customers and reports any suspicious activity. European governments now need to endorse this as well.

Only once banks start turning down the looted billions that currently slosh through the financial system will we have a chance of tackling the grand corruption that keep poor citizens poor.

Anthea Lawson is Deputy Campaigns Director at Global Witness. Click here for more on our work on corruption.