Stacy Summary:   Drug money always provides much of the ‘liquidity,’ but it sounds like they are trying to make the case against over-regulating the money laundering business . . .

• Drug money saved banks during financial crisis
  

Drugs money worth billions of dollars kept the financial system afloat at the height of the global crisis, the United Nations‘ drugs and crime tsar has told the Observer.

Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said he has seen evidence that the proceeds of organised crime were “the only liquid investment capital” available to some banks on the brink of collapse last year. He said that a majority of the $352bn (£216bn) of drugs profits was absorbed into the economic system as a result.