Yellen says US may be 'best place' to hide, launder illicit funds'

While small countries are often perceived as major havens for hiding or laundering money, "enormous amounts of illicit funds" end up in the US financial system, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Thursday. Yellen said the U.S. must fight money-laundering and tax evasion at home if it wants to promote anti-corruption efforts throughout the world.

"There's a good argument that, right now, the best place to hide and launder ill-gotten gains is actually the United States," Yellen said in a speech to the Summit on Democracy.

Let us clean up our act at home seemed to be the message in the text that was released for Yellen's speech which read "The United States cannot be a credible voice for free and fair government abroad if, at the same time, we allow the wealthy to break our laws with impunity.If we want free institutions to thrive the world over, then first, we must model what they look like at home."

The US Treasury has estimated that tax evasion, mostly by high-income households and corporations, cost the government $600 billion in lost revenue last year.