The UK Independent has the article Alexander Lebedev and Vladislav Inozemtsev: Western financiers welcomed dirty money but now it must be stopped.

Corruption in the “developing” or “peripheral” countries may greatly affect global politics. In addition to its direct influence – through instability, social unrest and civil wars – it affects developed countries indirectly by making them accustomed to their elites’ corrupt behaviour.

About $1 trillion a year flows to the Western banks and financial institutions from the countries identified by the UN as low and medium-developed nations. A large portion of this cash is stolen by public servants and then laundered in the rich countries of the West. The latter want this money: during the 1990s and 2000s, a powerful lobby of financiers, lawyers and politicians was formed with the specific aim of securing it.

Inevitably, this dirty cash will provoke the growth of corrupt practices in the West. So, bribery and fraud exist on two fronts: in the developing and developed nations. Therefore we are convinced that the West should launch the fight against corruption worldwide as soon as possible.
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Options may be many, but one point is clear: corruption today is actively  spreading from the peripheral countries to the developed ones, and infecting sometimes solid and transparent institutions. It’s vital we consider how to prevent this becoming an epidemic.

The rise in the number of billionaires in countries from the USA to Russia, China, India, and in South America is surely a sign of the world-wide spread of corruption.  I suspect that the reining in of the billionaires will be a sign that we are making progress.