How much money floats around the world of warcraft business?

I would like a figure on how large of a business there is in the selling and trading of world of warcraft gold and other things obtained in the game. How much money is there in total, so basically how big is the industry, and a number figure would be much appreciated.

It is tough to gauge the amount of business revolving around World of Warcraft because it is punished so severely that it is tough to get an impartial estimate (The gold-sellers can CLAIM to do so much business but there is no way to confirm).

According to Blizzard, they removed 12 million gold from the economy due to cheating practices in the month of November. Using the earlier estimate of $15 for 100 gold, that makes $1.8 million dollars removed in a single month. That is not counting the loss of gear and valuables that were lost when the 105,000 accounts were cancelled.

And that is only what was caught, there is no way of knowing how many are getting away with it.