The UK has long been a haven for hot money. Our laws, which allow anonymity of the true ownership, encourage shady entities to buy properties here.
It seems from ICIJ investigations, though, that the United States also enables money to be laundered through real estate.
A new report by Global Financial Integrity digs into the scale of the problem, and examines why so many alleged criminals have found a home for their dirty money in the United States — literally.
One example detailed in the report is that of now-sanctioned Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, whose Midwest real estate empire was the subject of a FinCEN Files investigation on dirty money flows.
Our reporting showed how Kolomoisky and his associates, accused of orchestrating one of the biggest bank heists in history, funneled hundreds of millions of dollars into a U.S. real estate buying spree — spelling ruin for local workers and residents.
The saga embodies many of the patterns that GFI found in their analysis of more than 100 real estate money laundering cases: a politically exposed person who secretly owns commercial property far from a well-known U.S. real estate hub.
“Everyone’s discovering how easy it is to use and abuse the real estate sector,” Lakshmi Kumar, an author of the report, told ICIJ, noting gaps in U.S. real estate regulation and anti-money laundering oversight that have helped make the country the biggest hotspot in GFI’s study. “If you’re a criminal, why would you not choose a method that allows you to flaunt your wealth openly, but also hide its illicit nature?”
No comments:
Post a Comment