International Money Laundering Through Real Estate and Agribusiness

Properties like real estate and agribusiness have been discovered by criminals as an effective and clandestine way to launder money nationally and internationally. Ownership of properties is obscured through shell companies, fake documentation, and variations on family names listed on deeds. Legal mechanisms available to hold property without disclosing the actual owner’s name make tracing money difficult. Wealthy people, including foreigners, are buying property in the United States at a brisk pace with few questions asked, even as border security is tightened against poor immigrants trying to cross into the country. Figuring out whose money is behind these properties and shell companies proves difficult. According to Peter Alldridge, mass media depicts money laundering as bad, interesting, and daring, but never explains exactly what it is, why it is done, or why it is so damaging.1 This book explores the novel and known ways money is being laundered in the world. The book reveals how new financial techniques used by criminals are going ignored and undetected. Indeed, money laundering is an international crime challenging the very sovereignty of nations. The core discussion of this book is money laundering involving real estate and agribusiness. The Panama Papers revealed that these sectors are replete with legal loopholes that easily permit the laundering of millions of dollars. Properties constitute an attractive line of business for the practice of money laundering given the large monetary transactions involved and the general confidentiality surrounding property transactions. The real estate and agribusiness sectors are susceptible to use by money launderers, who also use nonprofit organizations, foundations, remittance companies, offshore accounts, and clandestine wire transfers to launder ill-gotten gains