Statement by the FACT Coalition on Treasury Department Decision to Renew and Expand Geographic Targeting Orders to Identify Buyers in Luxury Real Estate
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a branch of the U.S. Treasury Department, announced Tuesday that it was renewing and expanding its temporary orders seeking to uncover illicit activity in the luxury real estate sector.
The Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency Coalition (FACT Coalition) sent a letter to Sens. Wyden and Rubio thanking them for their support regarding Corporate Transparency Act (S.1717), which aims to combat terrorism and financial crimes by ending the incorporation of anonymous companies in the United States.
Anonymous companies have opened the U.S. real estate market to the corrupt and criminal. Towers of Secrecy, a series in the New York Times, started highlighting the abuse of these companies through opaque real estate deals back in 2015. What they found was shocking: a Malaysian kleptocrat allegedly using US real estate to launder over $1 billion in stolen funds, a developer shielded from accountability while ignoring zoning laws, and people being defrauded from their homes with no hope for recourse.
Partially inspired by the series, last January, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a branch of the U.S. Treasury Department, announced Geographic Targeting Orders (GTOs) aimed at uncovering these secret deals. The GTOs required U.S. title insurance companies to identify the natural persons, or beneficial owners, behind shell companies used to pay “all cash” for luxury real estate in the Miami and New York metropolitan areas for a six-month period. The GTOs were extended and expanded to the Los Angeles, San Antonio, San Diego, and San Francisco areas in July.
Statement by the FACT Coalition on Treasury’s Decision to Renew Geographic Targeting Orders to Identify Buyers in Luxury Real Estate
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a branch of the U.S. Treasury Department, announced that it was renewing its temporary orders seeking to uncover illicit activity in the luxury real estate sector.
The FACT Coalition along with 10 other organizations filed a comment on April 4, 2016 with the Department of the Treasury to finalize the proposed rule issued by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) to impose anti-money laundering and suspicious activity reporting requirements on registered investment advisers. The full letter can be read below or downloaded here.
FACT’s Clark Gascoigne Discusses the U.S. Ranking as the 3rd Biggest Secrecy Jurisdiction in the Latest Financial Secrecy Index
Clark Gascoigne, the Deputy Director of the FACT Coalition, appeared on Mind Your Business with Alyona Minkovski, a weekly business program on HuffPost Live, on Friday, November 13, 2015. He discussed how the United States facilitates all sorts of financial crime with widespread financial opacity.
