Real Estate Transaction Services

• Criminals can purchase properties through shell companies or nominees, concealing the genuine beneficial owners.
• They may perform fictitious sales or repeated title transfers to further obscure property ownership trails.

• Criminals can abuse real estate transaction services to inject illicit proceeds by over- or under-valuing properties in official documentation.
• Repeated property flips among connected parties create multiple transactional layers that obscure original fund sources.
• Use of straw buyers and limited due diligence can further conceal true beneficial owners.

• Facilitate the formal purchase or sale of property linked to construction projects, allowing criminals to integrate illicit proceeds under the guise of legitimate real estate deals.
• Provide an official financial channel through which large capital inflows or outflows appear as normal property transactions, masking their illicit origin.

• Facilitate the purchase or sale of revenue-generating properties, allowing criminals to integrate illicit funds by blending them with legitimate capital during real estate deals.
• Structured financing or layered documentation can obscure beneficial ownership and the true source of funds.

• Facilitate foreign property purchases that integrate illicit funds under the guise of legitimate transactions.
• Limited cross-border due diligence can enable criminals to conceal beneficial ownership and the illicit source of funds.

• Enable property purchases to proceed without mortgage-based due diligence, allowing buyers to pay significant amounts of cash without thorough scrutiny.
• May overlook suspicious patterns of structured cash payments, enabling adversaries to hide illicit funds in real estate deals.

• Criminals channel illicit funds into real estate closings, disguising them as standard payments for property purchases.
• By rapidly reselling (“flipping”) these properties, laundered proceeds appear to come from routine real estate sales rather than criminal activity.

• Illicit actors use business deposit accounts to offset obligations under the guise of legitimate commercial transactions.
• Coordinating multiple deposits and withdrawals between interconnected accounts masks the flow of illicit funds.
• Targeted transaction monitoring and enhanced due diligence at account opening serve as key mitigation steps.

Front companies channel their “business profits” into property purchases, using escrow, title, and settlement providers to convert commingled funds into tangible assets and obscure the criminal origin of purchase money.

• Facilitate the purchase of farmland or corporate premises where criminals can conceal illicit capital by overstating or understating property valuations.
• Provide legal and financial documentation management, enabling false appraisals or misrepresented commercial justifications for acquisitions.
• In agricultural settings, can be leveraged to reclassify land or create sham agribusiness ventures that blend illegal funds with purported farm income.

• Enable farmland acquisition with obscured or manipulated purchase prices, disguising the true amount of illicit funds.
• Facilitate reclassification or under/over-valuation of agricultural land to distort property values, complicating due diligence and masking beneficial ownership.

• Criminals deliberately inflate or undervalue property prices to hide or move illicit funds under the façade of legitimate real estate deals.
• By repeatedly buying and selling the same property at contradictory valuations, they can obfuscate ownership, disguise proceeds, and create a complex paper trail to justify ill-gotten gains.

• Illicit proceeds from contraband cigarette sales are funneled into property purchases and sales, providing a high-value channel to integrate criminal funds.
• Over- or under-valued real estate transactions obscure the origin of capital, concealing the proceeds of cigarette smuggling within legitimate property investments.

• Corrupt officials can funnel bribes or embezzled funds into property purchases, masking their origin through high-value transactions.
• Inflated or undervalued pricing is often used to hide or relocate illicit capital, making it harder for authorities to trace the true source of funds.

• Public officials may use stolen public funds to purchase luxury or high-value properties, disguising illicit origins under legitimate real estate transactions.
• Large-scale acquisitions provide a channel to integrate misappropriated funds into apparently lawful holdings, especially when layered through multiple jurisdictions and intermediaries.

• Criminals can channel illicit funds into real estate purchases that formally qualify for CBI/RBI thresholds, making the funds appear legitimate.
• Property values may be artificially inflated and partially refunded after meeting required investment criteria, concealing the true amount of illicit capital introduced.

• Criminals integrate illicit proceeds disguised as ROSCA or tontine payouts into real estate purchases, making funds appear as legitimate group distributions.
• The lack of formal records in informal micro-finance schemes helps obscure the true source of funds at the point of property acquisition.

• Criminals use real estate auctions to inject illicit funds by bidding through straw buyers or corporate shells at inflated or deflated prices.
• Repeatedly flipping properties in rapid succession layers and obscures the true source of illicit funds, while final sales integrate laundered proceeds under a facade of legitimate property transactions.
• By leveraging professional real estate transaction services that manage funds, documentation, and negotiations, criminals can further conceal beneficial ownership and evade regulatory scrutiny.

• Minimal or lax due diligence at auction-based transactions enables criminals to place large amounts of cash or illicit funds into real estate purchases.
• Straw buyers or shell companies obscure the origin and ownership of these funds during the transaction.
• Repeated flipping of auctioned properties or collusive bidding introduces complex layers, frustrating AML investigations.

• Enables the purchase of properties using layered corporate structures, obscuring sanctioned individuals’ involvement.
• Large, high-value transactions serve as a vehicle to store or ‘clean’ illicit proceeds from sanctioned activities.

• Enable simulated farmland sales or inflated valuations used to demonstrate heightened eligibility for subsidy programs.
• Facilitate paperwork and financial flows that disguise or exaggerate farmland size or improvements to justify larger subsidy amounts.

• Ransom proceeds are injected into property purchases to convert illegal funds into tangible assets.
• Criminals leverage high-value real estate deals to integrate pirate ransoms, complicating financial tracking and obscuring the funds’ illicit origins.