I spent the end of my career doing tech work for some large financial services firms. Everyone had to do regular money laundering training. Basically how to spot it and what to do about it if you saw it. All of this was aimed at low level, cash transactions. It was also mentioned that US real estate was the primary vehicle for large scale money laundering worldwide. The basic reason was the ability to hide ownership in real estate.

Of course, all this money sloshing around was good for people in real estate and, truth be told, in the finance sector. And I suppose the economy at large, though I’m not really so sure that any of these ill gotten billions ever really trickled down to middle and lower class Americans in any form.

This law is long overdue. But, if done correctly, this will lead to serious declines in high end and commercial real estate. It will be interesting to see what effect enforcing such anti-money laundering laws will have.

US set to unveil long-awaited crackdown on real estate money laundering