Regulators have recently come under fire for failing to adequately monitor foreign acquisitions of Australian real estate and ensure that they are in full compliance with domestic law. The property sector may already be host to far more nefarious forms of illicit activity, however, given Australia’s continued lax scrutiny of the use of real estate holdings for money-laundering purposes.
Intergovernmental anti-money laundering (AML) body the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has just released a scathing assessment of Australia’s law enforcement and regulatory arrangements for addressing the problem of illicit, cross-border cash flows.