Lock the doors, money launderers outside

Crooked real estate agents and breaches of conduct have plagued the real estate industry for decades but now a more sinister shadow lurks in the background: Money launderers. Acting Corporal Jefferson Clarke, an official of the Financial Investigations Unit (FIU) said that since 1997 major banks have been reporting what they term “suspicious transactions.” He said since the enactment of the Proceeds of Crime Act of 2000, there has been a requirement that “relevant business,” including real estate agencies, report suspicious transactions to the “designated authority,” which was appointed only on August 12, 2003.

“In February 2004,” he said, “every relevant business in Trinidad and Tobago was informed about the appointment of the designated authority and about their responsibilities under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2000.” “To date we have not received any reports of suspicious activity from any of these businesses,” he said. President of the Association of Real Estate Agents (AREA), Patricia Lazzari was asked whether money laundering was prevalent in the industry. She said that was a real possibility but was hard to prove. The issue of money laundering through the industry, she explained, was raised three years ago when members of the Association were invited to attend a seminar which focused on money laundering.

Three months ago, the Association received a letter from the Counter Drug Crime Task Force which listed that the real estate industry fell into one of the sections of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2000. She is of the view that those involved in money laundering would hardly turn to large real estate agencies, but rather seek out what she called “the small, one-man shows that are happy to make a $5,000 commission to get the money in their pocket and are not going to ask any questions.” “Over the years we have had a couple of suspicious cha acters asking about expensive properties, but our agents are always wary,” she said. “We have bypassed people like that in the past, but you never know, sometimes the most legitimate sounding persons can be unscrupulous.”