The Paris-Based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on money laundering has released its report on Australia, which found that Australian residential property is a haven for international money laundering, particularly from China, and has recommended that Australia implement counter-measures to ensure that real estate agents, lawyers and accountants facilitating real estate transactions are captured by the regulatory net [my emphasis]:
Most designated non-financial business and profession sectors are not subject to AML/CTF requirements, and did not demonstrate an adequate understanding of their ML/TF risks or have measures to mitigate them effectively. This includes real estate agents and lawyers, both of which have been identified to be of high ML risk in Australia’s National Threat Assessment…
