Dubai real estate a hotbed for money laundering: report
Dubai’s real estate market has allegedly become a haven for money laundering, according to a report by the Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS).
With an estimated $2.1 trillion generated in illicit financial revenue in 2009, and up to one-third of that in real estate, according to the U.N., the report identified 44 properties associated with seven U.S. sanctioned individuals and organizations in recent years invested millions of dollars in luxury United Arab Emirates real estate while continuing to engage in illicit activity.
“There’s a lot of things going on behind the scenes in real estate,” C4ADS Director Lt. Col. David Johnson told FOX Business’ Stuart Varney on “Varney & Co.” on Wednesday. “We chose to look at Dubai where we had a useful data set. We were able to look and prove and show with seven different case studies things ranging from nuclear proliferation to narcotics trafficking to Syrian … fuel smuggling.”
Johnson said the unlawful actions pose a terrorism threat to the United States.
“It literally funds the terrorist next door," he said. “It funds all of the bad actors in the world.”
Johnson added the acts are not limited to Dubai and he is putting the onus on U.S. regulators to do something about it.