North America’s most unaffordable city cracks down on dirty money

Vancouver’s red hot housing market has prompted authorities to introduce a series of transparency measures aimed at uncovering the owners of homes in Canada’s most expensive real estate market.

One new probe will scrutinize dirty money in the province of British Columbia’s real estate, horse-racing and luxury car sales industries, according to Attorney General David Eby who announced the investigation in late September, Bloomberg reported. Finance Minister Carole James also appointed an expert panel to examine money laundering in the housing sector.

These probes, which are expected to be complete by March, follow a similar review of the province’s casinos.

“There is good reason to believe the bulk of the cash we saw in casinos is a fraction of the cash generated through illicit activities that may be circulating in British Columbia’s economy,” Attorney General David Eby told reporters late last month. “We cannot ignore red flags that came out of the casino reviews of connections between individuals bringing bulk cash to casinos, and our real estate market.”

Similar calls to action have been made south of the border. Earlier this month, two U.S. senators — Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island — sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office, calling for an investigation into the potential vulnerabilities of existing U.S. money-laundering provisions as they pertain to real estate.

Last month, The Real Deal‘s quarterly magazine in South Florida dove into a $1.2 billion Venezuelan money laundering case in which federal authorities are looking to seize 16 high-end properties. [Bloomberg]—Kathryn Brenzel