[chejazi]

Yes, but that's definitely not the main point here. There is a seemingly huge money laundering operation at play.

And either FinCEN is not disclosing so it can get to the point of making charges or it's providing cover for those in power. Probably a combination of both, honestly.

[api]

What I've read and heard is that things like KYC/AML laws made real estate the preferred vehicle for money laundering. This coincides with the first housing bubble quite nicely and also explains why housing reinflated to bubble values after the financial crash.

Politically it's very hard to address this problem because it benefits existing homeowners (especially those who bought long ago) and developers. Those are two extremely powerful constituencies.