FINANCE
In Part-2 of this 2-Part Series we uncover three more examples of money laundering and ways of how to combat it .
Selling and reselling assets Whether it be in cash or an online transaction , the origin of money can be made to look legitimate through the reselling of goods . Perpetrators often purchase big-ticket items , and then quickly resell those items to make their money look transaction based . Rolexes , Real estate , luxury cars , luxury yachts and expensive jewellery and other such items are popular placements for money laundering .
Another example is setting up a business such as a “ luxury ” carpet shop and then declaring “ goods have been purchased using cash ” meaning that the cash gets disguised as legitimate money from an item sold , where in fact there was no item or the item was of little value but has been sold for a large sum of money .
How to combat it In the example above , it shows why property owners / developers should perform FICA checks on the people they are letting office or shop space to .
The FIC Amendment Act ( FICAA ) stipulates that Accountable Institutions should adopt a riskbased approach when establishing a business relationship and / or conducting a single transaction with a client . Part of this risk-based approach includes developing controls which mitigate and manage the businesses AML risks , and fulfil the FICAA requirements .
63 JULY / AUG 2023 SA Real Estate Investor Magazine