Trump Floated Post-2007 By Secretive, High Money Laundering-Risk Condo Purchases

Records show that more than 1,300 Trump condominiums were bought not by people but by shell companies, and that the purchases were made without a mortgage, avoiding inquiries from lenders.

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Treasury's financial-crimes unit has, in recent years, launched investigations around the country into all-cash shell-company real-estate purchases amid concerns that some such sales may involve money laundering. The agency is considering requiring real-estate professionals to adopt anti-money-laundering programs.

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The surge was driven by the opening of 11 Trump condo buildings between 2008 and 2010 as Trump shifted his real-estate business from developing high-rises to licensing them. Nine were Trump-licensed, and they drew hundreds of shell companies that paid an average of $1.2 million in cash for a condo. In six of the licensed buildings, cash-paying shell companies bought at least a third of the condos, records show.

It's not clear how much Trump received from the sale of Trump-licensed condos, but when Trump announced his candidacy in 2015, he said his "real estate licensing deals" and other brands were worth $3.3 billion.

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Eighty-three percent of the secretive sales occurred in markets that FinCEN is investigating for possible money laundering in real estate sales. In those markets -- Manhattan, South Florida, and Honolulu -- FinCEN is examining every luxury-home sale to a shell company that paid cash.

At least 28 shell companies resold their Trump properties within six months of buying them in cash. The National Association of Realtors says that immediate resales can indicate money laundering, "especially if the resale price is significantly higher or lower than the original purchase price."

At the Trump SoHo Hotel Condominium New York in Manhattan, 77% of the sales were to shell companies that paid cash. One of the project's Russia-born developers was convicted of money laundering in the 1990s. A pending lawsuit calls Trump SoHo a "monument to spectacularly corrupt money-laundering and tax evasion," though it says in a footnote that "there is no evidence that Trump took any part in, or knew of, their racketeering."