Lithium-ion battery production complex to bring 2,000 jobs to Southside Virginia and more headlines
By: Staff Report - November 14, 2024 5:05 am

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The mysterious Virginia mansion allegedly bought with stolen Nigerian money
Authorities say close friends of an alleged kleptocrat bought properties with cash meant to fight Boko Haram, underscoring how the U.S. has become a money-laundering haven.

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By Steve Thompson
November 13, 2024 at 4:00 a.m. EST

The $2.8 million mansion, tucked at the end of a private drive, boasts a climate-controlled wine cellar, sauna and four fireplaces — features not uncommon to this wealthy part of the Washington suburbs. ... But the man who bought the place a couple of years ago did not stick around to enjoy them, neighbors said. He introduced himself, then disappeared, leaving some wondering what was happening behind his nine-foot-tall carved-wood front doors.

The mansions in leafy McLean, Virginia, like mansions everywhere, tend to hold interesting characters with money. Here along a quiet street in a neighborhood called The Ridings, there’s a noted plastic surgeon, a high-powered corporate lawyer and the CEO of a defense consulting firm, among others, property records show. ... But court filings in Nigeria, as well as those from an insurance claim surrounding a jewelry theft from another mansion near Beverly Hills, California, suggest the owner of the McLean residence has a different type of story.

The way Nigerian authorities tell it, their country’s former national security adviser misappropriated more than $2 billion from his own government, routing some of it to a family friend — the man who bought the mansion in McLean. In the United States, according to Nigerian authorities, the man sought to launder the money in part by purchasing homes. ... The allegations against him, experts say, underscore a significant global issue: The U.S. real estate market has become a money-laundering haven for corrupt officials and criminals across the world, a place to hide their cash behind opaque shell companies. ... Next year, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network will begin receiving reports under a new rule requiring title companies and others to collect information about certain real estate sales — particularly transactions where the buyer is a trust or some other legal entity and pays with cash.

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A new rule

In August, the U.S. Treasury Department finalized a new rule as part of a Biden administration effort to deter money laundering by requiring title companies and others involved in real estate closings to report information about cash transactions involving shell companies and other legal entities. ... In recent years, the department has required the reporting of information — including the identities of people who benefit from transactions — in certain geographic areas. Those places include Fairfax County, Virginia, and Los Angeles County, but the rules were not in place in 2014 when shell companies used cash to buy the mansions in Los Angeles and off Old Dominion Drive in McLean. The new rule will extend the requirement nationwide.

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By Steve Thompson
Steve Thompson writes about government and politics in Maryland, D.C. and Virginia. Before joining The Washington Post in 2018, he was an investigative reporter for the Dallas Morning News. He started in journalism as a police reporter at the St. Petersburg Times.follow on X @stevesthompson