Berg Quoted on Treasury Department’s Money Laundering Efforts

Special Counsel Eric Berg was quoted in a New York Times article, “U.S. Will Expand Tracking of Luxury Home Purchases by Shell Companies,” on July 28, 2016. The article discussed the Treasury Department’s expanded efforts to identify and track money laundering by placing increased scrutiny of luxury real estate purchases made in cash in New York City, counties north of Miami, Los Angeles County, San Diego County, the three counties around San Francisco and the county that includes San Antonio.

Berg, who formerly worked in the kleptocracy unit at the Department of Justice, said the broadening of the rule signifies that the Treasury Department thinks the benefits to law enforcement from this sort of data collection are likely worth the cost to the industry. He said, “There’s a lot of pushback from the industry. Clearly some sort of internal dialogue came to the conclusion that this is worth doing.”