The gatekeepers of dirty money - Transparency International

08/05/2026: The gatekeepers of dirty money

Dirty money rarely travels alone. It needs introductions, property deals, signatures, bank accounts and people willing to look away. Behind almost every corruption scandal sits a quiet, well-dressed industry: the enablers. They can help stolen wealth disappear from public view and reappear as a luxury apartment, an art piece or an offshore company with no obvious owner.

Financial enablers – who include bankers, wealth managers, investment advisers and payment providers – are able to give suspicious wealth access to the formal economy. They can move money across borders, invest it and make it appear respectable. Non-financial enablers – who include lawyers, accountants, auditors, notaries, real estate agents, tax advisers and trust and corporate service providers – are often the architects of concealment, creating the structures that make dirty money almost impossible to trace.

The consequences are not abstract: when dirty money is protected, it drives up housing prices, weakens public services, distorts economies and deepens inequality, while ordinary people pay the price through lost public funds and eroded trust in institutions.

Photo: Scott Graham/Unsplash

How the system works 

Our research on illicit financial flows from Africa shows how this works in practice. Across 33 African countries, we identified 87 non-financial professionals who helped politically exposed people – such as politicians, public officials and their close associates – hide, move or invest wealth abroad. The most common services were very ordinary: setting up companies and trusts, administering them, providing nominee directors or shareholders, supplying addresses, advising on structures and facilitating real estate purchases. Used properly, these services are legal. When exploited with ill-intent, they become camouflage for corruption.

That distinction matters. Not every professional involved in a suspicious transaction is a criminal. Some may be negligent. Some may be misused. Some may have followed the rules as they stood. But that is precisely the problem: too often, the rules are weak, supervision is fragmented, and accountability arrives late – if it arrives at all.

The result is a global system where corrupt wealth can move faster than the authorities trying to stop it. Enablers registered in one country may serve clients in another and create companies or trusts in a third. Secrecy jurisdictions, opaque corporate vehicles and anonymous property ownership give dirty money a place to hide. By the time investigators start asking who owns what, the trail may have already gone cold within a maze of companies, trusts, and legal arrangements.

The pattern is not confined to dirty money originating in Africa. In Europe, investigators continue to examine assets linked to former Lebanese central bank governor Riad Salameh, focusing on high-end properties in cities including Paris, Brussels and Munich. The case highlights how offshore companies and professional intermediaries can help politically connected and allegedly suspicious wealth settle in prime real estate.

Recent reports from Hungary offer a fresh reminder of what is at stake. People linked to former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s circle allegedly chartered private jets to move assets abroad after his recent election defeat, with destinations reportedly including the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Australia and Singapore. This is a familiar pattern: when political protection weakens, wealth can be moved quickly – proving the professional infrastructure is ready.

Photo: Benjamin Davies/Unsplash

London: A moment to take action 

Given the cross-border nature of dirty money, progress requires a critical mass of major financial centres to act together – which is why the UK government-hosted Illicit Finance Summit in London this June is an important opportunity for ambitious countries to do just that. The summit will bring together governments, international organisations, civil society and the private sector to secure commitments to strengthen transparency, enforcement and international cooperation against illicit finance, with discussions expected to focus on real estate, gold and crypto-assets.

Property, in particular, is where illicit wealth often hardens into power: it stores value, confers status and can be hidden behind companies and trusts. Transparency International will be there pushing for action to tackle the underlying problem of how professional services enable concealment.

The message is simple. We’re calling for governments to subject all high-risk professionals to anti-money laundering obligations, regardless of which sector they sit in, supervise them independently and effectively, investigate repeat offenders and impose sanctions that bite. Complicit enablers should face prosecution.

Dirty money does not just exploit loopholes. It hires people who know where the loopholes are. It is time that governments stop treating enablers as background characters – and start treating them as part of the main plot.

Recommended Reading

Accelerating action against criminal and corrupt wealth: Recommendations for the London Illicit Finance Summit

Ahead of the UK Illicit Finance Summit in June, Transparency International is calling for tougher action against the enablers and loopholes that allow dirty money to move through global financial systems unchecked. Our recommendations urge governments to crack down on anonymous property ownership, strengthen cross-border cooperation and tighten oversight of the professional services that help conceal corrupt wealth.

Panama Papers: 10 years on, the promises and the failures

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