Developers Called Out in Jamaica’s Money Laundering Report

Kingston, Jamaica, 26 June 2026

Jamaica’s real estaestate development sector has been identified as a significant money laundering risk in a national assessment published this month by the Bank of Jamaica, raising questions about how effectively the country monitors financial flows through one of its most active industries.

The Third National Risk Assessment, which reviewed the period from 2021 to 2025, found that real estate development sits entirely outside the obligations imposed on financial institutions and designated non-financial businesses under the Proceeds of Crime Act. Unlike real estate dealers, who are licensed and monitored, developers carry no legal requirement to conduct due diligence on where their clients’ money comes from.

The Scale of the Exposure

The Bank of Jamaica and the Real Estate Board examined 385 development applications filed between 2021 and 2024, with a combined declared value of $299.6 billion, equivalent to roughly 8.6 per cent of 2024 GDP. Within that pool, around 7.8 per cent of project costs came from funding sources classified as high-risk: self-financing, private investors, and mixed arrangements. The most commonly identified pattern was developments declared as entirely self-financed, with labour and materials paid in cash.

The report places the broader context carefully. Jamaica’s overall money laundering risk rating improved from medium-high to medium in the latest assessment, reflecting stronger institutional coordination and greater use of asset-restraint powers. The principal threats remain narcotics trafficking, fraud, and cybercrime. But the report notes that criminal actors are adapting, moving into sectors, like real estate, where oversight is less developed.

What It Means for the Property Market

For Jamaicans buying, renting, or investing in property, this assessment carries practical weight. A development sector that operates outside anti-money laundering frameworks is not simply a regulatory problem. It is a market integrity issue. When dirty money enters real estate, it can distort pricing, crowd out legitimate buyers, and leave those who purchase completed units exposed to assets with opaque ownership histories.

The Real Estate Board is currently seeking legislative amendments to strengthen requirements around beneficial ownership and the disclosure of funding sources. That process, if it advances, would bring developers into a more accountable position. The report itself calls for tighter funding-source disclosures, sustained oversight of legal arrangements in development complexes, and more targeted analysis of outlier transactions.

Jamaica is building at significant pace. The NHT plans to commence construction on more than 10,000 housing solutions in the current financial year. Private development continues across Kingston, St Catherine, and the north coast. That scale of activity, with the sector still operating outside the formal anti-money laundering framework, is a combination the country’s financial regulators have now said cannot continue. The legislative response will determine whether the construction boom that is reshaping Jamaica’s landscape is built on foundations that can withstand scrutiny.