Reported by Steve Thompson

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.

Read full report: https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/11/13/mclean-virginia-mansion-nigeria-boko-haram-money-laundering/