Criminals and kleptocrats love to stash their dirty money in real estate. It is typically a safe investment, and often bestows luxury, prestige, and even claims to residency or citizenship (at a cost to ordinary citizens).
But a paucity of publicly available data on real estate ownership means that even our best estimates almost certainly vastly underplay the scale of the problem, because they rely on cases revealed by law enforcement, journalists and civil society investigators.
International standards recommend that professionals involved in real estate transactions are required to help detect and prevent illicit funds entering the economy. However, all too often the anti-money laundering (AML) regulations that cover them contain loopholes, or lack adequate supervision or enforcement.
To find out where the biggest gaps lie and point policymakers toward solutions, the Anti-Corruption Data Collective (ACDC) and Transparency International have developed the Opacity in Real Estate Ownership (OREO) Index to measure how countries around the world perform on: 1) The collection and availability of real estate data; and 2) AML regulation of the real estate sector.
The inaugural edition covers 24 jurisdictions, including leading G20 economies and financial hubs like Hong Kong, Singapore and the UAE.
Graphics courtesy of Transparency International
OREO Index 2025: Overall Scores & Ranking
The first part, or pillar, of the index measures whether data on real estate transactions is complete, available, and open.
England & Wales and France score the highest on the data pillar of the OREO Index. It is no coincidence that these are also the places where academics and civil society have been able to conduct in-depth data analyses, generating insights for policymakers and leads for journalists and authorities to pinpoint homes bought with illicit wealth. For examples, see our 2023 report on property and company ownership in France, and a recently updated working paper by ACDC members examining the impact of public ownership data on offshore property investment in the UK.
OREO Index 2025: Data Pillar
The second pillar measures the extent to which AML regulations cover all professionals working in the real estate sector, how comprehensive due diligence requirements are, whether beneficial owners are identified, and if effective supervision and sanctions are in place.
South Africa, Germany and Indonesia are the top performers here. But as civil society investigators have shown in South Africa, good legislation on paper needs to be matched by proper implementation and enforcement, or illicit funds will continue to flow into real estate.
OREO Index 2025: AML Frameworks Pillar
Download the report for the full analysis, as well as a detailed methodology, assessment and scoring framework.
Opacity in Real Estate Ownership (OREO) Index report, 2025 
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