France warns of money laundering in vineyard sales to Chinese
France's money laundering investigators have called for "increased vigilance" in sales of vineyards to Chinese buyers, as more of the country's finest wineries are sold to investors from the world's second-largest economy.
The annual report of the anti-money-laundering unit of the French Ministry for the Economy and Finance, Tracfin, released last month has also singled out Russian and Ukrainian buyers.
Some Chinese who bought a few years ago are reselling. The cycle is speeding up, and they are selling to other Chinese
But it noted a "growing presence of investors with ties to China".
Some of these buyers would use "complex judicial arrangements with holding companies located in fiscally privileged countries" to obtain these vineyards, making it difficult to establish the origin and the legality of the funds brought into France.
The report comes as China has raised the issue of money laundering to the "national strategic level" in an attempt to rein in the massive outflow of funds from the country, according to remarks by People's Bank of China's deputy governor Li Dongrong in May.
The Chinese economy lost US$3.79 trillion in illicit financial outflows between 2000 and 2011, the Washington-based research and advocacy group Global Financial Integrity said last year.
Chinese investors currently owned about 50 French vineyards in Bordeaux alone, while Russian owners were dominant in the Cognac region, said Jane Anson, a Bordeaux-based wine correspondent.