All-cash home purchases (via shell companies) greater than $1.5 million in Brooklyn will get scrutiny

Interesting. In U.S. to Expand Tracking of Home Purchases by Shell Companies, the New York Times's Louise Story (who wrote the series that stimulated such tracking) reports:

More than a quarter of the all-cash luxury home purchases made using shell companies in Manhattan and Miami were flagged as suspicious in a new effort to unearth money laundering in real estate, the Treasury Department said Wednesday. As a result, officials said they would expand the program to other areas across the country.
The expansion of the effort to identify and track the people behind shell companies, begun in March, means that there will now be increased scrutiny of luxury real estate purchases made in cash in all five boroughs of New York City, counties north of Miami, Los Angeles County, San Diego County, the three counties around San Francisco and the county that includes San Antonio.

...The areas being added to the order are places where buyers frequently purchase luxury real estate using shell companies, the officials said. The dollar values involved purchases of more than $500,000 or more in Bexar County, which includes San Antonio; $1 million in Florida; $2 million in California; $3 million in Manhattan; and $1.5 million in the other boroughs of New York City. Title insurance companies, which are involved in virtually all real estate transactions, are charged with carrying out the order.

A good number of condos in the 550 Vanderbilt building are selling for more than $1.5 million, so that means scrutiny for any all-cash purchases there via shell companies. Below, from StreetEasy: