When Nicole Johnson, wife of suspected 28s gang boss Ralph Stanfield, purchased a R5 million Sea Point apartment in 2024 while incarcerated at Pollsmoor Prison, it wasn’t the audacity of the transaction that shocked insiders.
It was how easily it passed through South Africa’s compliance system, without a single red flag.
In the premiere episode of Laundered: The Nicole Johnson Loophole, produced in collaboration between RelyComply and Swisher Post, investigators, lawyers, and compliance experts dissect how a high-risk, cash-only property deal could legally slip through.
The case has since become a lightning rod for debate over South Africa’s Financial Intelligence Centre Act (FICA) and the gaps that criminals can exploit in the country’s property sector.
“From prison to the Atlantic Seaboard: Nicole Johnson, accused of laundering millions, legally secured a R5 million Sea Point apartment — in cash. No red flags. No questions. No resistance.”
Experts weigh in
Compliance professionals warn that developer-led property transactions, which bypass estate agents, create blind spots in the anti-money laundering framework.
As Bathandwa Nomtshongwana, an associate at Fairbridges Wertheim Becker Attorneys, explained, conveyancers and estate agents alike carry the burden of flagging suspicious transactions, yet systemic fragmentation often means responsibility is blurred.
“We bear the brunt also of having an additional duty of care as legal practitioners. So, we have to do our FICA, you have to do your KYCs, you have to do a risk analysis of whoever is bringing funds into your trust account. You have to take those extra steps. So, the moment you get a signed sale agreement and it’s a cash deal, whether it’s significant, whether it’s little, ultimately, there will be cash involved. So, naturally. and with the experience as well, those alarm bells start ringing, and they ring louder when the purchaser isn’t able to account for the source of the funds,” she said.
Ebrahim Sadien, Risk and Regulatory Manager at Climate Fund Managers, outlined how FICA’s Schedule 1 was originally designed around estate agents, but the Property Practitioners Act (PPA) has since expanded the scope, creating confusion over which entities must register as accountable institutions.
“What [the Act] is saying is that if you are a property practitioner and you perform the activities of an estate agent as previously defined in the Estate Agencies Act you must register with the FICA as an accountable institution, and in so in my mind that has solved the issue from a an estate agent’s perspective. And if there are, you know, entities out there, developers as we spoke about a developer, who are facilitating the transactions with regards to buying and selling of immovable property it’s quite clear from this guidance that they should be registered with the FIC as an accountable institution,” he explained.
And as James Saunders, CTO of RelyComply, put it:
“Nicole Johnson is hardly an inconspicuous person… this was willful criminality. A Google search alone would have revealed her background. Yet the deal went through anyway — which tells us the system isn’t just outdated, it’s broken.”
Greylist pressure
South Africa has been under FATF greylisting since 2023, placing it under international scrutiny.
Cases like Johnson’s raise doubts about the country’s commitment to closing AML gaps, particularly in high-value property transactions.
“A private sale that exposed a public weakness. If this could happen so easily — in one of South Africa’s most high-value property markets — how many more deals like this are slipping through unnoticed?”
Where to listen to ‘Laundered’ podcast
Watch the full episode on YouTube below, or listen on Spotify here: Nicole Johnson money laundering case.