Olympic Tower: a perfect place to wash your cash.

Tax Shelters in the Sky

For years, luxury Manhattan high-rises have been used to launder dirty foreign money. But with a new rule designed to curb the practice just weeks away, will oligarchs and dictators have to start looking elsewhere?

By Jennifer Gould

Olympic Tower stands 620 feet tall at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 51st Street, in the heart of Midtown Manhattan. The lobby is empty, save for a well-heeled apartment broker. Does anyone actually live here?

An apartment on the 48th floor is for sale. Look out the window, and there’s the Empire State Building. Look down, and there’s the cross on the roof of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. “It’s the only place where you can look down on God,” says the broker.