Large loans and real estate deals are not the type of money laundering this software detects. It is looking for unusual transaction flows between accounts. For example, if an account receives large amounts money for inconsistent purposes (e.g. computer services and farm equipment), or has large amounts of money flow through it while maintaining a relatively low average balance (e.g. 10 million received and sent when the account normally has 40k in it).

While money is absolutely laundered via real estate and art, that's not what this software detects. The podcast The Dark Money Files is really good if you want to learn more about this. [1]

1. https://www.buzzsprout.com/242645

It's not convenient, or relevant, if you read the other real estate focused reply to your comment. If anything, it is convenient for the NYT's news cycle to focus disproportionate attention on myriad related-only-by-keyword events within a short amount of time for the sake of spinning narratives about specific companies and garnering clicks.

Facebook received the same treatment, once they lost their golden boy status.