http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/28/us-usa-shell-companies-idUSTRE75R20Z20110628
SHELL GAMES: A Reuters Investigation
Articles in this series are exploring the extent and impact of corporate secrecy in the United States.
By Kelly Carr and Brian Grow
CHEYENNE, ATLANTA (Reuters) - The secretive business havens of Cyprus and the Cayman Islands face a potent rival: Cheyenne, Wyoming.
At a single address in this sleepy city of 60,000 people, more than 2,000 companies are registered. The building, 2710 Thomes Avenue, isn't a shimmering skyscraper filled with A-list corporations. It's a 1,700-square-foot brick house with a manicured lawn, a few blocks from the State Capitol.
Neighbors say they see little activity there besides regular mail deliveries and a woman who steps outside for smoke breaks. Inside, however, the walls of the main room are covered floor to ceiling with numbered mailboxes labeled as corporate "suites." A bulky copy machine sits in the kitchen. In the living room, a woman in a headset answers calls and sorts bushels of mail.
A Reuters investigation has found the house at 2710 Thomes Avenue serves as a little Cayman Island on the Great Plains. It is the headquarters for Wyoming Corporate Services, a business-incorporation specialist that establishes firms which can be used as "shell" companies, paper entities able to hide assets.
Wyoming Corporate Services will help clients create a company, and more: set up a bank account for it; add a lawyer as a corporate director to invoke attorney-client privilege; even appoint stand-in directors and officers as high as CEO. Among its offerings is a variety of shell known as a "shelf" company, which comes with years of regulatory filings behind it, lending a greater feeling of solidity.
"A corporation is a legal person created by state statute that can be used as a fall guy, a servant, a good friend or a decoy," the company's website boasts. "A person you control... yet cannot be held accountable for its actions. Imagine the possibilities!"
Among the entities registered at 2710 Thomes, Reuters found, is a shelf company sheltering real-estate assets controlled by a jailed former prime minister of Ukraine, according to allegations made by a political rival in a federal court in California.
The owner of another shelf company at the address was indicted in April for allegedly helping online-poker operators evade a U.S. ban on Internet gambling. The owner of two other firms there was banned from government contracting in January for selling counterfeit truck parts to the Pentagon.
Read more (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/28/us-usa-shell-companies-idUSTRE75R20Z20110628) ... wow
Corporate Anchor Babies are legal people too!
Quote"A corporation is a legal person created by state statute that can be used as a fall guy, a servant, a good friend or a decoy," the company's website boasts. "A person you control... yet cannot be held accountable for its actions. Imagine the possibilities!"
Guyz, you're giving the game away here.
Actually, it's pretty damn smart.
Quote from: Charley Brown on June 28, 2011, 06:17:05 PM
Actually, it's pretty damn smart.
So is insider trading.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 28, 2011, 07:49:57 PM
Quote from: Charley Brown on June 28, 2011, 06:17:05 PM
Actually, it's pretty damn smart.
So is insider trading.
What do you have against honest criminal enterprise? :D
This century is just starting to get good.
The key for these schemes is to get in and out quickly and quietly leaving your annoying old bitty neighbor with the yip yap dog to take the blame.