This blog was originally published in AEI.
The amount of resources that government will commit to combating illicit finance, illicit trade, and corruption is determined by the relative and perceived prevalence of them. Judging by interest over the years in the House, Senate, and some special committees, like the Helsinki Commission, perceptions are rising. Civil-society organizations — such as Global Financial Integrity (GFI), the FACT Coalition, the Hudson Institute’s Kleptocracy Initiative, and loosely-organized informal groups like ACAN (an anti-corruption advocacy network) — have been warning for years that continuing to ignore anonymity in business ownership is not only a source of inequality and crime, but a sorely overlooked national security threat.