This article was originally published by Deseret News.

As faith leaders in Utah, we are concerned with a gaping hole in state and federal law that is having dire consequences throughout the state, country and the world. We feel it is time as citizens to call on our representatives to correct this oversight and give law enforcement the tools they need to protect us and our financial system. It is time to end the legal twilight zone where anonymous shell companies are used to protect criminals.

Anonymous shell companies incorporated in the United States have financed human trafficking, weapons trafficking, terrorism, predatory financial crimes and more. U.S.-based anonymous shell companies also fuel corruption, poverty and instability around the world by enabling the corrupt to siphon money from communities in developing countries desperate for those resources. Every year, the developing world loses nearly a trillion dollars from illicit financial flows. This far outstrips what these countries receive in aid.

Continue reading: the full op-ed can be found here.

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The Rev. Anita Miner is a parish deacon at All Saints Episcopal in Salt Lake and a graduate of Hood College and Middlebury College. The Rev. David Nichols is the pastor at Mount Tabor Lutheran Church, ELCA, in Salt Lake, a graduate of UC Berkeley and Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley.

This article was originally published by Deseret News.