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Op-ed: How an obscure business law facilitates human trafficking in massage parlors

Someone looking to comparison shop for commercial sex at one of Utah’s 50 or so illicit massage parlors can visit an online review board and get graphic descriptions of experiences with individual women in these locations.

Meanwhile, the privacy of the people who actually own the businesses where these acts take place is scrupulously protected nationwide by U.S. law. There is a very real and tragic cost to this irony. Research shows the majority of these women are likely victims of human trafficking. Corporate secrecy makes prosecuting the traffickers and helping the women find freedom extremely difficult.

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Reuters: Tax activists slam U.S. reporting exemption for defense firms

Tax activists this week criticized a U.S. government move to exempt large defense contractors from a financial disclosure rule meant to fight international tax dodging, saying the need for a national security exemption was unproven.

The Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency (FACT) Coalition’s criticism came after the U.S. Treasury and Internal Revenue Service sided in late March with defense contractors that had asked the agencies for the exemption.

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Crack Down on U.K.’s Offshore Territories Increases Pressure on U.S. to End Anonymous Companies

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Lawmakers in the United Kingdom voted Tuesday to require their offshore territories to establish systems by 2020 mandating companies to disclose their true owners at the time of formation.  The new rules, which will bring transparency to companies formed in notorious secrecy jurisdictions such as the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, and the British Virgin Islands, were welcomed by the Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency (FACT) Coalition.

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Testimony of Dalia F. Martinez, Executive Vice President of Operations International Bank of Commerce before the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit, April 27, 2018

Chairmen Leutkemeyer and Pearce, Ranking Members Clay and Perimutter and members of the subcommittee, I am honored to have this opportunity to present testimony today regarding FinCEN’s Customer Due Diligence Rule. I am Dalia F. Martinez, Executive Vice President and Corporate Bank Secrecy Act Officer for International Bank of Commerce. IBC Bank–Laredo is a member of International Bancshares Corporation (NASDAQ: IBOC), a $12.2 billion multi-bank financial holding company headquartered in Laredo, Texas, with 192 branches and more than 294 ATMs serving 90 communities in Texas and Oklahoma. I am speaking to you today representing the Mid-size Bank Coalition of America, the voice of 88 community banks with headquarters in 34 States. MBCA banks are primarily between $10 billion and $50 billion in assets with more than 10,000 branches in all 50 states, with deposits of $1.2 trillion. MBCA banks represent, service, and support millions of customers.

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Testimony to House Financial Services Committee on Implementation of FinCEN’s CDD Rule

Gary Kalman, the executive director of the Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency (FACT) Coalition, testified in front of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit on Friday, April 27, 2018 at a hearing regarding the implementation of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network’s (FinCEN) rule on Customer Due Diligence Requirements for Financial Institutions.

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Countering a Kleptocratic Kremlin

With every passing week we have new evidence of the threat that Vladimir Putin’s kleptocracy poses to our democracy, our national security, and the entire liberal world order. Putin’s regime—something akin to an organized crime ring masquerading as a state—has looted the wealth of Russia, subjugated its people, attacked neighboring former republics of the USSR, annexed Crimea, and hacked the electoral process in the United States and other Western democracies.

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