Former Treasury Agent Urges Authorities to Target the Drivers of Human Trafficking, Drug Smuggling, and Corruption
Ending Anonymous Companies; Trade Transparency Units; Holding Gatekeepers Accountable Among Policy Recommendations
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Worldwide anti-money laundering efforts are currently just a decimal point away from total failure, according to a new report published Tuesday by the FACT Coalition.
More corrupt officials face consequences as reverberations from the Panama Papers continue. Pakistan’s Supreme Court has indefinitely disqualified the prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, from public service after the prime minister and his children were implicated in dubious real estate transactions in London. A subsequent investigation showed his family owned luxury real estate properties through anonymous companies. Based on their income, it was unlikely they could afford the properties, suggesting they were potentially hiding stolen assets and engaging in illicit financial practices. In a blog responding to the action taken by the supreme court, Global Witness’ Naomi Hirst noted this as an example of how anonymous companies are used to embolden corrupt officials and called on leaders to fulfill their promises to eliminate them.
America Is the Easiest Country in the World in which to Form an Anonymous Shell Company.
Creating a U.S. shell company takes less information than acquiring a library card. A 2015 academic study found that the U.S. is the easiest country in the world for terrorists and criminals to open anonymous shell companies to launder their money with impunity.
Creating a U.S. shell company takes less information than acquiring a library card. A 2014 academic study found that the U.S. is the easiest country in the world for terrorists and criminals to open anonymous shell companies to launder their money with impunity.
Over the past several decades, anonymous shell companies have been at the heart of heinous crimes, including cases of grand corruption, human trafficking, and even the facilitation of the opioid epidemic. Didier Jacobs of Oxfam America highlighted some of the blights of anonymous companies in a recent blog. In it, he describes how drug lords, corrupt politicians, and human traffickers are able to perform illegal acts while hidden from justice by a veil of anonymity. With shielded identities, criminals can effectively function above the law.
A little over a year ago, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) released the Panama Papers, a treasure trove of information and a window into the world of financial secrecy. In some ways, much of what the Panama Papers revealed was already well known. Previous estimates put the amount of money hidden in offshore secrecy havens somewhere between $8 trillion and $32 trillion. In 2015, The New York Times published an impressive five-part series on the use of anonymous shell companies to purchase prime real estate in New York City. Prior to that, the U.S. Justice Department filed a lawsuit (which they just won on June 29th) to force the forfeiture of New York property secretly owned by the government of Iran in direct violation of economic sanctions. And so on. Yet it is hard to deny the captivating intrigue of the specific stories in the Panama Papers involving Russian kleptocrats, world leaders, athletes, movie stars, and others.
