High net worth divorcing spouses, kleptocrats, bankruptcy debtors, judgment debtors, etc., can easily conceal their beneficially owned assets by utilizing Nominee Incorporation Services (“NIS”). Pages 63-64 of “The 2007 National Money Laundering Strategy” essentially explained that individuals may use NIS in schemes to hide assets through money laundering. Individuals sometimes hire a NIS to open secret bank accounts & form non-transparent shell companies. Page 64 of The 2007 National Money Laundering Strategy said “[t]he FBI believes that U.S. shell companies and bank accounts arranged by certain NIS firms are being used to launder as much as $36 billion a year from the former Soviet Union. It is not clear whether these NIS firms are complicit in the money laundering abuse.”
An apparent NIS is Capital Asset, Inc. One of its webpages recommends forming companies in Nevada, Wyoming or Delaware. It presumably makes this recommendation because Nevada, Wyoming & Delaware have little or no reporting requirements concerning a company’s shareholders, managers, etc. Someone who wants to hide assets can form a non-transparent shell company in these states & use the shell company to open a bank account at a financial institution in an offshore tax haven. During a bank or asset search, this bank account may be especially difficult to detect because it is titled in the name of the non-transparent shell company.
Another Capital Asset, Inc. wepage asserts:
We use encrypted software, mobile memory sticks, and we back up any information in countries outside the U.S. There are no paper statements, no debit cards, and all of the accounts are in the names of an IBC [International Business Corporation], just exactly the way Microsoft does it. We imitate in every detail what multinational companies do when they open an offshore account. Most of our clients use a nominee- they are not officers, directors, or shareholders of the IBC. However, as signatory or beneficial owner of an offshore account, you need to understand there are heavy tax reporting requirements.
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Copyright 2012-2016 Fred L. Abrams