Shelf Companies Find Haven In Cheyenne Wyoming

[excerpt] A growing niche in the shell business is shelf corporations. Like paper-only shells, which enable the secrecy-minded to hide real ownership of assets, shelf companies are set up by firms like Wyoming Corporate Services, then left "on the shelf" to season for years. They're then sold later to owners looking for a quick way to secure bank loans, bid on contracts, and project financial stability. To speed up business activity, shelf corporations can often be purchased with established bank accounts, credit histories and tax returns filed with the Internal Revenue Service.

[excerpt] "Criminals use U.S. shell companies to commit financial fraud, drug trafficking, even terrorist financing, in part because our states don't require anyone to name the owners of the companies they form," Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said in an email to Reuters.

Among the shelf companies registered at the brick house are:

• a shelf company sheltering real-estate assets controlled by a jailed former prime minister of Ukraine
• two other firms banned from government contracting in January for selling counterfeit truck parts to the Pentagon

This is a long article, please take the time to read it and learn about yet another way corporate criminals cheat the system.