Where’s the easiest place in the world to set up an untraceable shell company? Cayman? Singapore? Jersey? Not according to research by a group of academics. Actually, the answer is Kenya.See also:
East Africa’s biggest economy tops a list of places in which incorporation agents are least likely to ask questions about the ownership of shell companies – groups which serve as a vehicle for business transactions, without active operations or meaningful assets. Those corporations have legitimate uses, but when set up anonymously can serve as vehicles for money laundering and tax evasion.
International standards, overseen by the Financial Action Task Force, require countries to prevent the abuse of shell companies by making sure that information on their real – or ‘beneficial’ – owners is available to authorities. But in a study of 3,700 incorporation agents over 182 countries, Kenya emerged as the nation in which agents were least likely to ask for proper identification....MORE
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