Shell game: The house that's home to 2,000 companies

[sinkingfeeling]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43561575/ns/business-us_business/

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — The secretive business havens of Cyprus and the Cayman Islands face a potent rival: Cheyenne, Wyo.

At a single address in this sleepy city of 60,000 people, more than 2,000 companies are registered. The building, 2710 Thomes Ave., isn't a shimmering skyscraper filled with A-list corporations. It's a 1,700-square-foot brick house with a manicured lawn, a few blocks from the State Capitol.

A Reuters investigation has found the house at 2710 Thomes Ave. serves as a little Cayman Island on the Great Plains. It is the headquarters for Wyoming Corporate Services, a business-incorporation specialist that establishes firms which can be used as "shell" companies, paper entities able to hide assets.

All the activity at 2710 Thomes is part of a little-noticed industry in the U.S.: the mass production of paper businesses. Scores of mass incorporators like Wyoming Corporate Services have set up shop. The hotbeds of the industry are three states with a light regulatory touch-Delaware, Wyoming and Nevada.

In the U.S., (business incorporation) is completely unregulated," says Jason Sharman, a professor at Griffith University in Nathan, Australia, who is preparing a study for the World Bank on corporate formation worldwide. "Somalia has slightly higher standards than Wyoming and Nevada."

"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," Levin said in an email to Reuters.

[rurallib]

1. "Somalia has slightly higher standards than Wyoming and Nevada."

and that is what the corporatists want.

[cbdo2007]

2. There are city, county, state, and federal governments that can do something about this.....

and none of them do.

Does that worry anyone else?

[Old and In the Way]

3. Another good reason for strong federal oversight and minimum

financial standards applicable to all states.

[juajen]

4. We have to face it. We are a third world country.