Finance & economics | The shell games go on

A new study finds that dirty money remains easy to hide

Banks and corporate-service providers barely differentiate between clean and risky clients

A BOOK PUBLISHED in 2014 shook the world of offshore finance. “Global Shell Games” exposed the ease with which ne’er-do-wells could launder money or dodge tax using bank accounts held by anonymous shell companies. The book, NGO activism and numerous leaks—the latest, earlier this month, being the Pandora Papers—have since pushed governments to increase corporate transparency. Britain and other countries introduced public registers of company owners. America passed a law ending shell-company anonymity.

This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “The shell games go on”

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