Financial Transparency Coalition

In the third season of Showtime’s drama Homeland, the CIA is working to track the finances of a terrorist group through a maze of shell corporations and offshore accounts from Iran to Venezuela. This isn’t just a Hollywood plotline. It is, unfortunately, all too real. Terrorists, drug traffickers, corrupt politicians, and criminals easily move money around the globe every single day. They use shell corporations, which have no assets or operations and exist simply to conduct business transactions.

Terrorists, drug traffickers, corrupt politicians and criminals easily move money around the globe every single day. They use shell corporations, which have no assets or operations and exist simply to conduct business transactions. Shell corporations serve no legitimate business purpose other than to hide their true owners and officers. They enable brutal dictators in Equatorial Guinea and Uzbekistan; terrorist groups, such as Hezbollah; and drug lords to hide their profits from crime and corruption.