Financial Transparency Coalition

Anonymous company ownership doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue does it?  Nor is it a phrase that many people have heard of.  But it should be.  Anonymous company ownership is behind much of what is bad in the world. It’s behind the fraudsters who cheat vulnerable people like the young, the old and the sick out of the resources they need to get by in life.  It’s behind the tax dodgers who don’t pay their fair share towards society.  It’s behind the dishonest public officials who use their positions for personal gain, and the corrupt multinationals that bribe their way...

Cyprus's teetering economy needs a significant injection of bail-out cash from its European Union partners. However, a group of countries, led by Germany, is baulking at the prospect of propping up what many regard as a money-laundering haven. A bail-out package, it is argued, could see eurozone taxpayers footing the bill for protecting the offshore banking deposits of criminals. European leaders are arguing that Cyprus should have to beef up its anti-money laundering controls in order to qualify for any bail-out package.

Investigations carried out by the Guardian and the BBC's Panorama programme into the ease with which anonymous shell companies can be used to move dirty money around the world are on the front page of today’s paper and being broadcast tonight at 20.30 on BBC One. Their findings match those of Global Witness and others.

You're a criminal and you've got loads of cash. You really want that mansion in London. But how are you going to get it? You need a company service provider to set up an anonymous shell company to disguise who's behind the money and a bank willing to do business with your shell.