Financial Transparency Coalition

Did you know that it can take more information to obtain a driver’s license than to start your very own anonymous shell company with which you can use and abuse the U.S. financial system? In a matter of minutes, and with minimal documentation, you can own a company without disclosing that you are, in fact, the owner. These opaque entities are a favorite tool of terrorists, drug traffickers, arms dealers, corrupt government leaders, tax evaders and other criminals to launder money into the U.S.

Corrupt dictators who take bribes and loot their treasuries are rightly condemned by governments and other observers in developed countries. But the extent to which this plundering is aided by lax and weakly enforced money laundering laws in the West has too often escaped notice. It is remarkably easy for these criminals to hide their identities behind anonymous shell companies and bank secrecy in order to bring their dirty money into the United States and Europe.

The U.S. Department of Justice filed a 118-page lawsuit this week regarding the alleged corrupt practices of Teodoro Nguema Obiang, son of the President of Equatorial Guinea.  The lawsuit, among other things, requested that a U.S. judge confiscate many of Obiang’s lavish possessions because they were obtained using the proceeds of alleged corruption.  The DOJ’s

What do you do when your eldest son, already well-known for his reckless spending and extravagant lifestyle, becomes the focus of a corruption investigation in France? Well, if you’re the world’s longest-ruling leader, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea, you brazenly attempt to thwart justice and the rule of law by appointing him to a position at UNESCO, a position that comes with a convenient perk: diplomatic immunity.