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While the suspicious cases are now almost common knowledge, I'd be interested to read about cases of the opposite - shell companies being used to facilitate tra

While the suspicious cases are now almost common knowledge, I'd be interested to read about cases of the opposite - shell companies being used to facilitate transactions and not doing anything remotely shady.

belter 3y ago
How much time do you have to wait?... :-)) "Letterbox fraud: Red flags found at almost 380,000 Dutch companies" - https://nltimes.nl/2024/01/30/letterbox-fraud-red-flags-found-almost-380000-dutch-companies https://nltimes.nl/2024/01/30/letterbox-fraud-red-flags-foun...
- TacticalCoder 3y ago
  Letterbox companies aren't shady just because they're letterbox companies. It's extremely common, for a variety of reason: like two founders, both married, with neither of them wanting to domiciliate the company at their place. Another reason might be incorporating the company in one city, where one language is spoken officially, while living in another region, where another language is the official administrative language. You can find things like tennis table clubs using a letterbox company or bikers club. Or simply people who have no office, especially in this day and age of Internet, and who are renting a place and know they'll move out. They prefer a stable address for their business. The problem when "everything is a red flag" is that you end up in a world where everybody is flagged as suspicious. In Belgium there's been an incredible statistic that came out: something insane like one out of every four citizen had already been flagged at least once. This doesn't work. For when everybody is suspicious, nobody is. Also companies offering letterbox services are extremely controlled. They're the first line in the KYC/AML verification and they're liable if they let obvious scams in. Companies offering letterbox services are often recommended by accountants to their clients. I know these very well and used one personally in 2023 (because I opened a company in a country before moving to that country). Many online business have a website, a payment processor and a "letterbox" address. This is business 101.

belter 3y ago

How much time do you have to wait?... :-)) "Letterbox fraud: Red flags found at almost 380,000 Dutch companies" - https://nltimes.nl/2024/01/30/letterbox-fraud-red-flags-found-almost-380000-dutch-companies https://nltimes.nl/2024/01/30/letterbox-fraud-red-flags-foun...

TacticalCoder 3y ago
Letterbox companies aren't shady just because they're letterbox companies. It's extremely common, for a variety of reason: like two founders, both married, with neither of them wanting to domiciliate the company at their place. Another reason might be incorporating the company in one city, where one language is spoken officially, while living in another region, where another language is the official administrative language. You can find things like tennis table clubs using a letterbox company or bikers club. Or simply people who have no office, especially in this day and age of Internet, and who are renting a place and know they'll move out. They prefer a stable address for their business. The problem when "everything is a red flag" is that you end up in a world where everybody is flagged as suspicious. In Belgium there's been an incredible statistic that came out: something insane like one out of every four citizen had already been flagged at least once. This doesn't work. For when everybody is suspicious, nobody is. Also companies offering letterbox services are extremely controlled. They're the first line in the KYC/AML verification and they're liable if they let obvious scams in. Companies offering letterbox services are often recommended by accountants to their clients. I know these very well and used one personally in 2023 (because I opened a company in a country before moving to that country). Many online business have a website, a payment processor and a "letterbox" address. This is business 101.