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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Watchdogs Point to Nevada Link in Panama Papers Finance Scandal

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Thursday, April 7, 2016   

LAS VEGAS - The U.S. is one of the easiest places in the world to incorporate a company, then hide the true owner - and Nevada is one of the most common places to do it, according to a watchdog group. Consumer advocates at Global Witness have been poring over documents from the unfolding Panama Papers international finance scandal, in which leaked files point to allegedly corrupt politicians and other bad actors around the world who've secretly stashed billions in shell companies.

Eryn Schornick, policy advisor on the banks and corruption team at Global Witness, said the laws in the Silver State make it a magnet for the criminal element.

"They can use specific jurisdictions that have weaker laws in certain states like Nevada to move their funds and put them in a place where they won't be detected," she said.

Schornick said the Panama Papers reveal that shell companies incorporated in Nevada are linked to hundreds of millions of dollars in losses from schemes to defraud a wide range of groups, including Medicare, elderly investors, church members and people in the armed forces.

Schornick said Congress should tighten up incorporation laws on a federal level to eliminate the patchwork of rules that vary from state to state.

"That solution should be a public registry where all companies incorporated in the U.S. have to disclose the real owners behind them and keep that information updated," she added.

In early February, lawmakers in the U.S. House and Senate introduced the Incorporation Transparency and Law Enforcement Assistance Act. It has not yet been granted a hearing or a vote.

The house version of the bill can be read online here.


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