Nevada asked for records linked to Panama Papers shell companies

Shell companies registered in Nevada have attracted the attention of the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance.

The committee’s ranking member, U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., is asking Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske for information about more than 1,000 business entities linked to Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.

The law firm and offshore shell companies have come under scrutiny after global reports about their links to prominent international figures. That effort was spearheaded by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and was possible only after a source provided the law firm’s data to a reporter.

“I have become increasingly concerned about the use of anonymous shell companies as vehicles for terrorist financing, tax evasion, and fraud targeting major government programs within the Committee’s jurisdiction, such as Medicare,” Wyden wrote in a letter sent Tuesday to Cegavske.

In all, 1,024 entities registered in Nevada list a subsidiary of Mossack Fonseca as the registered agent, and 185 of those have kept their filings current, Kaitlin Barker, a spokeswoman for Cegavske’s office said in an email Tuesday. It wasn’t immediately clear how the state will respond to the request from Capitol Hill.

Wyden is asking for documents filed with the state for the entities linked to Mossack Fonseca. He’s also asking for records of audits, if the state has audited them.

Pointing to a Nevada law that allows the secretary of state to demand beneficial ownership information of entities suspected of illegal activity, Wyden asked how often that authority has been used in the past three years and whether it has been used on entities linked to Mossack Fonseca. He wants those records if that’s the case.

Wyden is also seeking information about commercial registered agents who represent 10 or more entities apiece. Specifically, he’s seeking information about how the state’s oversight of the agents works, and copies of any audits conducted of agents representing firms tied to Mossack Fonseca.

Wyden also wants to know if a corporate ownership fraud task force the secretary of state’s office created in 2011 has investigated any of the Mossack Fonseca-linked companies and what the results were.

He’s requesting a response by June 3.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists revealed a publicly searchable database on Monday that offered information not previously released before on the shell companies that included more than 200,000 entities, not just registered in Nevada, but in the Bahamas, British Virgin Islands, Panama, Samoa, Seychelles, Singapore and Niue, a self-governing state in association with New Zealand.

The data goes back nearly four decades and contains names of business entities, officers and intermediaries. However, bank accounts, phone numbers and emails were removed in the version available to the public.

All the information comes from Mossack Fonseca and its subsidiaries, including M F Corporate Services (Nevada) Ltd., the registered agent of the shell companies that has a Las Vegas address.

Mossack Fonseca & Co. is a Panamanian law firm and corporate service provider with locations in several countries.

Data editor Adelaide Chen contributed to this report. Contact Ben Botkin at bbotkin@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2904. Find him on Twitter: @BenBotkin1

Wyden Letter to Nevada by Anonymous 487666