The Financial Action Task Force, the world's leading anti-money-laundering standard-setter, and the Egmont Group of financial intelligence units have joined forces to publish a comprehensive guide to the ways in which wealthy individuals conceal their beneficial ownership of assets.

After analysing 106 case studies, the two agencies have concluded that legal persons, principally shell companies, are a key feature in schemes designed to disguise beneficial ownership, while front companies and bearer shares are less frequently exploited. Individuals and groups that want to conceal the ownership of assets are most likely to exercise control over those assets through a combination of direct and indirect control, rather than strictly one or the other.
 
In most cases, the beneficial owner used a combination of layering and direct ownership chains, as well as professional intermediaries and third parties who exercise control on their behalf. In a limited number of cases, the beneficial owner exercised only indirect control and rarely retained direct control through a complicated structure without involving an intermediary. This demonstrates that, in many cases, the beneficial owner will maintain some level of direct control in a scheme, but will rarely do so without also involving an intermediary or 'straw man' (informal nominee shareholders and directors, such as spouses, children, extended family and other personal or business associates).

According to one set of case studies, trust and company service providers represent the highest proportion of professional intermediaries involved in the establishment of legal persons, legal arrangements and bank accounts. The trust and company service provider sector is also significantly more likely to provide nominee, directorship and other company management services to its clients, to provide services to other professionals on behalf of third-party clients, and to provide services to globetrotting customers. However, despite their significant involvement in the establishment and management of these arrangements, trust and company service providers appear less likely to be the architects of schemes designed to obscure beneficial  ownership. Trust and company service providers that the case studies said were complicit in their involvement were more likely to have been wilfully blind than fully complicit, or may have also provided legal, accounting or other financial services. This suggests that the job of the average money-laundering trust and company service provider is more likely to be transactional in nature, operating at the behest of a client who often lives in another country. It also indicates that, while trust and company service providers appear to be less likely to be the masterminds of schemes designed to obscure beneficial ownership, their services are 'vulnerable.'