Gangland Of Shadowy Companies

GII on March 27, 2025

by PANKAJ SHARMA

Is the oldest democracy of the world – United States of America – also the biggest gangland of shadowy companies? It seems, it is.

Let me introduce you to an American city – Sheridan. It is located in the Sheridan county of Wyoming state. Area wise, Wyoming is the 10 th largest state in USA, but its population is only around 6 lakh. Sheridan county is spread over 6,500 sq kms and Sheridan city, which is the capital of Sheridan county, has an area of only 33 sq kms and 19 thousand of county’s total population of 32 thousand live here.

Sheridan, the part of the least-populated U.S. state is the den for secretive company formations, fraud indictments and questionable fortunes from around the world. Can you believe that 1,69,024 companies were registered there by the end of December 2024? This means around 9 companies for every citizen of the city, 5 companies for every citizen of the county and 28 companies for the population of every 100 people in the state of Wyoming. Can you believe that a brown tiny building on 30-N, Gould Street in Sheridan city is the address for 73,459 registered companies? 138 companies were incorporated on this single address in 2010. In 2011 their number rose to 276 and in 2012 it went up to 453. In 2013, the number of companies with this address was 542 and in 2014 the number was 684.

This gradual increase in the numbers of companies with 30-N, Gould Street address suddenly began rising phenomenally and reached to 22,103 by 2020. In 2021, the figure was 28,176. In 2022, this number almost doubled to 50,713. Within next year, in 2023, there were 74,921 companies functioning from this one single address. In 2010, only 14,802 companies existed in the entire state of Wyoming. This number rose to 75,498 in 2024. Surprisingly, except 2,039, all other 73,459 Wyoming companies operate from a teeny house on Gould Street.

There are 20,059 companies which also have the similar address in Sheridan city – 1309, Coffeen Avenue. In 2010, only 11 companies were registered on this address. Ten years later, in 2020, their number shot up to 6,588 and in 2023, it reached to 18,652.

Why this sudden massive rise in incorporating thousands of shadowy companies is seen from the year 2020? Does it have any relation with the misappropriation of billions of dollars spent on fighting against COVID pandemic by many countries of the world, including USA? There are evidences that Millions in Covid relief funds went to shadowy companies registered at a Wyoming storefront that hundreds of thousands of firms used as an address. Nestled at the foot of the Bighorn Mountains, Sheridan, Wyoming, has been rivalling the popularity of the cheap company incorporations — with no travel necessary for far-flung customers. In the spring of 2020, in an attempt to avert an economic collapse amid COVID-19 shutdowns, the U.S. government began dispensing billions of dollars in emergency loans to American businesses to maintain their payrolls.

Among the millions that received the Pay Check Protection Program funds were Wyoming-registered firms. Many of them allegedly received the large COVID relief payments. More than 266,000 companies incorporated using the address of Gould Street’s modest office between 2019 and 2024.

According to GII analysis, Companies registered at the Sheridan storefront are listed in a half-dozen criminal indictments of people across the USA who allegedly stole millions in COVID relief payments from the federal government. Hundreds more companies that together received tens of millions of dollars in Pay Check Protection Program (PPP) loans share the same Sheridan address: 30 N. Gould St. Some of these appear to be legitimate firms, but dozens have little trace of aboveboard business.

The fraud indictments add to growing evidence that Wyoming is a major new destination for people outside the state — including criminals, suspected North Korean sanctions evaders, and those with wealth of dubious origin — to incorporate secretive limited liability companies, or LLCs, and other entities to hold and move cash. In December, ICIJ reporting showed that the state had overtaken Delaware.

Wyoming is similar to most states in that its laws allow individuals to form shell companies with no requirement to disclose the true owners to government authorities or anyone else. But in recent years the state’s corporate services industry has promoted itself as offering a particularly potent mix of legal features that can pile extra layers of secrecy onto anonymous entities. This includes its booming business of unregulated trusts that can interlock with anonymous LLCs registered in the state to create a secretive structure that
wealth managers call the “cowboy cocktail.” These layers of corporate secrecy can help shield a person’s assets from creditors, tax authorities and former spouses seeking assets during divorce proceedings.

More than a dozen ultrawealthy foreigners had selected Wyoming to establish this trust structure. Among them were a Russian billionaire and an associate of a Dominican dictator. A 2021 promotional document from a Cyprus-based corporate services firm highlighted that Wyoming was “overtaking the Cayman Islands, Singapore and New Zealand” as the preferred location for forming LLCs
and trusts. An analysis of data shows that Registered Agents’ Sheridan address accounts for more than 40% of all new incorporations in Wyoming between 2019 and 2024. Many people seeking to set up firms in Wyoming have little other connection to the state.

Some of the companies switched their listed mailing address to a suburb of Hangzhou, China, while keeping 30 N. Gould St. as its Wyoming registration. The Chinese street address — 969 W. Wen Yi Rd., Yuhang District — matches that of the global headquarters of ecommerce giant Alibaba, one of China’s largest private firms. There is a formal denial by the Alibaba Group that no unrelated firms have a presence at its Wen Yi Road headquarters. That could be a fact. But questions remain. Afterall, why is US Federal Government keeping its eyes shut from what is going on in Wyoming state?