[captainpiggies]

Very broadly speaking this is what KYC (know your customer) regulation is for which not only deals with the party in business with the financial institutions but also more importantly with the beneficiary of whatever entity this is. So in your example the bank would be under the obligation to ask prior to establishing any business relationship with the shell corporation where does the money come from and where do any gains etc. go to.

However if the controller does not do his or her job properly or gets coerced by either the client or the asset manager to enter false or incomplete information this regulation is obviously not very effective and requires regular auditing by the authority (in the case of Switzerland FINMA which is the equivalent of the FTC)

There are much better and most importantly legal ways to “optimize taxes” than a simple shell corp. Some of these “corporate constructs” or however you want to call it use loopholes “double Irish with a dutch sandwich” is one of the most notorious ones.