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Introduction – We often get asked what is the best way to bank anonymously. People want to have a bank account where the bank does not know who they are. This has not been possible for many years. No bank in the world can let you have an account without conducting due diligence on you including references from a bank and certified ID like passports. There are no more numbered accounts or Sparbuch accounts. There is no such thing as a bank account only in the name of a corporation even if another corporation or foundation owns the first corporation. All bank accounts must have a beneficiary owner and a signatory and they must be natural persons. The bank must know the client, which means notarized, and often apostilled ID and references from another bank.
Any country that does not follow these rules set forth by FATF (Financial Action Task Force) does not get to use the international wire services and does not get to clear international checks. Banks that are in compliance would not be allowed to conduct any transactions with such an out of order bank or it would be argued that they are facilitating the bank operating against the rules and regulations by conducting their international transactions through the bank that is in compliance.
So what is the answer? Well there are actually two answers: Trust Agreement Banking and lawfully obtaining a new identity from a tax haven country to open bank accounts with. Both of these solutions are substantially more expensive that the ordinary Panama solutions but they provide a greater degree of privacy and security.
Trust Agreement Banking – This in brief is where you enter into a written trust agreement with the Guatemala Law Firm (our affiliate law firm) to be the signatory and beneficiary owner on the bank account for you. An Empressa is formed which is an anonymous asset protection corporation. You would hold a power of attorney over the corporation privately. This way the bank has no idea who you are even though you can operate the online banking and have an ATM card from the account.
The relationship with the law firm, including the trust agreement, is covered by strong Guatemala attorney client privilege. Any requests for bank records is a dead end since it leads to the law firm who is the signatory on the bank account and beneficiary owner, not you. The law firm is not a bank and is not going to give your records up. There would be a serious fight and attorney client privilege is generally considered almost sacred in Guatemala. Short of crimes like murder, genocide, real full blown terrorism, kidnapping, white slavery and crimes like this where there are real victims in the hospital and cemetery, the attorney client privilege would never be broken. In fact the law firm can have a judge seal all your bank records which means only certain people at the bank (key trusted managers) will be able to access your records and see the payments received, sent and balance).
To obtain more privacy you can fund the account by wiring the funds first to the attorney client trust account so as to eliminate any trails from the home country bank account to the corporate or foundation account and then have them sent to the corporate or foundation bank account located anywhere in the world. You can also have the trust agreement contain a distress c clause where certain instructions are incorporated into the agreement concerning dealing with assets controlled by the trust while you are under distress. Distress could be divorce, lawsuits, bankruptcy, arrest, incarceration, blackmail, extortion or even incapacitating sickness. This would mean that there is no control over the assets by you during this period of distress. This gives you plausible deniability if some judicial official asks you to return your funds to the jurisdiction so the court can seize them and threatens contempt of court proceedings if you fail to comply. Our clients come from 50 or so countries including dictatorships and seriously corrupted countries. Trust agreement banking can offer levels of protection and secrecy not available any other way. For more details go here:
Guatemala Trust Agreement Banking
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