My question might be stupid since you seem to be more versed in this subject. But if I incorporate in the US, how does the government/relevant bodies know that I am who I say I am in the BO?

I believe it is a criminal act under this law to lie about it (there are other laws that make it illeagal to lie on government forms), so you would be committing a paperwork process crime which USG loves to enforce. Signing the false form would literally be mailing evidence of a crime to FinCen.

But if you are already a criminal... Would that matter?

Al Capone committed a lot of crimes besides tax evasion, but he went to prison for the crime he could be convicted of.

The more offenses someone commits, the more likely they'll make a mistake committing one of them and get caught. Yeah most money launderers will have no moral qualms about lying on a form, but someone already on the fence might be dissuaded if the risk of getting convicted increases.

True, lots of kingpins go down for off center charges.

My guess is that many people don't consider themselves all out criminals, just 'regular' folks skirting the edges of legality. So doing something undeniably illegal and on the record may discourage taking an action.

Or even if consciously criminal then one would want to minimize risk of getting discovered.

My point was related to those already practicing money laundering. They already know it's illegal, what's one more criminal act? Once you are invested, it's not a problem.

Something I think you are missing is that at the moment if the government is investigating potential money laundering and the trail leads to a shell company then the trail ends there. With the new law, if the company is registered to someone that doesn't exist then a felony has been committed and they can probably seize all the assets of the company.

If the criminals risk forfeiting their money they may look to other avenues instead of using American shell companies.

I very much doubt anyone is under the illusion that this will stop criminals trying to launder money through American companies, it just makes it easier to seize assets of potential laundering operations and to investigate sources.

Your lie has to pass scrutiny. Your lawyer also had to be willing to lie on paper. The companies who set up these fake corporations (with bogus boards) now have to supply a real person. If they don’t make an attempt to verify this information, then they become criminally liable too.

Ummm, you don't anyone to fill business fillings for you in the US. So no, you don't need anyone else to lie, no need to add conspiracy to the charges.

Also, finding an attorney that is willing to lie, is very easy. How do you think all this stuff is already happening illegally now? ;)

Right, so if government agents can’t string you up for your actual crime (which they probably suspect but cannot prove) then they can get you for lying on a government form.

It still seems to raise their risk profile as the shells are more likely to get discovered unless they meet these new thresholds.

"Never break two laws at once"

This had to be said by sometime who wasn't a career criminal. Lol!

The same way any company performs anti-fraud checks.

And how this is done - check the provided information against a known-good database (there are plenty of services that you can pay for here). Perform random spot checks. Make sure that the UBO is filing taxes for this entity’s earnings. Etc.

I’m not claiming it’s perfect; fraud detection is a hard problem, and it’s also pretty obscure if you haven’t had to deal with it at your own company.