I think in the past decade there has been some crackdown on shell corporations in the US. It is still very easy and cheap to start a corporation in some states but there has to be ownership disclosure. OTOH, money moves around without a lot of prior documentation and it's the recipient's responsibility to report the income.

I can say I was nervous enough about the whole picture to decline some work some years back, because the person wanted to pay in crypto and I felt like it would get me in for tax complications even though I was willing to do all necessary reporting. The person was outside the US, so some parts of US employment rules wouldn't have applied. I didn't know the other person's name and I don't think he knew mine. Neither one of us was being cloak and dagger afaict, but we had met online and the question simply didn't come up.