'This is a gift to cartels': Elizabeth Warren slams Trump admin move to let shell companies hide who really owns them

The Trump administration implemented a temporary reprieve on the so-called “beneficial ownership” requirements in March 2025. These owners had to submit their birth dates, names, business addresses, and driver’s license numbers in filings to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) at Treasury. That won’t be the case anymore.

“This is a gift to cartels, criminals, and U.S. adversaries that exploit shell companies to move millions through our financial system,” Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking panel, said in a statement.

“The Trump Administration has dismissed law enforcement warnings, ignored the role that shell companies play in crimes ranging from drug trafficking to fraud to sanctions evasion, and gutted a statute that Secretary Rubio once championed as ‘the most significant anti-corruption and money laundering law in decades.’”

The Treasury Department declined to comment. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had earlier said ending the disclosure requirements will shrink red tape for small businesses.

“Treasury is eliminating a burdensome reporting requirement for millions of law-abiding business owners without compromising our national security,” Bessent said in a social media post on Tuesday.

‘It’s like Trump ordering the deletion of the FBI’s fingerprint database’

Even one prominent Republican senator joined the criticism. Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, a Democrat, and Chuck Grassley of Iowa, a Republican, said in a statement that Treasury’s move “undermines” the law’s original intent.

“This decision is an unfortunate one that fails to use all available tools to protect Americans and crack down on illicit financial schemes,” the pair said.

One former lawmaker was more blunt: “It’s like Trump ordering the deletion of the FBI’s fingerprint database,” wrote ex-Rep. Tom Malinowski of New Jersey, a Democrat, on social media.

Shell companies usually don’t have a physical location and in many cases exist only on paper for owners to park their financial assets. Business groups had lobbied against the requirements as cumbersome to abide by and an invasion of privacy for small business owners.