‘Shell’ can also mean, “Venture capital provided by CIA.”
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I am guessing there are tens of thousands of perfectly legitimate shell companies created each year (maybe more), and the number of CIA entities in that mountain of corporate activity is, relatively speaking, a minuscule speck.
Shell companies are a mainstay of mergers and acquisitions, for instance. Perfectly legitimate and useful.
Respectfully, the idea that Delaware is somehow a haven for shady corporate activities is simply uninformed, as is the idea that "Shell company" connotes something nefarious. What we are talking about here is part of America's special capitalist expertise: corporate finance.