Founded | 2008 |
---|---|
Founder | Dan Keen |
Headquarters | , United States [1] |
Services | Registered agent |
Subsidiaries | Epik |
Website | www |
Registered Agents Inc. (RAI) is an American registered agent firm founded in 2008. The company provides business formation services to set up limited liability companies and corporations and acts as a point of contact for legal notices. The company is headquartered in Wyoming where approximately 120,000 companies are associated with its address. [1] [2]
RAI is known for obscuring ownership of the LLCs it forms by listing its address and, in some reported instances, the use of fictitious personas as the agent of record on clients' business formation documents. [3] [2] [1]
In 2024, the company received media coverage after acquiring Epik, a domain registrar and web hosting company known for providing domain registration services to the alt-right. [3] [4] [2]
In 2008, Dan Keen founded RAI after running a tree trimming and landscaping business. [2] Initially focusing on company incorporation in the Pacific Northwest, [5] Dan Keen grew RAI into a registered agent incorporating companies throughout the United States. [2] According to Wired, RAI is a "one-stop shop for people seeking to incorporate a business in any US state, often in those with advantageous tax policies, while obscuring their identities." [2] RAI uses fictitious personas to mask the identities of its employees and to sign their customers' incorporation documents, according to Wired. [2] [1] In Wyoming alone, RAI serves as the registered agent for over 50,000 companies. [6]
In 2020, RAI was reported to be the registered agent of companies with no presence in Wyoming that had received CARES Act money during the COVID-19 pandemic. [5] [7] In 2022, a joint investigation by The Washington Post and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists found that RAI served as the registered agent to companies alleged to launder COVID-19 funds. [7] The same year, KELO-TV reported that RAI served as the registered agent for a company operating illegal robocalls targeted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). [8] In 2023, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported that a company incorporated with RAI was used in cyberattacks against media organizations in several countries. [9] The same year, Reuters reported that RAI served as the registered agent for Russian and Somali cybercrime groups. [10]
In January 2024, RAI was reported to serve as the registered agent for a vital records intermediary company later shut down by the Wyoming authorities for misrepresentation. [11] The same year, an RAI-registered company was linked to an organization providing dark money to political campaigns, and another was linked to an election disinformation operation involving a proposed library bond. [12] [13] In May 2024, investigative journalist Leah Sottile found that RAI had formed and maintains a shell company in Wyoming called TwinRay Ventures for secretive religious group, TwinRay, that is based in southern Oregon. [14] The same month, Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray dissolved three companies registered by RAI that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) found to be linked to fraud directed by North Korea's Ministry of Defence. [15] [16] [17]
In June 2023, RAI acquired Epik, a domain name registrar and web hosting service catering to far-right and neo-Nazi websites that have been denied service by other internet service providers. [3] [18] [19] [4]
RAI also owns a software development company called Two Barrels LLC and a company that helps manage multiple corporation filings called Corporate Tools LLC. [2]
Network Solutions, LLC, formerly Web.com is an American-based technology company and a subsidiary of Web.com, the 4th largest .com domain name registrar with over 6.7 million registrations as of August 2018. In addition to being a domain name registrar, Network Solutions provides web services such as web hosting, website design and online marketing, including search engine optimization and pay per click management.
.tk is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Tokelau, a territory of New Zealand in the South Pacific.
Business.com is a digital media company and B2B web destination which offers various performance marketing advertising, including lead generation products on a pay per lead and pay per click basis, directory listings, and display advertising. The site covers business industry news and trends for growth companies and the B2B community to stay up-to-date, and hosted more than 15,000 pieces of content as of November 2014. Business.com operates as a subsidiary of the Purch Group since being acquired in 2016.
Caller ID spoofing is a spoofing attack which causes the telephone network's Caller ID to indicate to the receiver of a call that the originator of the call is a station other than the true originating station. This can lead to a display showing a phone number different from that of the telephone from which the call was placed.
In United States business law, a registered agent is a business or individual designated to receive service of process (SOP) when a business entity is a party in a legal action such as a lawsuit or summons. The registered agent's address may also be where the state sends the paperwork for the periodic renewal of the business entity's charter. The registered agent for a business entity may be an officer or employee of the company, or a third party, such as the organization's lawyer or a service company. Failure to properly maintain a registered agent can affect a company negatively.
A robocall is a phone call that uses a computerized autodialer to deliver a pre-recorded message, as if from a robot. Robocalls are often associated with political and telemarketing phone campaigns, but can also be used for public service, emergency announcements, or scammers. Multiple businesses and telemarketing companies use auto-dialing software to deliver prerecorded messages to millions of users. Some robocalls use personalized audio messages to simulate an actual personal phone call. The service is also viewed as prone to association with scams.
Web.com is an American dot-com company that provides a website builder, along with website hosting, domain name registration, web development, and various digital marketing services. It serves as a partner for very small to small-sized businesses and entrepreneurs, assisting them in establishing and expanding their online presence.
Typosquatting, also called URL hijacking, a sting site, a cousin domain, or a fake URL, is a form of cybersquatting, and possibly brandjacking which relies on mistakes such as typos made by Internet users when inputting a website address into a web browser. A user accidentally entering an incorrect website address may be led to any URL, including an alternative website owned by a cybersquatter.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Inc. (ICIJ), is an independent global network of 280 investigative journalists and over 140 media organizations spanning more than 100 countries. It is based in Washington, D.C., with personnel in Australia, France, Spain, Hungary, Serbia, Belgium and Ireland.
Top Level Design is a company in the United States, and the domain name registry for the generic top-level domains .wiki, .ink, and .gay. Ray King serves as its chief executive officer.
.club, often stylized as .CLUB and sometimes dot-club, is a top-level domain (TLD). It was proposed in ICANN's new generic top-level domain (gTLD) program, and became available to the general public on May 7, 2014. GoDaddy is the domain name registry for the string.
Uniregistry is a large retail domain name registrar and web services provider; as well as a domain name registry that administers generic top-level domains. In February 2013, the related company Uniregistrar Corporation became an ICANN-accredited registrar and launched under the licensed Uniregistry brand name in 2014. Uniregistry's acquisition by GoDaddy was announced in February 2020.
OneCoin is a fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme conducted by offshore companies OneCoin Ltd, based in Bulgaria and registered in Dubai, and OneLife Network Ltd, both founded by Ruja Ignatova in concert with Sebastian Greenwood. OneCoin is considered a Ponzi scheme due to its organisational structure of paying early investors using money obtained from newer ones. It was also a pyramid scheme due to the recruiting of investors without providing any actual product. The company maintained its own database of coins rather than using a blockchain and had no mining process which limited its ability to release and circulate coins. Many of the people central to OneCoin had been previously involved in similar schemes and business malpractice. OneCoin was described by The Times as "one of the biggest scams in history".
Epik is an American domain registrar and web hosting company known for providing services to alt-tech websites that host far-right, neo-Nazi, and other extremist materials. It has been described as a "safehaven for the extreme right" because of its willingness to provide services to far-right websites that have been denied service by other Internet service providers.
Robert W. Monster is a Dutch-American technology executive and the founder, former chief executive officer, and current chairman of Epik, a domain registrar and web host known for providing services to websites that host far-right, neo-Nazi, and extremist content.
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An SSA impersonation scam, or SSA scam, is a class of telecommunications scam targeting citizens of the United States by impersonating Social Security Administration employees. SSA scams are typically initiated through pre-recorded messages, or robocalls, that use social engineering to make victims panic and ensure they follow instructions given to them. In 2018, over 35,000 instances of SSA scam robocalls were reported to the Better Business Bureau with over $10 million lost by victims. Approximately 47% of Americans were subject to an SSA scam robocall during a three-month period between mid- to late 2020, and 21% of seniors were subject to at least three robocalls during the same time period.
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The company routinely incorporates thousands of businesses on behalf of its customers using fake personas. Former Registered Agents Inc. employees say that the company's widespread use of personas is an outgrowth of its founder's obsession with privacy and a desire to push the boundaries of incorporation laws.
Until last month, the company listed "Bill Havre" as board president and executive director...ICIJ and The Post searched public records in Wyoming and across the United States, including voter registration and property records, and found no one listed by that name.