Over-regulation in the international trust industry has not helped.  Originally, important "know your customer" rules were implemented to curb terrorism financing, but then that expanded to try and detect a much broader set of financial crimes and socially less-desirable activities.

Over the past decade, many of these so called "secrecy" jurisdictions have ramped up regulation.  They now impose onerous due diligence requirements simply to show the world that they appear to be doing something useful. Prospective clients are put to a time-consuming paper chase to furnish passports, utility bills, bank references, and letters of recommendation from lawyers and accountants. What in the world does your CPA's blessing have to do with protecting one's assets?  And do you really want to trust that your private financial information won't be sold to the highest bidder by a government clerk sitting in one of these third world countries?

It only gets worse if you try and open a bank account... Did you know that many international banks want to see five years of your past tax returns before they will even talk to you?  That's right:  The rules that were designed to stamp out a couple of guys hiding out in a cave in Afghanistan has now fostered an entire industry of regulators and service providers bent on making sure that you pay a small fortune to prove that you are a good citizen.