Shell companies, meaning businesses that have a legal structure but no real operations or assets, have been used extensively in money laundering, proliferation finance, sanctions evasion, tax evasion, and other types of financial crimes. There is now evidence that shell companies are increasingly being used for strategic trade control violations too. This is good news for financial institutions: existing controls designed to detect the misuse of shell companies for other financial crimes will catch export control-related activity in their net too – but some adaptations are required.