“It’s actually the whole US that really is a good place to hide money,” Lowe said. “But it happens so that over a half of the corporations in America are formed in Delaware and, of course, you need to have somebody that owns the accounts that are throughout the US.”

So, she said, the focus of that particular study was on Delaware simply because the majority of corporations are in this US state.

The ranking means that “we have a problem here in the US.”

The news didn’t come as a surprise for those working in the area.

“If you ask any of the governments and any of the ‘traditional’ tax havens that most people hear about, they would tell you the same: that the US is also a tax haven,” Lowe said. “We have very low taxes and we have quite a lot of banking secrecy and corporate secrecy.”

As for why this hasn’t come up before, the expert said it’s because the “financial system in the US is massive; they are huge lobby and they’ve been lobbying for a very long time to keep status quo.”

The news wasn’t a surprise to the world’s criminals either.

“If you are a drug dealer down in Mexico or Venezuela, you know where your accounts should be held – they should be held in the US,” Lowe said.