Church’s propensity for secrecy likely was a cause of deception that led to $5M fine

SEC order detailed creation of shell companies to hide investments

The Church Office Building, headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in downtown Salt Lake City. Image adapted from Wikimedia.org photo, CC BY-SA 3.0 license.

It has long been no secret that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has billions of dollars in assets, not only in its thousands of buildings scattered throughout…