I recently read Billion Dollar Whale (https://www.amazon.com/Billion-Dollar-Whale-Fooled-Hollywood...) which I enjoyed. It seemed to me to be surprisingly easy to launder money through shell companies like the ones listed here. I would speculate also that a company with many name changes would involved in some weird stuff.
I don't know where you are learning your ethics, but misrepresenting yourself to a potential client is pretty standard, boilerplate fraud. Not criminal (usually), but it is a civil breach of contract.