KYC/AML for Offshore Trusts and Layering

Been dealing with a new client onboarding and it's brought up the usual headaches with offshore structures. Specifically, when you've got a trust registered in, say, BVI or Cayman, and then that trust holds interests in various private entities which then, finally, holds the actual assets or operating business.

My question is, what's your practical approach to piercing through these layers for KYC/AML? We're talking about identifying ultimate beneficial owners (UBOs) here. The documentation can be exhaustive, and sometimes deliberately opaque. What are the common red flags you look for beyond just the standard 'country risk' associated with the jurisdiction itself? Are there specific types of trust provisions or corporate resolutions that set off alarms for you? And how do you balance the regulatory expectation of 'reasonable measures' against the practical limits of what can actually be uncovered without hiring a private investigator for every case? It feels like a constant battle between compliance ideals and operational reality, especially with smaller firms lacking big bank resources.