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Production Request
You might be able to access your adversary’s passport; credit card statements & phone records via a production request.

If you are a divorcing spouse, judgment creditor or other litigant, how do you conclusively establish whether or not assets have been hidden from you? You can sometimes reasonably determine this by using legal tools to search for assets. In a pending litigation, these tools might include: depositions; subpoenas; interrogatories; production requests; etc.

Below is part of a production request in the hypothetical case of “JOHN DOE.” The production request seeks access to JOHN DOE’s passport; credit cards; phone records; etc. By analyzing this kind of material one might possibly detect secret offshore bank accounts or other hidden assets.

PRODUCTION REQUEST

1.     JOHN DOE’s original passport of which FRED L. ABRAMS, ESQ. (or his representative), may possess for a period of not more than 45 minutes to photocopy and return to JOHN DOE.

2.     All paid and unpaid invoices from creditors arising from obligations incurred by JOHN DOE for the period January 1, 2011 to present.

3.     All of JOHN DOE’s telephone records, (including cell phone records), for the period of January 1, 2011 to date.

4.     Receipts and copies of airplane tickets for all air flights JOHN DOE traveled, during January 1, 2011 up to the present date.

5.     All frequent flyer miles statements relating to any air flights JOHN DOE traveled, during January 1, 2011 up to the present date.

6.     Receipts or documents relating to all hotel accommodations JOHN DOE paid for or hotels JOHN DOE stayed at anytime during the period of January 1, 2011 to the present.

7.     All records and documents relating to any transaction entered into on or after January 1, 2011 in which JOHN DOE presently has or will have a financial interest or from which JOHN DOE has received or will receive compensation of any nature.

8.     All documents related to any transaction since January 1, 2011, entered into by another person or entity for the benefit in whole or in part, of JOHN DOE.

9.     All documents showing the amount, purpose or source of all payments over $5,000.00 made since January 1, 2011, to, by or for the benefit of JOHN DOE.

10.  Copies of all of JOHN DOE’s current and previous wills and other estate planning documents.
Continue Reading Using A Production Request In Your Asset Search

Following A Money Trail

High net worth divorcing spouses, kleptocrats, bankruptcy debtors, judgment debtors, etc., can easily conceal their beneficially owned assets by utilizing Nominee Incorporation Services (“NIS”). Pages 63-64 of “The 2007 National Money Laundering Strategy” essentially explained that individuals may use NIS in schemes to hide assets through money laundering. Individuals sometimes hire…

Image Offshore Assets

The following can help you detect money concealed in an offshore bank account:

I.  DETECT A MONEY TRAIL

When an adversary hides funds at an offshore bank there is always an electronic trace. The trace occurs because the bank stores electronic information comprised of: bank account opening documents; bank signature cards; monthly bank statements; etc.  …

Schemes to hide assets can involve bulk-cash smuggling combined with other methods.
A scheme to hide assets from you may be carried out by combining bulk-cash smuggling with other concealment methods.

A divorcing spouse; judgment debtor; tax cheat; etc. may use several methods to conceal assets. “Red Flags For An Asset Search” listed 18 of these methods.  The methods…

1782 article part 2
This 28th post in the “Divorce & Hidden Money” series mentions the petition Helga Glock filed in the U.S. to collect financial records for her Austrian alimony & asset distribution case against gun mogul Gaston Glock.

Part 1 of the instant post notes that if your divorce is…

Divorce Image 1782 Petition

This 27th post in the “Divorce & Hidden Money” series looks at a way to search for assets in the U.S. when your underlying divorce case is brought outside of the U.S.

If your underlying divorce case is commenced in a foreign country, how do you search for secret bank accounts or other…

Corruption Proceeds Illustration

Transparency International leads the fight against public corruption which includes bribery & theft by government officials.  It basically says that corruption proceeds are transferred offshore & are one of the sources of illicit financial flows.  How do financial investigators across the globe search for these illicit assets?  One way they search is by looking…

Real Estate Leskovskiy
A divorcing spouse can hide marital assets by laundering them in a scheme to purchase real estate.

This 26th post in the “Divorce & Hidden Money” series describes one way assets may be laundered through the purchase of real estate.  It supplies the hypothetical situation of “Mark,” a high…

shutterstock_74836111

If you are a divorcing spouse, judgment creditor or anyone else who believes they may need to do a bank search to locate hidden assets parked offshore, read this post to see how individuals sometimes hide their assets.  It covers the legal remedies that may be available to you in your asset search for offshore bank accounts.  This post was first published in 2013 and was called “Hidden Assets Offshore & A Bank Search To Find Them.”

Beneficial owners around the world are able to secretly transfer assets across international borders into offshore bank accounts.  The beneficial owners sometimes do this by money laundering through multiple jurisdictions; bulk-cash smuggling; back-to-back loans; shell companies; nominee incorporation services & gatekeepers like lawyers.  Legal remedies are however, usually available for finding hidden assets transferred offshore.  These remedies may even include seeking a court order directing a Swiss or other offshore bank to perform a bank search and disclose bank customer information.

MONEY LAUNDERING

The link chart below describes how one divorcing husband concealed both undeclared revenue and marital assets via multiple jurisdictions.¹  The husband laundered millions from the U.S., through a Swiss bank and a German one.  Prior to the equitable distribution hearing in his divorce, the husband alleged he had a liability of $29 million owed to a prime bank in Germany because of an arm’s length business loan.  As this link chart reveals, the supposed arm’s length loan was back-to-back , (i.e. a fully collateralized loan in which the borrower and the lender are one and the same):

(Click On The Link Chart To Enlarge)

Continue Reading An Asset Search To Find Secret Offshore Bank Accounts

shutterstock_115001698Part 1 of this post discussed the judgment creditors in Havlish v. bin Laden who are are trying to interdict assets owned by Iran.  Part 1 explained the judgment creditors sought to attach monies reportedly earmarked for the purchase of Airbus aircraft. Before seeking the attachment of the monies, the judgment creditors subpoenaed confidential information …