Harold is an asset recovery agent, ("repo man"), who works in New England. He sometimes lives out of his tow truck for a couple of days while searching for a particular debtor’s automobile. When I recently called Harold on his cell phone, he said: "Until I put the GPS in my tow truck, I had boxes and boxes of road maps. I’ve also been doing most of my skip-tracing from the truck, right on my laptop. I am in the middle of a repo right now and a lady is running out of her house into the street. She is yelling at me, can I call you right back?"
Harold does Internet research on his laptop via the website of IRB, at www.irbsearch.com. IRB is a comprehensive search service similar to SmartLinx and DEBTORDiscovery, which were mentioned at my post "A Low-Cost Asset Search". Harold often uses IRB to identify the name and address of a relative, friend or neighbor who may be hiding an automobile as a debtor’s nominee. Some debtors, divorcing spouses, etc. however, do not just simply use a nominee to conceal their automobiles. In some debt collection, divorce or bankruptcy proceedings, an automobile may even be registered in or moved through multiple jurisdictions in order to conceal it.
In U.S.A. v. Henry, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Index No. 1:06 Cr 00079, Mr. Henry for example, was accused of concealing his $113,000 dollar Porsche 911 during his Chapter 7 bankruptcy. According to pages 11-14 of his Second Superseding Indictment, (and other documents), Mr. Henry had concealed his Porsche by temporarily registering / insuring it out of the District of Columbia in the name of a nominee– his brother in New York.
The Second Superseding Indictment further alleged that Mr. Henry had engaged in a health care fraud scheme, and had purchased his Porsche with illicit proceeds from the same. He was also accused of using his purchase of the Porsche as a means to launder money from his health care fraud. Mr. Henry ultimately pleaded guilty to charges of health care fraud and agreed to forfeit his Porsche, as mentioned by paragraph "7" of the Government’s plea offer. As the Court’s December 13, 2007 Judgment mentioned, Mr. Henry was sentenced to twenty months of prison.
Copyright 2008 Fred L. Abrams