This is my 21st post in the Divorce & Hidden Money series. It is also the 8th post in my series describing what private investigators can and cannot do legally when searching for hidden assets. My July 13th post mentioned private investigators & their clients using law enforcement databases and illegal pretext calls to search for assets. As a practicing attorney, I am aware of another kind of asset search which would be illegal & this post describes it. The post provides a hypothetical account which discusses a divorcing wife who hired a private investigator. The private investigator in this hypothetical account, illegally obtains bank account information from an insider—a teller at a bank located in Nevada.
THE DIVORCING WIFE IN NEW JERSEY
Even though Ralph was a medical doctor with a thriving private practice, Ralph claimed in his New Jersey divorce that he had a low net worth. Ralph’s divorcing wife Nancy suspected Ralph had hidden money in anticipation of the divorce. Nancy gathered documents she obtained during the pretrial discovery phase of the divorce and before.
These documents included copies of Ralph’s: passport, statements for airline frequent flyer miles, phone bills, tax filings and additional financial records. Nancy gave the documents to Mike, the licensed private investigator Nancy retained to perform an asset search regarding Ralph. After conducting an investigation for more than a month, Mike told Nancy that Ralph hid monies at offshore banks and at a bank in Nevada.
THE SEARCH FOR SECRET BANK ACCOUNTS
Mike stated that Ralph secretly maintained about $2.5 million dollars in the offshore bank accounts which were located in high-risk geographical locations known for money laundering. Ralph had supposedly hidden another $85,000 dollars in the secret bank account in Nevada. Mike explained to Nancy that he could collect evidence regarding the secret bank accounts by conducting searches at the Nevada and the offshore banks.
Nancy paid Mike over $10,000 dollars for the bank account searches and Mike provided Nancy with an investigative report summarizing his search results. The report named the offshore banks and the Nevada bank Ralph supposedly used to hide his money. It supplied the purported secret bank account numbers; account balances and detailed the bank signatory information.
The report meanwhile, never explained the source of Mike’s information/how Mike detected Ralph’s supposed secret bank accounts. When Nancy asked Mike how he had obtained the information at the report, Mike said the report was completely reliable. A trusted colleague supplied Ralph’s offshore bank account information, Mike said. Mike also explained he obtained Ralph’s Nevada bank account information from an “insider”, a teller who worked for the Nevada bank. According to Mike, the insider used the bank’s computer system to sneak a peek at Ralph’s $85,000 dollar bank account.
THE U.S. CRIMINAL LAW VIOLATION IN NEVADA
Assuming that Mike’s representations to Nancy were true, then the bank teller and Mike could have violated privacy and other U.S. laws. The two may have conspired to access Ralph’s Nevada bank account information in violation of 18 U.S.C. §1030 (Fraud and related activity in connection with computers). Another type of case involving an insider at a bank was U.S.A. v. Feliciano, 2:09−cr−00197−NS. The March 2009 indictment filed in Feliciano, alleged that a bank teller had stolen confidential customer information as part of a bank fraud/identity theft scheme.
First Image: Patrick Brassat/Shutterstock.com
Second image courtesy of Flickr (Licensed) by Tsahi Levent-Levi
Copyright 2015 Fred L. Abrams