I first wrote about Donnie in my post, Forfeiture & The DEA’s Asset Search. In that post, I mentioned that Donnie was a former Special Agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration who had gone to Iraq to train Iraqi Police. Donnie recently left the Numaniyah National Police Training Academy to travel about an hour’s
Asset Search/Fraud Investigation
A Doctor’s Health Insurance Fraud With Tax Evasion
By Fred Abrams on
Ndubuisi Joseph Okafor, M.D., had practiced primary care medicine through the Okafor Group in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area. He was however, sentenced in U.S.A. v. Okafor, to 65 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release for health insurance fraud and tax evasion. He was also ordered to pay restitution in…
Second Army Major Guilty Of Bribery
In "Army Major Arrested For Money Laundering", I described how Major John Cockerham and his wife Melissa Cockerham were prosecuted for a bribery / money laundering scheme. According to their indictment, Major Cockerham had taken bribes as an Army Contracting Officer in Kuwait while awarding contracts for bottled water, etc. Since their indictment, …
An Asset Search With Letters Rogatory
By Fred Abrams on
A litigant demonstrating that an adversary has hidden assets offshore, bears the burden of proof in court under Federal Rule of Evidence 301 or other evidentiary rules. Such a litigant may be able to satisfy this burden with admissible evidence like authenticated copies of an adversary’s offshore bank account records. Evidence like admissible copies of…
Offering Offshore Asset Protection To Tax Cheats
By Fred Abrams on
At “Asset Search vs. Offshore Asset Protection“, I wrote that offshore asset protection services were being used to conceal assets from IRS revenue officers and others. The Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee On Investigations, just issued a 114-page report examining this same issue. The Report entitled, Tax Haven Banks And U.S. Tax Compliance,…
Pretexting During An Asset Search
Privacy and other federal laws generally prohibit pretexting, (the use of false pretenses), when contacting a U.S. bank, phone company or government agency for confidential information. One example of pretexting would be using a false identity while phoning a bank to elicit a bank customer’s personal account information. If an information broker, private investigator,…
Concealing Assets By Conveying Them
By Fred Abrams on
According to Kohl v. Kohl, the Manhattan District Attorney had investigated N.Y.C. contractor Ted Kohl in 1995 for alleged money laundering, larceny and tax evasion. Mr. Kohl had also been the subject of an asset forfeiture claim because of the District Attorney’s investigation. As a countermeasure to the forfeiture claim, Mr. Kohl conveyed assets…
An Asset Search For Automobiles
By Fred Abrams on
Posted in Asset Search/Fraud Investigation, Bankruptcy
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…
A Low-Cost Asset Search
By Fred Abrams on
Financial investigators, bankruptcy trustees, judgment creditors, etc., sometimes research** the following kinds of records / databases as part of a low-cost asset search:
- Real Estate Searches: Some government databases provide for free real property searches, like New York City’s Automated City Register System (“ACRIS”) at “http://www.nyc.gov/html/dof/html/jump/acris.shtml”. ACRIS permits one to search
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Puerto Rico’s Governor & Public Corruption
Mr. Reinaldo Cestero is a private investigator and a retired Chief Deputy United States Marshal, who works in Puerto Rico. I asked Mr. Cestero about the superseding indictment filed in U.S.A. v. Acevedo-Vila, et. al., which charged Puerto Rico’s Governor Anibal Acevedo Vila, (and /or twelve co-defendants), with: conspiracy; false statements; wire fraud;…