Investigating & Recovering Hidden Money & Other Assets
If assets are hidden in multiple jurisdictions, it can be necessary to conduct asset searches of foreign banks or other witnesses residing offshore. Such “offshore asset searches” typically involve Letters Rogatory, (a.k.a Legal Assistance Requests), which may be used to compel foreign banks or other witnesses residing offshore to give:
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Hiding assets in offshore or foreign bank accounts, is the focus of this "Asset Search News Roundup". As I explained in "Using Multiple Jurisdictions To Launder Money", a common method of hiding assets is "putting assets offshore in one jurisdiction and exercising control over them through another". Those using multiple jurisdictions to hide…
Money laundering typically involves disguising the true beneficial ownership of funds or other assets which are the proceeds of crime. Because money laundering often extends beyond just one nation’s borders, over 170 jurisdictions worldwide have adopted the anti-money laundering policies of the Financial Action Task Force. Some nations also follow the anti-money laundering recommendations…
The Bank of Lithuania, (i.e. the central bank of Lithuania), announced its recent anti-money laundering measures at a May 15, 2008 board meeting. The Bank’s focus on money laundering might already be paying off. The Financial Intelligence Unit for Lithuania for example, recently detained two international gang members for suspected money laundering.
According to…
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…
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,…
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,…
As the Anti Money Laundering Blog mentioned on April 1, 2008, the U.S. State Department has listed the United Kingdom as a Major Money Laundering Country in 2008. The State Department however, had also previously listed the United Kingdom as a Major Money Laundering Country in 2007.
The State Department releases its…
The following occurred over a four month period during 2002, and has been supplied by an investigator I have worked with. Some of it has been changed / sanitized for privacy reasons:
As part of his tax fraud, “Mr. Wallace” contacted a Cayman Island bank by mail in order to open…
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has disseminated a list with about 1400 suspected tax cheats on it, all of whom maintained offshore bank accounts through Liechtenstein’s LGT Group. As the CNBC article “Europe Tax Evasion Probe Going Global” mentioned, an LGT employee stole the list in 2002 and eventually sold…