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