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
This post discusses when federal prosecutors might initiate a criminal prosecution against private investigators and their clients as a consequence of an illegal asset search. It is the 7th post in my series covering private investigators.
If you are a divorcing spouse; heir under a will; a creditor; etc., you may hire a private
Determined criminals sometimes conceal their illicit cash by laundering it through banks located in multiple jurisdictions. Criminals are not the only ones concealing assets by using bank accounts in multiple jurisdictions. Whether you are a divorcing spouse; a creditor in a bankruptcy case; are collecting money owed on a judgment; etc., these ideas may
The instant post analyzes 2 mistakes I occasionally see divorcing spouses make when they consider whether to search for marital assets hidden from them. It is the 20th post in the “Divorce & Hidden Money” series:
This video¹ discusses ways assets can be concealed via money laundering. As the video observes, billions are thought to be laundered worldwide & “laundering takes place within our everyday world of routine business transactions.”
Looking for laundered assets can be critical to a successful asset search, my last post says
A divorcing spouse could conceivably hide the following types of assets offshore: bank accounts; business entities; trust funds; real estate; aircrafts & yachts; automobiles; fine art and other valuables. Leads which may help reveal the existence of these offshore assets might be elicited from a divorcing spouse’s: passport(s); frequent flyer mile program
My last 2 posts discussed asset recovery tools such as recognizing red flags & using compelled consent forms. Assets might also be recovered as a consequence of researching public records. This 18th post in the “Divorce & Hidden Money” series focuses on how one can perform a low-cost asset search by digging
This 17th post in the “Divorce & Hidden Money” series details how compelled consent forms are sometimes used to gather confidential foreign bank account records. In Doe v. United States, 487 U.S. 201, 108 S. Ct. 2341, 101 L. Ed. 2d 184 (1988), the Court talked about using these forms in connection
If a divorcing spouse hides marital assets there usually are red flags. Red flags are also often found when assets have been hidden by tax fraudsters, Ponzi schemers, bankruptcy debtors, money launderers & narco-traffickers. This 16th post in the “Divorce & Hidden Money ” series examines the red flags.
Red flags indicating assets might have
This post describes a case in which illicit drug monies were concealed offshore and laundered via a Cayman Island bank account. The case is also about tax fraud; identity theft and a murder. I published the post earlier at the Asset Search Blog and have used the post as a handout at many of my speaking engagements. It is an example of how financial fraudsters can operate. Some of the facts below have been changed/sanitized for privacy reasons. The following occurred over a four month period during 2002:
As part of his tax fraud, “Mr. Wallace” contacted a Cayman Island bank by mail in order to open a personal account with it. He mailed account opening documents to it which included a copy of his U.S. passport and also supplied the names of references. According to these documents, Mr. Wallace lived in Miami and was a real estate developer. Based upon all of the foregoing, the Cayman Island bank opened Mr. Wallace’s personal account with a “O” balance. Just six days later however, bank “X” in Panama wired $6.3 million to Mr. Wallace’s Cayman account without any mention of the remitter.
Mr. Wallace then went on a business trip to Central America for several months; so he rented his Miami home to “Chuck”. Although Mr. Wallace hadn’t known at the time, Chuck was a small-time crook. In fact, soon after Chuck took possession of Mr. Wallace’s home, Chuck started stealing Mr. Wallace’s mail. One of the letters Chuck had stolen was written by “Bob”, a personal banker from the Cayman Island bank where Mr. Wallace maintained his account. Bob had written to Mr. Wallace about a lucrative investment opportunity.
Surmising from Bob’s letter that Mr. Wallace had a sizable bank account, Chuck wrote to Bob pretending to be Mr. Wallace. As the sanitized copy of Chuck’s First Letter partly demonstrates, Chuck had assumed Mr. Wallace’s identity in that particular letter by forging Mr. Wallace’s signature. To comfort Bob, Chuck’s First Letter had also asked Bob for the minimum balance required to keep Mr. Wallace’s account open. Chuck’s “softening up” letter further suggested to Bob that Mr. Wallace’s funds might soon be needed “at very short notice” for an alleged real estate deal in Mexico. In the sanitized copy of Chuck’s Second Letter, Chuck again pretended to be Mr. Wallace as he wrote to Bob at the Cayman Island bank. In his Second Letter, Chuck directed the wire transfer of Mr. Wallace’s funds from the Cayman Island bank to Chuck’s own bank account in Mexico.
Continue Reading A Case of Tax Fraud, Identity Theft & Murder
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