“Better Call Saul” & “Breaking Bad” remind us to look during asset searches for lawyers hiding money. In these fictional cable TV series, criminal defense lawyer Saul Goodman laundered money for meth maker Walter White & his co-conspirator Jesse Pinkman. At Breaking Bad’s Season 3, Episode 11 for example, Saul Goodman recommended washing illicit
Hiding Money By Rigging Court Cases
One money laundering method involves hiding money by rigging court cases.¹ A plaintiff sues a defendant over a supposed breach of contract. Meanwhile, nobody knows the defendant is the plaintiff’s strawperson and the two have rigged the court case. When the plaintiff wins the bogus breach of contract case, the Court issues a money judgment
Divorce & Hidden Money: A Husband Thought To Be A Smurf
This 40th post in my Divorce & Hidden Money series mentions Mr. Vardan Keshishyan, who reportedly hid money from his divorcing wife by smurfing (a.k.a structuring ). In the context of money laundering, a smurf makes cash deposits below a bank’s threshold for reporting cash deposits to the government. By doing this the smurf
Track Hidden Money Senator Warren’s Plan Says
Last Tuesday Senator Warren released her plan to track hidden money & fight corruption. Money launderers, tax dodgers, narco-traffickers; terrorist financiers and other fraudsters can easily establish shell companies without disclosing who actually owns the shell companies. They open bank accounts and maintain the bank accounts in the names of the shell companies,
Your Asset Search For Stock Share Certificates
An asset search for stock share certificates begins with looking for red flags. These red flags are listed at the July 2019 paper “FIU Tools and Practices for Investigating Laundering of The Proceeds of Corruption.” As page 19 paragraph 29 of the paper says, you should look for:
“[R]eceiv[ing] or purchas[ing] shares
Mobsters & Fraudsters Accused Of Hiding Assets Via Formations House
Mobsters and fraudsters hiding assets seem to favor Formations House in London, an Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project webpage revealed. The webpage is called “#29LEAKS: Inside A London Company Mill.” Its first paragraph describes some of the customers thought to use Formations House:
What do a Swedish Hells Angels boss, an Iranian state oil
Hidden Money At Offshore Banks & Suspected Money Laundering
Today’s post is about Mr. Alex Nain Saab Moran (“Saab”) and Mr. Alvaro Pulido Vargas (“Pulido”) who could have hidden money at offshore banks; multiple jurisdictions; and in a nominee bank account (i.e. a bank account titled in the name of an intermediary). I listed these three methods for hiding assets at “Red
Money Laundering Indicators In Dan Horsky’s Case
In USA v Dan Horsky prosecutors claimed Mr. Horsky had hidden money in Zurich, Switzerland at Credit Suisse and at other offshore banks. The gravamen of the allegations at Mr. Horsky’s criminal complaint was that Mr. Horsky concealed $200 million from the IRS in a tax fraud scheme. Two years ago Mr. Horsky was
Asset Searches & Open Source Intelligence
I) WEBSITES THAT CAN HELP YOUR ASSET SEARCHES
This is my 12th post covering what private investigators can and can not legally do when conducting asset searches. One thing most private investigators do during asset searches is look for publicly available information a.k.a. Open Source Intelligence (“OSINT”). Websites that can help private investigators collect
Divorce & Hidden Money: Ways To Hide Money & Commit Crimes
HIDDEN MONEY & CRIMES
When one spouse uses different ways to hide money from the other spouse, criminal laws are sometimes violated. The spouse who has hidden money because of a divorce could conceivably commit one or more of these crimes: