Investigating & Recovering Hidden Money & Other Assets
Financial investigators, bankruptcy trustees, judgment creditors, etc., sometimes research** the following kinds of records / databases as part of a low-cost asset search:
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Nathan Vardi’s Forbes.com article "Cash Is King", describes some of the ways funds can be transferred during money laundering:
"Cash Is King" also briefly quotes me and mentions that cash is hard to trace. Illicit cash can of course still be detected…
In the recent past, bearer shares especially allowed for anonymous corporate ownership. A corporation that issued bearer shares had no central registry of the bearer share ownership. As a glossary from the The Financial Action Task Force explains, “[b]earer shares refers to negotiable instruments that accord ownership in a legal person to the person…
The information supplied by foreign financial investigators indicated the divorcing husband had hidden marital assets offshore. Evidence gathered during the divorce also suggested that the husband might have committed a tax fraud in hiding the marital assets.
To try to detect any additional assets hidden by the husband, I contacted Brian. Brian was a former…
During forced collection / attachment proceedings, the Debtor alleged that he could not pay the Creditor because of an arm’s length business loan from “Offshore Lender” in the millions. The Debtor further claimed that he had collateralized his business loan with mortgages, promissory notes and U.C.C. liens, on nearly all of his property.
Through subpoenas…
An investigation of a high-risk geographical location can sometimes uncover assets which have been hidden through: nominees; shell companies; cash couriers; wire transfers; credit cards; informal banking systems, etc. For example, one way the IRS focuses on high-risk locations like tax havens, is to compare the banking information it receives from the Financial Crimes…
Beneficial owners can try to use a nominee, (i.e. intermediary/straw owner), to hide money with complete anonymity in a bank account. Through websites like Offshore-Protection.com beneficial owners may purchase a shell company and retain a nominee director for the shell company. The beneficial owner may then title a bank account in…
“I’m out of the asset forfeiture business and Title-III wiretaps too”, Donnie remarked as we discussed the Drug Enforcement Administration’s on-going effort to find hidden assets related to drug trafficking and other crime. Donnie had retired from the DEA after serving twenty-one years as a Special Agent. Now he was deployed to the…
People don’t typically think of the common money laundering indicia when searching for hidden assets the subject of a: divorce; bankruptcy; commercial collection or other legal proceeding. Such indicia can be effectively used as part of an asset search / recovery effort even in situations where there is no money laundering. In the United States,…
An asset search covering a number of countries is sometimes necessary if monies the subject of a divorce, bankruptcy, or debt collection proceeding are hidden in a money laundering circuit. This can be true because “[l]arge-scale money laundering schemes invariably contain cross-border elements,” as mentioned by the Financial Action Task Force’s webpage.
Domestic…