September 2012 - All in Investigations

Asset Search Uncovers Ruse of Properties Transferred to Business

A search to locate hidden assets is not always linked to divorce proceedings. is often asked to complete an asset investigation to find hidden assets in business situations. Because of our professional standing and expertise, has access to data bases and changes which makes locating hidden assets efficient in both the time and cost involved. Recently we were contacted by a lending organization and asked to see if we could be successful in finding hidden assets they suspected a borrower owned. The company had secured a judgment against the borrower relating to a foreclosure on a piece of property. The borrower was linked to two companies, both of which had been dissolved. Or, at least they had been dissolved administratively through paperwork. The lender asked [...]

Technical Surveillance Countermeasures Can Start Outside

You may think that tapping phone lines at your home means someone has to gain access inside the house. While it is possible to install phone tapping devices inside the rooms of your home or office, but you have to know that a bad guy doesn’t even have to get in your house to tap a phone line. A visit to the outside box or the riser could result in the bad guy getting access to your phone line and adding a phone tap device. That’s right. A visit to the box that’s on the outside of your home or office could provide the opportunity for your phone lines to be tampered with and allow your conversations to be overheard. It’s not just the box [...]

Due Diligence Circles the Globe

Municipalities and organizations representing towns, cities, counties and states actively court businesses around the globe to come set up shop in their locales to boost jobs and revenues. When a business from another state or country indicates interest, there is a lot of excitement. However, the potential for consummating a deal has to be tempered by reason. Often that reason extends to a due diligence checklist involving the financial soundness of the business. It should also include a due diligence investigation regarding the business and the executives personally running the business. Your parents might admonish that you are counting your chickens before they hatch if you are part of one of those organizations and don’t perform due diligence to understand who you are inviting into [...]

Preserving Evidence is Part of Cell Phone Investigations

Cell phone analysis and forensics covers so many different applications that it is difficult to lump it into one particular use. For instance, when a crime is committed, the police authorities are finding that forensic cell phone data recovery can provide vital information. Because they are able to recover cell phone data, the sequence of events can often be outlined in a factual and objective manner. Likewise, in the process of an attorney attempting to get a jury to convict or acquit their client, cell phone records are equally as valuable. The thing about the data on a cell phone is that even when a user thinks he has deleted the evidence, through cell phone deleted data recovery, a forensic expert can retrieve data and [...]

Due Diligence is Much More than Crunching Numbers

Acquisitions, mergers and partnerships are the trend in business today. Organizations, groups and people are pooling their resources to grow and develop a stronger foundation. Sounds like a great thing, doesn’t it? It is – when everyone is honest and everyone has the best interest of all in mind. That is not always the case and it can have a devastating outcome when something goes awry. The thing is, it’s not just one small business owner that can be targeted and duped – it can be big organizations, municipal agencies, municipalities themselves or even states. No one is immune or safe from deceit. The answer is to perform due diligence. When most people think of a due diligence process, they think lots of numbers and [...]

Private Investigators Follow the Money to Help Determine if a Lawsuit is Viable

Do you ever wonder how attorneys decide if they will take a case, especially those cases where the attorney only gets paid if they win the lawsuit? We get calls from attorneys all the time asking, “Can you check this out? I want to know if there really is a case here.” We call it a pre-litigation case. It works like this: An attorney is approached by a potential client with a case. The attorney’s compensation would be on a contingency basis, meaning he would get a portion of the award. He contacts us to investigate whether or not the subject of the suit has the means to pay; assets to cover the amount of a court-ordered award. Depending on the outcome of our investigation, [...]

Missing man’s story has happy ending

has had some cases that have taken some interesting turns, that’s for sure. We were contacted by a family for help in finding a missing person - their son. He was in his mid-twenties and had taken his wife of two years to South America for vacation. She retuned alone saying he had disappeared and she had no idea where he was. The parents made some inquiries, but were unable to locate any trace of him. It appeared, just like the wife said, that he had simply vanished. Figuring out that finding a missing person is not an easy task, especially outside the country, they turned to . It didn’t take too long before our missing person investigator found him - in a South American [...]

Computer Spyware is a Real and Viable Threat

TV, movies and media provide a glimpse into situations that the everyday person may not consider reality. However, we in the investigative world see that not everything is so fantastic that it is improbable. Take a scene from a sitcom where one character witnesses what is going on in his ex-wife’s home because his son left the webcam turned on on his computer. He hadn’t set it up so he could spy on her, but that doesn’t mean that someone else couldn’t or wouldn’t do that. Or consider that recent AP article reporting that some group (thought to be a middle-eastern government) actually infiltrated the computer systems in the nuclear centrifuge in Iran in 2010 through the use of webcams and microphones. They called it [...]

If You’re Asking, “Is My Office Bugged?” You Need to Talk to

If a bad guy has access to your environment, they can plant a bug. The most common way a bad guy gains access to a home or business is through the “service technician ruse.” It isn’t just in the movies, but in real life, too. He dresses as a service technician and says he is there to perform some service. While he is on the premises, he installs the bug. You might be surprised how easy it is for bad guys to do that. Security processes need to be established in every business, because every home and business is vulnerable without them. It’s important to only allow in workers that you have called to come provide a service, for you to see identification and to [...]

Monthly Archives: September 2012