December 2013 - All in Investigations

Product Liability Cases Could Hinge on Investigative Services

Why would your attorney need an investigator for a personal injury lawsuit or a product liability case? Besides helping your attorney compile evidence, documentation and coordinate expert witness research, analysis and testimony, there are two other important roles can take on in product liability lawsuits: Locate and identify additional potential claimants Research consumer complaints It is not unusual for a personal injury lawsuit to evolve into a product liability lawsuit as well. And, if you or someone you care about has experienced a loss or have a claim against the manufacturers of a product, chances are you are not alone. Finding others who have a potential claim is part of a product liability investigation. In fact, product liability investigations may be the only way to [...]

Cellular Forensics is a Powerful Defense Tool

It’s more and more common now to hear comparisons between the use of DNA evidence and cell phone forensic evidence. Here at we have seen mobile phone forensics quickly evolve with technology so that cellular location evidence can be pinned down to within a few dozen yards much of the time. Since we were on the cutting edge of cell phone investigation when it began, our level of expertise is highly sought out by defense attorneys in a wide range of situations including: Defendant is accused of making harassing calls to ex-spouse Defendant is accused of a crime and alibi is weak or non-existent Defendant is accused of embezzlement and money is found stashed in a specific location Defendant is accused of negotiating the purchase [...]

Suspicions Lead to Fruitful Bug Detection

We had a client who had taken on a special, highly confidential project at work. The reason he called was because he was concerned about inadvertently leaking information. He kept asking “Is my phone tapped?” He wasn’t paranoid, but suspicious. What made him suspicious? Electronic devices were acting “weird” and although he said he had an electric personality, these odd sounds and happenings had never happened before. He described some of them: His AM/FM car radio had developed interference on several stations that had been previously clear. This could be the case of an eavesdropper since antennas can be exploited by eavesdroppers. Sounds were coming from his office phone line when it was not in use. Sometimes his office phone would ring and no one [...]

Experienced Asset Search Investigators Open the Toolbox

If you think asset investigation is simply going through databases and making calls, you are mistaken. Although an asset search investigator does his share of at-desk duties, the hidden asset investigator often has to get in the field and undertake a good, old-fashioned, gumshoe detective’s work. It doesn’t matter if we are simply looking for missing assets or trying to determine if one spouse is hiding money in a divorce, many of the techniques uses to search for assets requires work on the streets. For example: Sometimes we find hidden assets documentation or information that leads us to previously unknown assets through dumpster diving. Items, such as envelopes, notes, statements and the like, get thrown away but can provide a lead to stock accounts, hidden [...]

Weigh Benefits and Risks with Data from Due Diligence Investigations

Being is business for yourself is a risky proposition. There are so many unknowns being juggled that you never know when a great idea starts to go south. That means when you make a business decision, you have to consider both the benefits and risks of your decision. In some cases, the best way to be sure is to conduct due diligence investigations. Due diligence for potential international partnerships Nowhere can this be more important than in the course of creating an international partnership. The due diligence process in this case not only looks at the principles of the potential partner company, but also the relationships with government officials and offices and the culture of the area in the world the potential partnering company is [...]

Don’t Become a Victim of Vehicle Accident Insurance Fraud

It was reported at Bankrate.com that fraud is an element in one out of every 3 auto insurance claims in New York City! That is incredible and officials say that this fraud adds an estimated $241 million to premiums every year. New York City is not alone. The article reported that the top five states for auto insurance fraud are California, Florida, Texas, New York and Maryland. Is it no wonder that insurance company claims adjusters are always looking for red flags? When there is something that makes the adjuster question the legitimacy of a claim, they often call an investigator in on the case. A vehicle accident investigation can result in determining one of the following staged crashes has occurred: Wave down: requires two [...]

Handwriting Analyst Can Reveal Forged Signatures

The recent case of two inmates convicted of murder walking out of a Florida prison easily with forged release papers brings to light how common forgery is today. No one questioned the documents and out they walked. I read that the forgery accounts for 1.7% of the crime in America during the last decade. That might not seem huge, but it ranks almost equal with embezzlement (1.9%). Robbery, which you hear about every night on the news, comes in at 9%. But that puts the incidence of forgeries in perspective – there is a lot of it happening. Forgery can be a lot of things, but in the end, it is used to get something by illegal means. Before the prolific use of debit and [...]

Delete Doesn’t Mean Gone to a Cell Phone Analyzer

Delete. Delete. Delete. And you think it’s done and gone. Well, you’re probably wrong. Once information is searched out, read, written or stored on a digital device, it is most likely there forever – if only in bits and pieces. But for digital forensics teams, that is often enough to piece together a bigger picture. Not too long about there was quite a bruhaha in the media about a secret subpoena of two months’ worth of phone records from the Associated Press. Authorities went through the legal process for cell records and subpoenaed the cellphone records in order to piece together what they could about an alleged leak of sensitive national security information. They weren’t so concerned about cell tower triangulation or mobile phone tracking, [...]

Computer Forensic Investigations Are on the Rise

The use of computer forensics analysis is exploding. A recent video at Investigation.discovery.com provides a brief overview of what is possible, but it also shows that computer forensic investigation is not a do-it-yourself project – it takes a computer forensics specialist to root out the hidden bits of data that computer forensics experts know will be evidence. Police and other authorities are applying digital forensics to their investigations but so are others in the private sector. is one computer forensics firm that works with many attorneys and other organizations to gather data and evidence. We often find two scenarios: Scenario #1 – Is there a case? There is a suspicion of covert or illegal activity and an attorney is brought in to consult on whether [...]

Monthly Archives: December 2013