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 retirement funds, hidden bank accounts that makes it possible to locate hidden assets.
- The person (and assets) that is the focus of the hidden asset search investigator may have moved assets and may be holding assets under other ownership and names. Identifying business affiliations and conducting a business asset search in coordination with a personal asset search often shows how the threads intertwine. To coordinate the two usually requires face-to-face interviews of business associates, neighbors, friends and business partners.
- In asset investigations and recovery, every investigator knows that surveillance can be a key element in finding unknown accounts or assets. If you watch someone for several days, you really get a sense of their life – who they meet, where they eat, where they work and where they conduct their personal business like shopping, banking and the like. It’s not unusual for subjects to “visit” their assets. They could have used part of the cash money and purchased a boat. It’s likely over time that they would “visit” their boat and reveal its existence to the investigator.
It’s the combination of experience and knowledge that makes an unknown asset search investigator effective. Finding unknown accounts, hidden money and other assets means using all means legally available – when appropriate.
Combining knowledge and skills developed over years and years of asset search experience, is a premier resource when you are searching for hidden bank accounts and other assets.
-Brenda McGinley, CEO, All in Investigations, All in Investigations