“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 drug monies by investing them in a laser tag business. As set forth below, we should always look during asset…

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 against the defendant. Then, the plaintiff secretly transfers money to the defendant. The defendant launders plaintiff’s money by paying it…

Make flowcharts in your asset search to show how your adversary has hidden money or other assets from you. The flowcharts in your asset search might document that your adversary hid assets through any one or a combination of the following: fraudulent transfers business entities; nominees; foreign bank accounts; trusts; sham loans; multiple jurisdictions; etc. How your adversary hid assets may become even more apparent to you if you make a flowchart (a.k.a. link chart).…

Free asset search tools range from seeking information about shell companies to detecting real estate ownership in New York City. At “CorporationWiki” you may possibly gather information about shell companies & at “ACRIS” you can search for NYC real estate ownership. I mentioned CorporationWiki & ACRIS at “A Low-Cost Asset Search” or “Asset Searches & Open Source Intelligence” which list more asset search tools. In addition, you can…

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, as mentioned at my December 10th & December 17th posts. As a result, the money launderers, terrorist financiers, tax dodgers,…

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 (or the option to purchase shares): In a company in exchange for services; or In a company where the purchase is…

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 company, the Italian mob, and a fake Gambian bank have in common? The answer: A company services firm called Formations…