If your home was broken into, would you be able to quickly provide law enforcement and your insurance company with serial numbers, photos, and/or receipts of everything that was stolen?
For far too many people, the answer to that question is: “no”.
Police Are Not Always Able to Help in Asset Recovery Cases
Police have a whole host of issues they deal with on a daily basis—violent crime among them. Most law enforcement agencies simply lack the manpower needed to deeply investigate every stolen item reported to them.
Unfortunately, even if you are able to provide local law enforcement with specific information about the items taken, police can only assist in asset recovery to a certain degree and only in certain situations.
For example, police are much more likely to conduct a proper investigation when there has been a home-break-in, armed robbery, or cases where there is evidence of forced entry. If none of these circumstances exist, the police are not likely to be of much assistance.
Essentially—if you leave your garage open some afternoon, and you’re new, expensive road bike is stolen—you likely won’t receive much help from police.
What police might do, depending on the state you live in, is communicate with local pawn shops regarding items that may have been stolen. However, this isn’t always fruitful for various reasons: laws surrounding communication between pawn shops and police vary greatly from state to state, individual pawn shops deal with possible stolen property differently.
For example, pawn shops in some states are not required to report or otherwise communicate with local police. On the other hand—states like Ohio require all pawn shops to report daily to local law enforcement. In Ohio, pawn shops send daily reports on items, loaned or pawned, which they have reason to believe may be stolen.
The variation between laws from state to state creates differences in the way pawn shops handle possible stolen property. However, for the most part, pawn shops do not want to purchase stolen merchandise or sell it to their customers. For this reason, among others, pawn shops are no longer the place criminals are taking their stolen items to sell.
Why (Smart) Criminals Don’t Take Stolen Items to Pawn Shops
So as we’ve already determined—pawn shops are no longer the “go-to” place for criminals to sell their stolen items. So why aren’t they taking their stuff to local pawn shops anymore?
There are three main reasons that criminals have moved away from pawn shops: 1. Pawn shops don’t want stolen merchandise, and are more cautious now than they have been historically, 2. Pawn shops and police work together relatively efficiently (in most states), and 3. There are better, safer, online solutions for criminals to sell stolen merchandise.
Pawn brokers and the pawn shop industry in general have been pushing back against the stereotype that they are the “go-to” place for thieves to sell stolen goods. This is the main reason pawn shops don’t want stolen merchandise. They, like other businesses, value their reputation. Pawn shops are largely not interested in forgoing a good reputation in order to make a couple of bucks on a stolen good. For this reason, most pawn shops try to avoid buying stolen goods at all costs.
When things do slip through the cracks and a stolen item is purchased or loaned to a pawn shop, police (in many states) are sometimes effective in recovering the stolen property, which is enough to scare of some would-be-sellers.
However, one major reason that pawn shops are not the number one choice for thieves looking to sell is because of the growth of the internet and social networking sites.
Online Storage for Your Photos, Serial Numbers, and Receipts
To be fair, it is pretty laborious to keep all of the necessary information for your belongings—you would likely have to buy a new filing cabinet. That’s why police detectives and private investigators are urging the public to upload this information to an online database.
According to a recent ABC News article, Houston police officer Todd Harris offers this advice about these new online databases:
“If it came from your grandfather or your grandmother, take a picture of it and describe it and put it on there. If things were to get stolen, [it] gives us a better chance to find it—anything that is important to you, even if it isn’t super expensive.”
Websites like LeadsOnline.com and their “Report It” service are just one of many online service solutions for storing this type of information. Even using a service like Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, OneDrive, or something similar to store this information is better than nothing.
It may seem like a pain, but it’s much easier than keeping paper copies of everything; if you are ever unfortunate enough to be the victim of a break-in, you will thank yourself later.
So What Should You Do?
Check back here at the blog—there is an upcoming article about how a hiring a private investigator could be your best option when facing an asset recovery case. In the mean time—make sure to decide on a safe and secure place to store all of your photos, serial numbers, and receipts.
Thirty-five years ago, Nancy Gille made one of the hardest decisions of her life. After holding her newborn baby daughter for only two minutes, she gave up the child that she was sure she’d see again.
“I didn’t tell any of my family, I didn’t tell any of my friends back on the mainland and it was something that I got through and then kind of buried pretty deeply inside of me.” said Gille in an interview with St. Louis’s Fox affiliate.
Gille was on a vacation in Hawaii when she found out she was pregnant. She decided to remain on the island and have the child in order to keep the secret to herself. On February 4th, 1981, her daughter Katherine was born at Kapiolani Medical Center. Although it was a difficult choice, it was the one that made sense at the time.
“I didn’t feel like I was ready to be a parent,” Gille admitted. “But, February 4th always had a special significance for me.”
Gille returned to her life back on the mainland, never discussing the heartbreak of having to give up her child. After decades of wondering what ever became of Katherine, Gille finally contacted private investigator Hilton Lui to help her reunite with her missing daughter.
The search, which took them back to Hawaii and eventually to Australia, found Katherine (now Katherine Gray) alive and well – and a mother of her own.
“I see a tremendous sense of joy of something that was such a shameful secret in my life for more than three decades to have turn into such a thing of beauty,” Gille said in an interview with KHON television station.
The Story of Adoption Investigation
The story of Nancy Gille and Katherine Gray is not uncommon. Despite the years and circumstances of an adoption, many children and birth parents wonder what has become of the other. Often, adoptive parents are interested in knowing a child’s medical history which can only be obtained by connecting with the biological parent.
Unfortunately, this information is not always easy to find. According to the Adoption Information Act, parents who enable their right to a confidential or “closed” adoption are provided security so that a birth child or parent can’t contact them later in life. In other instances, birth mothers can sometimes be coerced into giving up their parental rights or rights to contact, especially if they are younger. This can make finding birth parents and biological children incredibly difficult.
Gille and Gray reflect on what’s it like to connect with the past. Photo via KHON
A New Chapter
Even so, there are many parents and children who want to find each other but don’t know how. An excellent example is Gille and Gray. Even though both parties were interesting in finding and connecting, the span of time and lack of documentation made it virtually impossible to be reunited. It wasn’t until hiring Liu that reunification became a possibility and then a wonderful reality.
“I still pinch myself to believe that, you know, this is my daughter. It’s beyond my wildest dreams,” Gille said. “It’s a whole new beginning.”
If you are interested in getting more information about reconnecting with a biological parent or child, now is the time. Contact a professional investigation agency like Lauth Investigations, Intl. and get a free consultation about your particular case today.
Although no one gets married with the goal of getting divorced, between 40-50% of all couples end up calling it quits. While many speculate the core reasons about why this statistic is so high, there is no doubt that the emotional and financial fallout can be devastating.
One of the more damaging issues in an unstable marriage is financial infidelity. According to a poll from the National Foundation for Financial Education, 33% of spouses admit to hiding money, making secret purchases, and other financial deceptions. Even though this doesn’t seem as damaging as a sexual infidelity, over 70% of couples who said that they had hid money or lied about their finances said that it damaged their marriage relationship.
Financial infidelity is a real issue, often stemmed by embarrassment about how a person has spent their money. It can be a warning sign of deeper issues such as a gambling addiction, physical infidelity, or manic spending. By understanding how to spot if your spouse is secretly making financial decisions you might not approve of, you might be able to keep poor financial choices and their underlying problems from ruining your marriage.
Finding Hidden Receipts
People who are being financial deceptive often make sure that the receipts for their purchases are tucked away neatly – often in a garbage can. But, if you stumble across receipts that are clearly being hidden (like in a secret box in the basement), it’s likely that there are purchases on there that you haven’t talked about as a couple.
If you’re the person getting the mail, you might notice that you’re getting a lot of thick, unmarked envelopes. Often, these envelopes contain new credit cards which may be used to make purchases that can’t be seen by both you and your spouse.
Cash Withdrawals
The goal of someone who is being financially deceptive is to get access to money that you can’t see. One of the easiest ways to do this is by making a consistent series of cash withdrawals in amounts that might not trigger your red flag. If you are seeing ATM withdrawals for $40-$60 at a time over a long period of time, your spouse may be saving up cash for something that they don’t want you to know about.
Missing Items
Another way that a spouse can make money secretly is by liquidating items piecemeal so that you don’t notice what’s happening. Items of modest value (like silverware, movies, or technology devices) may start to go missing.
Money Defensive
Often, a spouse may become very defensive or aggressive when the topic of money is brought up. They often question your trust and seem disproportionately upset when questioned about purchases that seem unusual.
Especially if your spouse is planning on filing for divorce, they will want to have as little liquid cash on hand as possible. The more liquid assets, the more likely they will have to share them during the divorce. By purchasing large, expensive items or trips, that is less money they may have to share with you.
What to Do If Your Spouse is Being Financially Deceptive
In order to save your marriage, it is necessary for you to confront your spouse about his or her strange spending habits. Get ahold of a receipt or credit card statement from a secret account. Then talk to them about what they’re doing. If they remain unwilling to talk about their behavior, or act in a way that seems dangerous or aggressive, it’s time to remove yourself from the situation.
In addition, you may need to do additional digging before you can get the kind of evidence you need to prove that your spouse isn’t being financially faithful. Hiring an investigator like Lauth Investigations, Intl. is a great way to shed some light on your real financial picture and get the outside help that your spouse may need to stop their unhealthy money management.
Picture this: You are constantly getting bombarded with complaints from your customers about the service at a single location. From rude transactions to mismanaged orders, it seems that no one is having a good experience with your company. Yet, every time you go to the location, the staff seems helpful, friendly and organized. What can you do to find out the real problem?
Unfortunately, this is not a made up scenario. Business owners around the country are often baffled by customer service complaints that are directed as some of their most trusted employees. Although there seems to be some miscommunication, there could actually be a deeper problem – one that requires some investigation to uncover.
But, if you ignore it, it could just ruin your business.
The Importance of 21st Century Customer Service
Customer service is one the most important parts of keeping a business running, especially in our current Age of Information. Research shows that up to 78% of customers will stop from purchasing at your business because of a poor customer service experience. And, over 1 million people share their customer service experiences on social media each week, with over 80% of them being negative.
That means, you can’t afford to have a bad customer service reputation. It is likely to be instantly tweeted, texted, and posted, which could cause huge problems for your business in the long run.
But, how can you solve a problem that you can’t see? That’s where a private investigator comes in handy.
How a Private Investigator Can Help
Fortunately, there is a way to get to the bottom of your customer service problems quickly and efficiently. By hiring a private investigator like the professionals at Lauth Investigations, you can get a first-hand look at what your customers experience on a daily basis. There are a few reasons why a private investigator is the perfect solution to your customer service problems:
Anonymous – Your staff won’t treat a private investigator any differently than any other customer. Why? Because they won’t know who it is.
Experienced – Private investigators like the professionals at Lauth Investigations are used to dealing with criminals. If there is something shady going on that is fueling the problem, they’ll be able to detect it and suggest further investigation.
Thorough – Not only does a private investigator shop at your location, they take note. How does the facility look? What are employees spending their time doing? Is there inappropriate behavior that is harming your professional reputation?
Follow-Up Plan – In the event that the private investigator finds behavior that is criminal in nature, they will create a follow-up plan to gain more information through records, surveillance tapes, and other recording devices. This can be helpful if the case goes to litigation.
You can’t afford to have your business brought down by a few bad eggs. Hiring a private investigator helps you find the issues that can be improved in your company, and just might save your business in the long-run.
It seems that Chevron will do anything to keep their corporate reputation pristine, including whitewashing soil samples that have been contaminated with oil.
On April 8, 2015, Amazon Watch released hours of corporate videotape uploaded by a Chevron whistleblower. Along with the tapes, there was a message:
“I hope this is useful for you in your trial against Texaco/Chevron. [signed] A Friend from Chevron.”
The images are shocking.The tapes show Texaco workers (Texaco having been purchased by Chevron in 2000) traveling hundreds of miles through the Amazon trying to find “clean” oil samples to prove that the Lago Agrio oil field is not polluted. Shockingly, the tapes show Texaco consultants, managers, and workers laughing about the depth and breadth of the oil damage to even the deepest part of the forest, making their attempts to exonerate themselves almost impossible.
What the Tapes Show
In one of the leaked videos dated March 2005, Texaco employee “Rene” jokes with a consultant named “Dave” near the Shushufindi 21 well site – a site that has been the subject of an ongoing litigation battle between the natives and Chevron.
“… you keep finding oil in places where it shouldn’t have been…. Nice job, Dave. Give you one simple task: Don’t find petroleum.”
In addition, the tapes include interviews with people who live near the sites that Chevron claims to have remediated. And more than one of them discuss the death and destruction that Texaco left behind.
In a segment that has been viewed over a million times on YouTube, on man named José describes how he lost three daughters due to the contamination the company left behind. Despite his pleas for help, the groundwater and local soil – which he claims is damaged beyond repair – still have not been remediated.
The Response
Initially, when the residents around the Shushufindi are of the Lago Agrio field began to complain about their livestock dying and their drinking water being contaminated, Chevron’s response was to “clean up” the disaster and then move production out of Ecuador.
Then, in 2011, the Ecuador court system awarded the Ecuadorians $9.5 billion in damages which Chevron refused to pay. Instead, it claimed that its Texaco acquisition was being targeted for extortion by Petroecuador, the nation’s centralized governmental oil facility. It began a countersuit.
Local Testimony
Although the company claimed to have cleaned up the contamination in 1998, local residents interviewed on the Chevron Tapes tell graphic stories about continual pollution that was merely covered up.
Out of the dozens of tapes that were anonymously sent to Amazon Watch, there are hours of footage of native people drinking, washing, and working in contaminated soil and water. Oil sheen can be seen on everything from footprint indentations to deep core soil samples that Texaco took at unremediated well sites.
Despite 10 years of litigation, the battle is ongoing. How it will end depends on information – and these tapes are a start.
In order for the Ecuadorians to truly make their case stick, they need more concrete evidence with a proven trail. That means, it’s time for the whistleblower to be found. Only when that person comes forward with his or her true identity can these incredible tapes gain the momentum and legal weight that they deserve.
If the Ecuadorians were to hire a private investigator to look into the initial location of the tapes and do some digging, they would be able to get a face and name where they could go to for more information. Hiring an investigation firm like Lauth Investigations International would help them come up with the evidence that would prove their story once and for all.
See the Chevron Tapes now:
For more information about the case, check out these resources:
Today is the anniversary that many 30-somethings remember tragically. On April 5th, 1994, the up-and-coming rock star Kurt Cobain committed suicide at his home in Seattle, WA. Not only did this event shock the music world, but it began a series of investigations into the possibility that Cobain’s death wasn’t as straightforward as it seemed.
Over the last 21 years, many have speculated about the possibility that Kurt Cobain didn’t commit suicide, but that he was killed by his wife, Courtney Love. In 1998, a documentary entitled “Kurt and Courtney,” highlighted a theory that Love hired a hitman and paid $50,000 to have her husband killed. Later, the book “Love & Death: The Murder of Kurt Cobain” by Ian Halperin and Max Wallace revealed new forensic and police evidence obtained through the Freedom of Information Act that pointed to Love as a key suspect in Cobain’s murder.
Still, at the core of each of these theories, there is the testimony of one man: Private investigator Tom Grant.
Grant has been the impetus of many of these so-called “conspiracy theories” regarding Love’s involvement with the death of Kurt Cobain. Although originally hired by Love to help find Cobain after he escaped a Los Angeles rehab center on March 30th, 1994, he has turned into one of the most prolific advocates for the theory that Cobain was murdered. And, his testimony is about to be delivered on the big screen in a movie to be released later this year: “Soaked in Bleach.” His goal? To finally reopen the Kurt Cobain case so that it can be solved.
Kurt Cobain was the lead singer Nirvana, a rock-and-roll overnight-success story. When the three-piece band came onto the music scene in 1991, bands like Poison and Def Leppard were still the reigning record kings. Within a few short months, Nirvana had changed the face of popular music as the world knew it – making emotion and passion paramount to high production value.
By 1992, the group’s hit single “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” had spent 20 weeks on the Billboard Top 100 Chart. Cobain, who struggled with the concept of fame and commercialism, began to bemoan the group’s success and continued to push the envelope in regards to social issues and drug use. He married Courtney Love on February 24th of that year. Love gave birth to the couple’s only child, Francis Bean, in September.
During the spring of 1993, Cobain’s mental health and drug use began to aggravate each other, foreshadowing the events that would proceed. Cobain overdosed on Heroin twice between May and August, but still managed to release the chart-topping In Utero in September of that year. On March 4, 1994, Love found Cobain passed out from an overdose of Rohypnol. A suicide note was later discovered, making it the first of Cobain’s suicide attempts. Two weeks later, police were called to Cobain’s house. He was found locked in the bathroom with a gun, threatening to kill himself.
One week later, on March 30th, Cobain checked himself into the Exodus Recovery Center, which he fled on April 3rd. He was found five days later when a security system installer found his body locked in a small room above the garage at his home in Seattle, WA. Coroners ruled his death a suicide by self-inflicted shotgun wound. Still, many wondered if it was truly a suicide or a carefully-planned murder in response to Cobain’s desire to divorce his wife.
According to Grant, Love contacted him on April 3rd about strange credit card activities by Cobain while he was supposed to be in rehab. She then hired him to find Cobain, who was considered a missing person. Grant claims that Love told him to search “the best hotels” as that is where he liked to hang out the most. Later, when talking to Cobain’s friend, Dylan Carlson, Carlson told him: “No, he doesn’t. He usually stays in some pretty ratty places.”
This was just the beginning of a long list of possible subterfuges run by Love. Although he was invited to search Cobain’s residence for the singer, he was never told about the “greenhouse” – the room above the garage where Cobain’s body was found. In addition, several of Kurt’s close friends and employees mentioned that Cobain wasn’t suicidal (although he had been suicidal often in the past six months).
Finally, Grant was concerned with the state of the marriage just prior to Cobain’s death. According to Rosemary Carroll, Love’s entertainment attorney, Love wanted to start divorce proceedings and had investigated into voiding the couple’s prenuptial agreement. Kurt had also called the attorney to ask about updating his will to cut Love out of it completely. As it stood, at the time of Cobain’s death, Courtney would receive 100% of his estate.
The Verdict
Although the case has long been considered open-and-shut, there are thousands of fans who have followed the additional investigation of Tom Grant in the hopes that it will be reopened. The question is, can one private investigator blow the top off a potential murder without significant new evidence? According to Grant, he has that evidence – he just needs someone to listen. With the anniversary of Cobain’s death inspiring many to revisit the events, and a new movie in the works to highlight the private investigator’s experiences, now could be the right time to consider the “conspiracy theories” in more depth.
For more information about Tom Green’s investigation, visit CobainCase.com. To learn more about Nirvana, read “The Nirvana Biography,” from Rolling Stone Magazine. For more information about how a private investigator can help you get the justice you deserve, contact us.
