Common reasons for utilizing a private investigator for background checks and asset searches:
Hidden Asset Investigations in Divorce, Child Support, and Spousal Maintenance Cases
Commonly, when facing divorce or child support obligations, an individual will claim fewer assets in an effort to pay lower payments. In addition, many claim they have no assets or income in order to collect more. This is why a comprehensive hidden asset search conducted by a licensed private investigator can help individuals provide proof so the court may make an informed decision in your case. A private investigation can uncover assets that people can go to great measures to hide.
For example, an entrepreneur husband who owns a business and several properties, but when faced with paying child support for three children claims his income is near the stated poverty level for the Department of Labor statistics. In this case, responses to interrogatories and or court testimony can also be challenged by a licensed private investigator that can search for inconsistencies in either.
A comprehensive Asset Search can produce such things as:
Moved assets to relatives, friends, or business partners
Bank Accounts balances
Concealed corporations
List of creditors to include overpayments
Residential and commercial property
Equity in real estate
Vehicles, both personal and commercial
Tangible property
Lifestyle Intelligence
Stocks, bonds, and annuities
Life insurance
Employment and wage approximation
Additionally, when an individual claims they are not employed and unable to pay child support or spousal maintenance, an asset investigation can determine the individual’s employment eligibility. A hidden asset search can include interviewing friends, business partners, and associates to determine if the individual is being truthful in an asset disclosure. Court can be a very lengthy process, and appeals can take years. This is why we recommend hiring a private investigator to work alongside your attorney to ensure proper disclosure the first time around.
Background Investigations
Background checks can be requested for various reasons such as employment screening, commercial and consumer credit, tenant screening, and during divorce or child custody disputes. Background checks can be used to determine resident address, recover police reports and criminal records to uncover court documents such as charging information, probable cause affidavits, and case histories and as well civil records such as protective orders, tax liens, judgments, divorce and other civil filings, also including, place of employment, motor vehicle records, judgments, tax liens, and other critical information.
During child custody and divorce dispute, private investigators play an important role in keeping children safe. Conducting a background check on anyone that will be in the in a caretaker role or in the company of the child on a regular basis, a background check can identify who may be a danger to the child. Background checks performed by a licensed private investigator specializing in child custody investigations can determine subjects who are with the child or children of the mutual parties in litigation, such as roommates, new girlfriends, and boyfriends. Background Investigations are an affordable way to determine if additional investigative service may be required.
Due Diligence and Corporate Asset Searches
When judgments are served on a corporation, debtors can go to great lengths to attempt to conceal assets. You will find companies changing their names, investments moved, hidden bank and savings accounts, real estate transferred, trusts established to mask assets, and more. The same can occur when an individual or corporation is ordered to repay a loan.
Private investigators use the latest technology and resources to conduct bank searches, discovery of investments and identify liquid assets.
Lauth Investigations Due diligence and corporate asset investigations can uncover:
Bank Accounts
Financial Profiles
Public Records
Investments
Hidden Cash
Vehicle ownership
Identify business and associate relationships
Other public records
Ability to repay loans
Misuse of funds
For more information on corporate asset searchers for your company please review Lauth Investigations site at liixact.com
Pre-litigation investigations
Before investing an enormous amount of time and financial resources into taking legal action, it isadvisable that a clear understanding of whether pursuing a judgment will be worth the time, effort, and resources.
Post litigation investigations
Asset investigations can confirm or refute claims made whether there are assets available as well as determine the period allowed by the state to pursue the assets. This saves a tremendous amount of time and resources after a judgment has been issued in an effort to determine what if any assets can be attached for payment.
Thomas Lauth, owner of Lauth Investigations International has been in the private investigation business for twenty years working with law enforcement and authorities in the legal system. “As private investigators, it is our job to validate information or uncover inconsistencies that can save everyone time and money, not to mention, lessening the emotional strain for our clients.”
Integrity is the foundation for anyone in business but especially for those who are public servants or providing services to the public. Those working in the field of private investigation have a responsibility to their client and to the law to adhere to local, state, and federal law. At Lauth Investigations International based in Indianapolis, our private investigators know the importance of conducting every investigation in an ethical and professional way and work with our clients to ensure the best outcome of the case. ~ Thomas Lauth, Owner of Lauth Investigations
Please read the Williams Daily News report by clicking on the link below.
Monday, the FBI announced the success of a three-day, multicity child sex trafficking operation. The seventh and largest of its kind, the raid recovered 106 teenagers and arrested 152 pimps. Aged 13 to 17, almost all of the young people found were girls. Read the NPR story by clicking the links below:
To find out how you can help protect children from child sex trafficking please visit the National Center for missing & Exploited Children www.missingkids.com
The day after Valentine’s Day of 2013, national news reports indicated a spike in new online dating memberships. Once somewhat frowned upon, looking for love online has become more socially acceptable within the last ten years.
Ann Friedman, a politics columnist for New York’s website, reported in her article Cupid’s Cursor, that one-third of America’s 90 million singles have used online dating services. While some find love, get married, living happily ever after, some have met with tragedy.
Robyn Gardner - Still Missing
Tragedies
Robyn Gardner, who I wrote about August 25, 2011 in an article Missing Persons Advocacy Network, remains missing after meeting Gary V. Giordano online. They met each other on an online dating site, and saw each other a couple times a month. Robyn considered Giordano a friend and agreed to take a vacation to Aruba where she vanished. Her family is still desperately searching for answers. After her disappearance, Giordano attempted to sue American Express for a $3.5 million insurance policy he took our on Robyn prior to their trip to Aruba.
Gary Giordano arrest photo. Courtesy of AP.
Robyn Gardner is just one of many people who have fell victim to an online predator. November 30, 2012, Michigan law enforcement announced the body of Leigh Swanson had been found in the woods, approximately 10 miles northwest of Midland. Her cause of death was a fatal gunshot.
Swanson, 45 years old, had met a man on an online dating site according to her mother, Beverly Kane. Kane said her daughter had expressed that she had a bad feeling prior to going on the date but made a call to her mother on November 18, 2012 from the man’s home indicating everything was fine and she would be home soon. She never arrived and no one knew whom she had gone on the date with.
Leigh Swanson
After Swanson was reported missing, authorities traced the call to a house in Edenville Township, and dispatched deputies to the location. When the deputies approached the front door, they heard a gunshot from inside and ordered anyone inside to come out with their hands over their heads. A man exited the home holding a cell phone in his hand. The man had been on the phone with 911 reporting his son had just shot himself. A search ensued, and police found Swanson’s body in a wooded area on a neighboring property.
While the positive stories about online dating far outnumber the bad, the harsh reality is that online dating can also put people at risk. Following are some tips that can help keep you safe. Remember you can never take too much precaution when it comes to your personal safety.
Protect Yourself
1. Always meet in a public place. Never invite the individual to pick you up from your home or accept an invitation to theirs.
2. Use the online dating site email system to communicate. Remember, the more information you give out the easier you are to find. Even providing a private email address gives someone enough information to find out who you are and where you live.
3. If you decide to meet personally, attempt to obtain as much verifiable information about the person prior to the meeting, such as name and phone number.
4. Make sure you let someone close to you know who you are meeting, where you are meeting, and as much information about the person as possible. You can even have your friend call you during the date. This gives your friends and family peace of mind but also sends a clear message to the individual you are with that others know where you are.
5. Do your homework. It is not unreasonable to conduct a background investigation on a potential mate and could lessen the danger to yourself and those you love.
6. No matter how comfortable you feel with the person, never leave your food or drink unattended.
While I am not discouraging anyone from online dating, I do encourage you to take every precaution necessary to protect yourself. We must not permit tragedies or the lives of victims to be in vain.
About the Author: Kym L. Pasqualini is founder of the Nation’s missing Children Organization in 1994 and the National Center for Missing Adults in 2000. She served as CEO until January 2010. Kym is recognized as an expert in the field of missing persons, and has spent 20 years working with families of missing persons and homicide victims, government officials, advocates, and national media. She is also a contributor to Lauth Investigations International and the Missing Persons Advocacy Network.
Hacking and security breaches are an ever-growing crime. If you are a consumer, never presume your information is safe even while grocery shopping. If you are a corporate business, there are many things you can do to improve your security. Contact us – We can help.
For many years, stories about personal identity theft have permeated the daily news. We are warned our personal computers and smart phones can easily become the target of phishing and encouraged to maintain the most up-to-date security software on our devices.
According to a 2011 report released by the United States Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), an estimated 8.6 million households had at least one person age 12 or older, who became a victim of identity theft during 2010. The BJS reports approximately $13.3 billion in direct financial losses. Understandably, this number increases annually. Experts estimate the current number of U.S. victims to be 15 million individuals annually, and upwards to $50 billion in financial losses.
On December 4, 2012, the Identity Theft Assistance Center (ITAC), issued the Child Identity Fraud Survey Report reporting theft of children’s social security numbers are the most commonly used piece of information of identity thieves targeting children. The report also identifies some victimization occurring within the children’s own home by their own family members. ITAC have been reporting increasing incidents of minor identity theft where identity thieves combine a child’s social security number with a fictitious date of birth, creating a new “synthetic” identification that authorities claim is very difficult to detect.
While some criminals steal wallets, mail, and rummage through garbage bins, the 21st Century criminal has advanced using technology to infiltrate our homes, corporations, and government offices for personal information. We are now hearing more and more instances of government and corporate databases that have been lost, stolen, breached, and even sold.
From AOL, Taco Bell, Aetna, Google, Twitter, Walgreens, FEMA, and even New York City Police Department, personal information continues to wind up in the hands of criminals. Stories abound about government or corporate entity’s database systems hacked, customer files found in trash bins, employee theft, and even stolen or lost laptops containing personal information of customers and employees. Considering the damage that can quickly follows any incident of identity theft, experts recommend being proactive to protect personal identification.
According to Thomas Lauth, owner of Lauth Investigations International and a respected private investigator with twenty-year’s experience, “One can never be too careful when protecting their personal information”. Lauth warns personal information is used to not only create new identities, but corporations are targeted by thieves to steal trade secrets, sell client data to competitors, to personal stalking, and even murder. He states, “In this day and age, we must not take our privacy for granted and as citizens we need corporate and government agencies to take precautions to handle our personal information responsibly by implementing additional security precautions.”
Some tips to help keep your information safe
– Keep all personal documents, social security cards, and birth certificates locked in a safe place.
– Shred anything with your name and address on it instead of tossing the items into the trash. A crosscut shredder is recommended.
– Never provide a social security number online or over the phone.
– Password-protect or encrypt all personal information on your computer. Maintain up-to-date protection on your computer.
– Do not click on any link sent in an email unless you know the sender. Merely clicking on a link can install phishing and spyware on the computer. Instead, call or personally visit the financial institution or provider to provide information if required.
– Make sure there has not been a Change of Address request placed with USPS. Thieves will commonly attempt to divert mail so they can obtain billing statements and credit card offers.
– When asked to provide personal information by a medical provider, educational institution, utility company, or governmental agency, ask how they will protect your personal information.
– Corporations, educational, medical, and governmental entities are encouraged to contact Lauth Investigations International to find out how they can better protect their client’s information.
About the Author: Kym L. Pasqualini is founder of the Nation’s missing Children Organization in 1994 and the National Center for Missing Adults in 2000. Kym is considered an expert in the field of missing persons and has spent 20 years working with government officials, advocates, and national media. She is also a contributor to Lauth Investigations International serving as the Social Media & Awareness Expert. Follow @Lauthinv
