With the blinding speed at which the gSmartphone Ageh came upon the investigative profession, asset investigation remains putting together a puzzle from the multiple pieces: public records, online evidence, news accounts, print documents, and human sources. Emphasizing the importance of public records and the resources of the Internet, this fifth edition concentrates on research techniques. These methods make considerable use of websites, libraries, periodicals, and government documents with a constant theme of correlating data from different open sources. This new edition remains the predominant primer on how to find assets to satisfy judgments and debts, but it now also includes significant focus on the emerging underground economy and the gshadowh financial domain. The text explores the connections between stolen credit card information, the gambling sector, money laundering, and the role a subject may play in a larger criminal enterprise. The book also addresses organized crimefs impact on the Internet and financial transactions in cyberspace, as well as the impact of portable digital devices on civil and criminal investigations and the new challenges for investigators working through the electric labyrinth, including the Deep Web and the Dark Web. This edition also includes a very helpful glossary that defines terms introduced throughout the text and an appendix that provides a checklist for traditional and nontraditional asset investigations. This fifth edition seeks to provide an essential understanding of the digital forensics and mobile digital technologies as it steers private investigators, collections specialists, judgment professionals, and asset recovery specialists in undertaking legal information collection in a most challenging age.

Financial asset investigation continues to evolve through its techniques, and this book serves as a practical primer, emphasizing the use of data collection forms, the latest computer technology, and tools for identifying, locating, and assessing debtors1 assets and liabilities. The text explains data gathering from computer data bases, CD-ROM, human sources, surveillance, and public records. The topics cover both individuals and businesses. They range from obtaining subjects1 basic identifiers, such as a social security number, to using key business ratios to calculate figures for a company1s balance sheet. This new edition strives to incorporate more online and electronic resources and includes a complete chapter on investigation through use of the Internet. Additional new topics include financial investigation for security officers, piercing the corporate veil, news groups, and public record searching shortcuts. Throughout the book, useful forms are provided for gathering, organizing, and analyzing data which allows for easy integration of information. Learning how to exploit information trails and cutting through smoke screens are the main themes of this practical and effective investigative tool.

This comprehensive text explores the practical techniques for financial asset investigation. It steers private investigators, collection specialists, judgment professionals, and asset recovery specialists in undertaking information collection in a legal manner. This new edition remains the predominate primer on how to find assets to satisfy judgments and debts, but it now also includes a significant focus on the emerging underground economy. New chapters cover individual and enterprise involvement in the emerging OC shadowOCO financial domain. This includes the new world of OC smartphones, OCO prepaid cards, carding operations, and electric money laundering. The text explores the connections between stolen credit card information, the gambling sector, money laundering, and the role a subject may play in a larger criminal enterprise. A new chapter also discusses organized crimeOCOs impact on the Internet and financial transactions in cyberspace. The book also addresses the impact of portable digital devices on civil and criminal investigations and the new challenges for investigators working through this electronic labyrinth. Each chapter begins with a brief introduction and objectives and ends with a helpful summary. Significant Internet and electronic sources appear in the tables at the end of chapters, as do useful forms provided for gathering, organizing, and analyzing data. New also to this edition is a glossary that defines terms introduced in the text and an appendix that provides a checklist for traditional and nontraditional asset investigations. Financial investigation is a fascinating subject that continually yields new information, and this fourth edition seeks to provide an understanding of the digital forensics and mobile digital technologies for the asset investigator's toolbox of the twenty-first century."

This packet contains a textbook, an instructor's guide, and a student workbook for a course on conducting financial investigations to detect and solve crimes. The topics covered in the 11 chapters of the textbook and the ancillaries are the following: (1) why financial investigation?; (2) laws related to financial crimes; (3) evidence; (4) sources of information; (5) financial institutions as sources of information; (6) tracing the movement of money through a business; (7) tracing funds using the direct method of proof; (8) tracing funds using indirect methods of proof; (9) planning, conducting, and recording an interview; (10) investigative techniques; and (11) money laundering and forfeitures. The text also contains responses to end-of-chapter questions, a glossary, and two appendixes listing selected sources of information and American Bankers Association numbers of cities and states and Federal Reserve districts. The instructor's guide provides materials for each chapter, including preparation requirements, instructor notes and presentation outline, and an appendix containing exercise feedback sheets, case studies, role-play scenarios, chapter transparencies, and supplemental chapter information. The guide also includes a bank of tests and quizzes. The student workbook contains supporting and supplemental materials to the textbook content including: introductions to each of the chapters, individual and group skill exercises, information sheets, case studies, and worksheets. (KC)

Convicting and incarcerating leaders of criminal enterprises often fails to close down the illegal operation. The enterprise continues because the economic infrastructure remains intact. Destruction of the financial underpinnings of crime syndicates through asset forfeiture is essential to law enforcement success. All criminal prosecutors and investigators must master the basics of financial investigations if they are to be effective. This pamphlet is designed to acquaint prosecutors and agents with basic financial investigative techniques that should be considered in every investigation. It is not enough to ask only: "What crime?" and "What defendants?" There is a third question that must be asked at the beginning of each case: "What assets?" A careful financial investigation can lead from the street dealer to the kingpins.

Developing countries lose billions each year through bribery, misappropriation of funds, and other corrupt practices. Much of the proceeds of this corruption find 'safe haven' in the world's financial centers. These criminal flows are a drain on social services and economic development programs, contributing to the impoverishment of the world's poorest countries. Many developing countries have already sought to recover stolen assets. A number of successful high-profile cases with creative international cooperation has demonstrated that asset recovery is possible. However, it is highly complex, involving coordination and collaboration with domestic agencies and ministries in multiple jurisdictions, as well as the capacity to trace and secure assets and pursue various legal options—whether criminal confiscation, non-conviction based confiscation, civil actions, or other alternatives. This process can be overwhelming for even the most experienced practitioners. It is exceptionally difficult for those working in the context of failed states, widespread corruption, or limited resources. With this in mind, the Stolen Asset Recovery (StAR) Initiative has developed and updated this Asset Recovery Handbook: A Guide for Practitioners to assist those grappling with the strategic, organizational, investigative, and legal challenges of recovering stolen assets. A practitioner-led project, the Handbook provides common approaches to recovering stolen assets located in foreign jurisdictions, identifies the challenges that practitioners are likely to encounter, and introduces good practices. It includes examples of tools that can be used by practitioners, such as sample intelligence reports, applications for court orders, and mutual legal assistance requests. StAR—the Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative—is a partnership between the World Bank Group and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime that supports international efforts to end safe havens for corrupt funds. StAR works with developing countries and financial centers to prevent the laundering of the proceeds of corruption and to facilitate more systematic and timely return of stolen assets.