How to Do Financial Asset Investigations: A Practical Guide for Private Investigators, Collections Personnel and Asset Recovery Specialists - Softcover

Mendell, Ronald L.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0398086613 ISBN 13: 9780398086619

Publisher: Charles C Thomas Pub Ltd, 2011

Synopsis

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 'shadow' financial domain. This includes the new world of 'smartphones,' 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 crime's 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.

About this title

Review

This is an excellent and comprehensive guide to financial asset investigations. While it focuses largely on research techniques, this fourth edition also identifies some new trends that the author indicates are of growing interest to financial investigators. These include the increasing use of smartphones, which make money and information highly mobile. An overall theme in the book is to obey the law when conducting investigations. It is critical that investigators be aware of the specifics of the Fair Credit Reporting Act and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act as well as other state and federal laws. The author provides guidance on obtaining asset information using numerous open sources, including county, municipal, and federal databases. He also describes the use of national database files and emphasizes the importance of knowing as much about the individual being investigated as possible, such as the subject's interests and activities. This information can help the investigator develop leads as to where the money is and how it is being used. One particularly helpful chapter describes the process of finding hidden assets. This can require identifying a subject's relatives or associates; it can also involve looking for high-end collectibles, safe deposit boxes, or overseas accounts. The author describes the investigative process in a clear and well-organized manner. The book also has an extensive index and glossary as well as an excellent bibliography and a useful investigative checklist. Overall, this work would help people at any level understand how to conduct asset investigations. --Adrian A. Barnie - Security Management Magazine

Edition details

• Publisher: Charles C Thomas Pub Ltd
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0398086613
• ISBN 13: 9780398086619
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 4
• Number of pages: 271