Whether a spouse hides wealth during a divorce or an individual transfers money into an offshore account to evade creditors, concealed assets make it challenging for asset owners to reclaim what’s rightfully theirs.
However, that doesn’t mean hidden assets cannot be uncovered. When wrongdoing has occurred, concealing assets is against the law. If you suspect that someone you know is unlawfully hiding assets to which you have a claim, you can take action.
One effective approach to finding hidden assets is through intelligence services specialists like SIP International, who possess a wealth of experience investigating complex offshore structures to identify links to the ultimate beneficiaries of these entities and locate other assets they own. This can help trace hidden assets and provide a clear path to recovering what you’re entitled to.
They use specialised techniques to track concealed assets and identify the location, source, and ownership. This is why it is appropriate for you to involve intelligence services. To understand which method may have been used to conceal assets, the investigator will discuss the facts of the case with you to understand the reason for the concealment and any additional information that may be known about the person or entity to establish what type of assets may be hidden.
What are hidden assets?
Hidden assets refer to financial resources or property that individuals or entities deliberately conceal to avoid detection, often to evade legal obligations or scrutiny. These assets range from cash and bank accounts to real estate, investments, and valuable art or other personal items.
The primary motive behind hiding assets is to escape responsibilities such as paying debts, child support, divorce or commercial settlements, tax avoidance, or to shield illicit gains from law enforcement.
In legal contexts, hidden assets often come into play during divorces, bankruptcies, or litigation involving financial disputes. For example, a spouse may attempt to hide their wealth to reduce the amount of divided marital property. At the same time, a debtor might move funds into offshore accounts to avoid repaying creditors, or even to conceal funds received through a scam, misappropriation, or fraud
In criminal cases, hidden assets could be linked to money laundering or other illegal activities, where individuals try to obscure the origins of their gains to avoid legal consequences.
How are assets hidden?
Assets can be hidden through a variety of sophisticated and deliberate methods designed to obscure their existence and ownership. These strategies are often employed to evade legal responsibilities, avoid creditors, or cover up illicit activities.
1. Offshore Accounts and Shell Companies
One of the most common methods for concealing assets involves transferring funds to offshore bank accounts located in jurisdictions with strict privacy laws. These accounts often use pseudonyms or the names of shell companies—entities that exist only on paper and have no real business operations. By doing this, individuals can obscure the true ownership of their assets and avoid detection by authorities.
2. Complex Financial Transactions
Assets can be hidden through a series of complex financial transactions designed to confuse or obscure the asset trail. This might include frequent transfers between multiple accounts, layering transactions through various intermediaries, or engaging in high-frequency trading, cryptocurrencies, etc. Such methods make it difficult to trace the origin and current location of the assets.
3. Transferring Ownership
Individuals might transfer ownership of assets to friends, family members, or associates to make it appear that they no longer hold those assets. For instance, a person might sell a house to a relative for a nominal fee or place investments into an account held by someone else. This tactic is often used to keep valuable assets out of reach during legal disputes or financial investigations.
4. Use of Trusts and Estates
Setting up trusts or estates can be an effective way to hide assets. By placing assets in a trust, an individual can retain control over them while legally transferring ownership to the trust. This can make it challenging for creditors or legal entities to identify or claim those assets, especially if the trust is established in a jurisdiction known for its privacy protections.
5. Purchase of High-Value Personal Items
Assets can be concealed by purchasing high-value items such as jewellery, art, antiques, or collectables. These items can be stored in secure locations, like safe deposit boxes or private storage facilities, and can be difficult to trace or evaluate. By converting liquid assets into physical items, individuals can hide wealth more effectively.
6. Undisclosed Business Interests
Individuals may hide assets by acquiring ownership stakes in businesses or investments through complex corporate structures. By using multiple layers of ownership and through companies registered in different jurisdictions, it becomes challenging to identify the true owner of the assets. This method is particularly effective in evading scrutiny in legal and financial contexts.
How to find Hidden Assets
1. Open-source Intelligence (OSINT)
To find hidden assets, intelligence agencies often use open-source intelligence to scour publicly available information like social media profiles, news articles, and public registries to uncover clues about the target’s hidden assets. Social media profiles can reveal a lot about someone’s lifestyle, business ventures, and even associates. Following their posts, pictures, and connections can provide leads on potential assets or spending habits.
Following this initial stage, the specialist asset tracing teams access public registries like property records, corporate filings, court documents, and bankruptcy filings. These records can reveal ownership of real estate, businesses, and other assets registered under the target’s name or names associated with them.
Specialist asset trace teams have dedicated compliant servers to extract data from the worldwide surface and deep webs. They also have specialists who can infiltrate dark web chat rooms when necessary. Many investigation companies have limited capabilities in asset tracing, so you should instruct a company like SIP International with this expertise.
2. Financial Analysis and Forensics
During asset tracing and recovery operations, forensic accountants meticulously examine bank statements, tax returns, invoices, and other financial documents, looking for inconsistencies, unusual transactions, and sudden changes in spending patterns.
Financial ratios like the current ratio, debt-to-equity ratio, and inventory turnover ratio can reveal red flags if they deviate significantly from industry benchmarks. This might indicate asset manipulation, misappropriation or other fraudulent hidden financial activity.
Analysing trends in financial data over time can also expose anomalies. For example, a sudden increase in cash deposits with no clear source might warrant further investigation. By analyzing financial data, forensic investigators gain a comprehensive understanding of the target’s financial situation, revealing potential hiding places for assets.
3. Specialised Asset tracing tools and Databases
Asset tracing tools are software programs designed to streamline and enhance the asset tracing process. They can gather information from various sources, including public records, financial databases, and internal investigation data, and consolidate it into a central platform.
At SIP, for instance, our unique dedicated server enables us to extract data from the World Wide Web, and we have access to over 420 international paid subscribers and public databases with a single input of the subject’s identifiers. Our researchers then evaluate the compliant data, regardless of language, to extract the most relevant information that may lead to the location of tangible assets such as property, vessels, aircraft, shares in businesses, or links to offshore entities where the subject may be the ultimate beneficial owner. Learn more.
4. International asset tracing
International asset tracing is the specialised branch of asset tracing that deals with locating hidden assets stashed across borders. Investigators often work with international partners, including lawyers, and financial institutions familiar with the target country’s legal system and financial landscape. Specialised databases containing information on companies, directors, and beneficial ownership can be crucial for identifying assets held abroad.
By collaborating with international partners, utilizing specialised tools, and following the money trail, investigators can increase their chances of successfully locating and recovering hidden assets across borders.
5. Surveillance
In asset tracing, surveillance refers to the discreet monitoring of a person or place to gather information that can help locate hidden assets. Investigators might tail a target to observe their movements and identify potential locations of hidden assets. This could involve following them to safety deposit boxes, meetings with associates, or properties they might own but haven’t publicly disclosed.
In some cases, with proper legal authorisation, investigators may also use electronic surveillance techniques like GPS tracking or geo-location techniques to monitor a target’s movements. This can provide valuable insights into their activities and potential asset locations.
Read more: Geofencing vs Geolocation: What’s the Difference?
Surveillance is subject to strict legal regulations, and investigators must ensure they have the proper authorisation and adhere to all relevant laws to avoid legal repercussions.
When to contact intelligence services
If you suspect that substantial assets are being hidden, whether in a divorce, bankruptcy, or legal dispute, it may be time to involve intelligence services. High-value assets, such as large sums of money, real estate, or valuable investments, often require specialized expertise to track down, especially if the concealment methods are sophisticated.
When assets are hidden in foreign jurisdictions, particularly in countries with strong privacy laws or banking secrecy, it’s essential to enlist the help of professionals who specialize in international investigations. Intelligence services can navigate different legal systems, understand local regulations, and employ cross-border asset-tracing techniques.
These experts have the tools and expertise to navigate complex financial environments, trace funds through convoluted transactions, and uncover hidden ownership structures. If there is evidence suggesting fraudulent activities, such as falsified financial statements, shell companies, or suspicious transfers, intelligence services can conduct thorough investigations. They are equipped to handle cases where deceitful practices have been used to hide assets and can provide critical evidence for legal proceedings.
If your case requires expert testimony to validate findings or explain complex financial issues to a court, intelligence services can provide experienced professionals who can testify on asset tracing and concealment methods.
Why Choose SIP International’s Expert-backed Asset Tracing Services
SIP has specialised in tracing tangible and liquid assets since 1983 and has successfully traced several hundred million pounds sterling, dollars and euros in assets globally. Our asset tracing specialists conduct comprehensive open-source research using a bespoke compliant intelligence server that scours the global surface, deep, and a team to infiltrate dark web chatrooms.
We excel at proving asset ownership, as we have extensive knowledge of cross-jurisdiction legislations and procedures to avoid the many pitfalls that may otherwise be encountered.
We frequently work with legal teams to draft applications for Court Orders and enforce them in other jurisdictions to secure disclosures from business entities, banks, other financial institutions, and more. Our goal is to ensure the best evidence possible to support asset recovery to fulfill a client’s judgment.
Get in touch to speak to our experienced asset-tracing specialists.
