One of the main tasks of a private investigator is to conduct an economic investigation about a certain person. The goal of a financial investigation is actually to find out everything possible about a person's true financial situation, what he earns a living, what assets he may be hiding, what assets he does not register in his name, etc. 

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When will we conduct a financial investigation?

These investigations are very common in the context of debtors in execution and bankruptcy proceedings. Many times these are people who live on the margins, in a way that society considers non-normative, instead of behaving in good faith before the law and justice systems, and perhaps trying to pay their debt as much as possible. The behaviors of people of this type are common and well-known: buying a car and registering it on someone else; Work without a slip ("in the black") to avoid a lien on its continuationRath; Registering real estate or other assets in someone else's name; Dealing with hidden cash or crypto-currencies, and many other behaviors designed to hide the real financial situation of the subject. 

 

Another situation for conducting a financial investigation by a private investigator is when trying to locate heirs of a certain estate. These are usually the heirs of a certain debtor who has passed away, and now there is a goal to try to pay off the debt of the deceased through his heirs (assuming they inherited money from the estate, we as creditors have a legal right to be repaid from them according to inheritance laws, since the payment of debts to creditors precedes the distribution of the estate).

 

Another situation in which we will conduct a financial investigation is when we want to stand up for a person's character, for all kinds of reasons that are not related to debts. For example, if we are considering entering into a large deal with someone, we would like to make sure that he is not hiding relevant information from us, such as debts he may have, cases in execution, reputation for paying debts and financial conduct, his financial situation and more. Such an investigation could prevent us from doing business with a rogue person who might run away with our money. 

 

Another situation in which financial investigations are often conducted is in the case of a divorce dispute. In divorce disputes, it often happens that one of the parties hides assets from the spouse, in order to prevent him from his legal share of the assets during the divorce. Bank accounts or funds that were unknown to the other party are often discovered, and even real assets that were simply hidden, either in preparation for the separation, or whether they were hidden anyway over the years.

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How is a financial investigation done?

So we understood that the purpose of a financial investigation is to locate assets and funds that were hidden for one reason or another. However, the question is how to locate these funds is a complex question. Of course, everything depends on the circumstances, but there are all kinds of techniques for locating such properties. Some of the measures are covert measures, for example collecting information on bank accounts (only by obtaining a legal order) and covert surveillance (only within the limits of the law of course).

 

In these investigations, the actual residence of the subject is located, among other things by tracking and establishing patterns; Also, it often happens that evidence is brought that the person being questioned drives some kind of vehicle "in the owner's way", even though the vehicle is not registered in his name (in these situations, there is a chance of confiscating the vehicle); In addition, the private investigator who conducts an economic investigation knows various databases that give an indication of the existence of bank accounts (despite the secrecy that exists in the banking sector, it is still possible to succeed in gathering concrete information about bank accounts, if they exist, through the use of legal databases).