150 E D M U N D ]. P A N K A U Hide Your Assets and Disappear
The moral of the story is, don't make phone calls from your hotel room. If you have to make calls, use the lobby pay phones and bring lots of quarters or pre-paid phone cards, which can be bought at your friendly neighborhood Wal-Mart or grocery store. Don't make the mistake of charging them to your personal telephone credit card, because that can be traced as well. Of course, if you're really trying to hide, if you've truly left your old life behind and are serious about starting anew, here's the bottom line. Don't call your parents, kids, sweethearts, or anyone else who was part of your old life. Whether it's a major holiday or not, and whether you're calling from your new home or a luxury hotel on some remote island paradise, calling anyone at any time to let them know you're alive and well in Costa Rica (or wherever you are) is just asking for trouble. Subscriptions and Mail Orders If you subscribe to catalogues and magazines, or if you're in the habit of making purchases via mail order, end your subscriptions and stop the mail orders before you bug out, and then subscribe or order later through your new identity. Even then, however, you should exercise caution, at least if the subscriptions or orders reflect a fairly uncommon or highly specialized interest. If you happen to be one of seven people in the world who are avid collectors of pre-Colombian transistor radios, you are strongly advised against subscribing to newsletters and catalogs which cater to that specialized interest, because you'd better believe that someone like me will be watching! Robb Report It is a little known fact that the IRS winkles out many a money launderer or dope dealer by finding their subscriptions to the Robb Report. By comparing the names of the IRS most wanted to the marketing list of this magazine made for the cash and carry trade, the service has sneaked up on several big time bad boys. Years ago, one of my assistants opened her big mouth one day and said that she had learned all of my tricks about ferreting out those who try to hide it all and disappear. "If I ever leave you," she said, "you'll never be able to find me." Hah!!! She neglected to consider her Achilles heel, which happened to be the Franklin Mint and other such purveyors of "collectibles." This
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woman has probably ordered every Elvis plate, heartwarming babyanimal sculpture, and special-edition Barbie doll ever made. And even though she's no longer working for me, word has it that she's still ordering those kitschy heirlooms. I could easily trace her whereabouts just by following the mailing labels or the credit card trail. Unless she radically changed her purchasing habits, finding her if she chose to bug out would be as easy as finding a velvet Elvis painting in the souvenir shop at Graceland. Gotcha! Sports and Hobbies These two can really blow your cover, particularly if you belong to a league or association of any kind. Consider the tale of Georgie, who wasn't exactly trying to hide himself, but he was hiding some pertinent information.
Georgie was a professional plaintiff; perhaps you know somebody like him. These folks-make their living by having accidents, and collecting from insurance companies, on a regular basis. They'll work at a company for a few weeks or months, fall down the stairs when no one is looking, and milk the insurance company for all it is worth. Georgie had gotten away with this for years, but, as most overlysuccessful people do, he got sloppy in his old age. He pulled an insurance scam on one of Hartford's finest, claiming that his latest injury had ruptured a disk in his back, and had torn ligaments in his groin to a point that it was impossible for him to work or play. His performance before the jury was magnificent. He told them all about how he could no longer be the father his son needed, how they couldn't go camping, couldn't build fires in the moonlight, and couldn't bond as father and son in the great outdoors. The jury cried with Georgie as he told them about his fears for his son's future in a world where men were men. What Georgie didn't tell the jury was that he was a bowling addict, and he liked to sneak out every Thursday night to bowl in a league 40 miles from his home. Imagine, then, the surprise on Georgie's faceand the thud in the heart of his lawyer-when the insurance company put the custodian of records for the American Bowling Congress on the stand. Said custodian had in his hand a print-out of every league game