Well, what we’ve been seeing for the last few years is now starting to show up in the news: fraud and forensics in divorce cases. Here’s an article that appeared in the Sun Times out of London, but it’s a US story. Investigators who uncover couples’ hidden assets are in high demand.
Explosion of Services in Forensic Accounting
The demand for services has exploded among ordinary spouses, and forensic accountants are increasingly showing up in America’s courtrooms. The fastest-growing area of our business right now as investigators is hidden assets and asset fraud within divorce cases. It’s exploding.
From High Net Worth to Ordinary Cases
It used to just be high-dollar, high-net-worth type people, like Kevin Costner mentions here. But now, it’s showing up in many normal, average family cases. Forensic accounting, asset tracing, asset searching, document forensics—look, the level of fraud and misrepresentation in divorce cases is off the charts.
Shifting financial disclosure norms
It used to be that, for the most part, the financial disclosures made in divorce were pretty close to being accurate. Now, it’s not even close. Attorneys point-blank tell their clients to hide assets, assuring them that no one’s ever going to check. Up until now, there wasn’t a lot of investigation going into it.
Rise of Investigative Measures
More and more cases are having digital forensics, forensic examiners, and asset research go into their cases to go through all the documentation. We go through hundreds, sometimes thousands, of documents to find these hidden assets.
Frequency of Hidden Assets
We’ve been doing it for two decades plus, and the number of times that we see hidden assets is almost always there. If you suspect there are assets being concealed, there probably are. Last year, we worked on five or 600 cases. I don’t remember one that didn’t have hidden assets.
Consultation and Self-Service Options
So, if you want more information about finding hidden assets or what the status of your case is, you can click the link below. You can arrange a consultation. We have all the services you might want to know about, and some of these things you can do yourself.
