Recently, my very smart friend and colleague Randy Kessler, Esq. participated in a podcast called Show Me the Money: Helping Clients Find and Protect Assets in a Divorce for the American Bar Association  Journal. The podcast focused on finding (and keeping!) assets in divorce and child support matters.

I’ve written about finding hidden income in divorce cases, as well as performing a lifestyle analysis to prove that there are hidden earnings. The concealment of assets and earnings in a divorce case is a hot-button issue. It is important to get your arms around these issues early if you are to have a good chance of finding the money and getting your share of the money.

The most interesting cases I work are criminal cases for defendants accused of financial crimes such as money laundering, tax fraud, bribery and corruption, embezzlement, and investment fraud. I do my best work as a forensic accountant and fraud investigator in cases in which a trail of money must be followed through a complex web of people, entities, and bank accounts.

Peers and colleagues often question my desire to do criminal defense work. CPAs often see themselves as financial watchdogs, especially when they are providing traditional accounting or auditing services. The see themselves on the “right side” of the law, and can’t get their heads around the idea of a CPA helping a criminal.

From my thought leadership series at Securities Docket:

The internet is an important source of information in financial investigations. It has become so important, that I wonder what I ever did without access to all of this information! Even though my work is focused on digging into the details of financial records – - and many of those are private and not available online – - I still acquire a lot of information helpful to my investigations on the internet.

In Chapter 5 of my book Expert Fraud Investigation: A Step-by-Step Guide, I discuss sources of information for fraud investigations. There are entire books devoted to the process of finding and using public records and public information to aid in investigations, so naturally a chapter of a book can only scratch the surface. However, in that chapter and in this article, I’m going to begin to show you how you can find valuable information.

This article was originally printed in the ABA Section of Family Law eNewsletter, November 2011.

One of the chief concerns in a divorce or child custody case is identifying the true income of one or both of the parties. It is not unusual for such a case to include allegations of hidden income or assets. It is common for a closely held business to suspiciously encounter declining sales and profits following the filing of a family law case.

In each of these instances, properly determining the income of the party is critical to getting a fair and equitable settlement, maintenance award, or child support award. Until you have the correct numbers, the attorney may find it very difficult to decide what is fair or in the best interest of the client.

How to determine the right mix of expertise for a fraud investigation.

By Tracy Coenen, Contributor to CFO.com

It’s every CFO’s worst nightmare: despite your best efforts, your company’s compliance program has failed. There are credible reports of fraud and corruption inside the company, and an initial analysis of the situation confirms a problem. An internal investigation is necessary to determine the magnitude of the fraud, the parties involved, and the company’s financial and reputational exposure under government regulations.

How should you proceed? These investigations are often high stakes, so it is important to do things the right way from the start. In-house counsel should be involved in any situation involving allegations or evidence of fraud. Once executives have sufficient reason to believe the allegations are credible, they should involve outside counsel as well.

When a party to a divorce or child support case is believed to be hiding income or assets, one way uncover proof of it is through a lifestyle analysis. Such an analysis is not only helpful in establishing the true income of the subject, it can also uncover inconsistencies which reflect negatively on the subject’s credibility.

One key piece of documentation that can help your case against someone who is concealing income or assets is a loan application. When borrowing funds for homes, cars, boats, or business investments, people are often required to disclose details of their personal finances. This usually includes disclosing monthly or yearly income, as well as the value of assets such as homes, vehicles, real estate, and business interests.

In divorce and child support cases, one party may attempt to hide income and assets to deprive the spouse or children of their rightful support. It can be difficult to prove hidden earnings or assets, particularly if the other party owns a business, owns assets within corporations or partnerships, or has other financial vehicles that could be used to conceal wealth.

However, there are ways to discover the existence of assets or reasonably estimate the person’s level of earnings. One such way is a lifestyle analysis, which calculates the earnings necessary to live the known lifestyle of the target.

When a business owner or executive encounters proof of a fraud-in-progress, a natural reaction is often to immediately begin investigating. After all, someone has to get to the bottom of the situation. Yet that’s not usually the best way to go.

Just like on television, we need to give owners and executives a warning that they should not try this at home. It’s tempting to dig right into a potential fraud and start to unravel what’s happened. While the immediate gathering of information is helpful to a fraud investigator, when an inexperienced person tries to go further and actually investigate, bad things can happen.

From my Thought Leadership series at Securities Docket:

When a whistleblower goes to a government agency with allegations of fraud and corruption, no one knows whether the government will act. The more detailed and credible the allegations, the more likely the government will ask questions.  The company may even have the great “fortune” of being subject to a full-blown government investigation.