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As tens of thousands of victims of recently-collapsed investment frauds ponder how to go about recovering their savings, three words should be on the forefront of their minds – speed, aggressiveness, and experience.
Those are the key components of a successful asset recovery attempt, according to Edward H. Davis, Jr. a Miami-based attorney who specializes in helping to locate, freeze and seize the proceeds of crime.
"Every moment lost locating, freezing and repatriating assets back to the estate is money lost forever to the victims."
"Victims of financial crime should be under no illusions about the tremendous obstacles in the way of recovering funds so that they may be paid a portion of what they are owed," Davis told OffshoreAlert.
"However, with the right team in place with the right skill-sets, it is possible to find and recover defrauded assets, regardless of the lengths a crook has gone to conceal them."
As the founding partner of law firm Astigarraga Davis, Davis has many years of experience in unraveling complex, multi-jurisdictional fraud schemes and taking steps to attack the perpetrators where it hurts them the most – their pockets.
"The proper way to attack a fraud like a Ponzi scheme is to aggressively intervene and begin to marshal information and assets in manner that is calculated to minimize the expense to the estate and maximize the return to the victims," said Davis.
"The approach must be a coordinated multi-jurisdictional one with an emphasis on speed. Every moment lost locating, freezing and repatriating assets back to the estate is money lost forever to the victims.
"Another essential ingredient is experience – experience in dealing in multiple jurisdictions simultaneously, experience in locating experts in flight jurisdictions and secrecy havens to ferret out where the hidden assets are and to return them with a minimum of expense to allow the victims the most recovery possible, experience in preserving evidence that is crucial to civil and criminal efforts and experience in dealing with government and non-government actors that are naturally involved in this international process.
"These are not the type of cases where one should be learning on the job."
Although investment scams have been collapsing left, right and center over the last six months, Davis fears there is a lot more to come.
"As the global economic crisis deepens, the emergence of seemingly endless Ponzi scams and advance fee swindles has taken on epic proportions," he said.
"In the Caribbean basin alone the Stanford, DMG, DRFE (a.k.a. Rapid Money, Easy Cash), Pimstein and Theodule alleged Ponzi scams have shaken the faith of investors and depositors to their core.
"Unfortunately, they are likely not going to be the last of these schemes to be revealed."
Davis will explain some of the methods and techniques involved in a successful asset recovery-effort at the 7th Annual OffshoreAlert Financial Due Diligence Conference, which is being held in Miami Beach Florida on April 26-28, 2009.
Edward H. Davis, Jr. (pictured left), founding partner of law firm Astigarraga Davis, will explain some of the methods and techniques involved in a successful asset recovery-effort during a special 90-minute session entitled 'Ponzi Schemes: How to Detect Them & Steps To Take if You Are a Victim' at the 7th Annual OffshoreAlert Financial Due Diligence Conference that is taking place in Miami Beach on April 26-28, 2009.
Davis has many years of experience in unraveling complex, multi-jurisdictional fraud schemes and taking steps to attack the perpetrators where it hurts them the most – their pockets.
Attend OffshoreAlert's Conference and you will learn the techniques that Davis has used to successfully locate and recover criminal proceeds across the globe along with 27 other unique sessions presented by industry experts from the world's top organizations at the 7th Annual OffshoreAlert Financial Due Diligence Conference, where new practitioners and experienced professionals will find opportunities to enhance their knowledge, expand capabilities and learn new skills.
