Beacon has conducted multiple investigations in the past six months for clients who were victims of phishing attacks that utilized the “Google Docs” platform as a ploy to persuade victims to provide password and sign-in credentials for their email accounts.

The phishing attacks were followed by bank and wire fraud, resulting in serious financial repercussions for our clients.

The attacks were initiated when the victims received emails from a friend or close associate, whose accounts had already been hacked without their knowledge. The text of those emails differed in specifics, but the basic message was as follows:

Dear John, I tried to send this document to you before. Did you receive it? VIEW HERE and sign on with your email to access it on Google.doc. Then get back to me so we can discuss! Regards, Jim

Recipients of the phishing email who clicked on the “VIEW HERE” link (which has been disabled in this post) are redirected to a website controlled by the fraudsters, which mimics a legitimate-seeming sign-in screen for Google Docs. The recipients are asked to “sign in” to their email account to receive access to the purported Google Docs. (Needless to say, the Google Docs either don’t exist, or are entirely blank.)

As soon as the victims submit their password at that site, their email accounts — and all the personal and financial information they contain — are compromised.

The attackers immediately access and search their victims’ email accounts for bank accounts and related financial information. They then use that information to make unauthorized wire transfers and ATM withdrawals. Posing as the victims, they send email instructions to the victim’s own bankers, accountants, and investment advisors, instructing them to transfer the funds to various foreign and domestic accounts.

After draining all available cash and assets, the fraudsters then use their victim’s hacked email accounts to send more phishing emails to all of the victim’s personal contacts. The victim’s friends, family and coworkers receive emails supposedly from the victim — asking them to click on the link and sign into Google Docs. And the process begins all over again.

This is a global exploit with many copycats. Our forensic specialists and financial investigators tracked leads in Singapore, India, Switzerland and South Dakota. We followed a trail of hacked servers, phony emails, and ghost financial accounts. Hackers working abroad are facilitated by local criminal associates in each country who facilitate the cash withdrawals.

“Google Docs has been used to distribute malware in the past. Now it is increasingly being used as a lure for phishing,” observed Larry Seltzer at ZDNet in November 2013.

When an email appears to come from a trusted source, and has not been red-flagged by antivirus software or spam filters, most people — even trained security professionals — will often click without hesitation. We recently discovered that a similar attack had duped other private investigators in the popular “PI Cases” user group on Yahoo!

These phishing attacks are a very simple, and very persuasive, form of fraud. For victims, unfortunately, the recovery of stolen funds can be exceedingly difficult because local law enforcement agencies are rarely equipped to investigate schemes that cross numerous international borders. Moreover, the “ghost accounts” controlled by the fraudsters are often established under stolen identities at smaller regional banks and credit unions, or in foreign countries, where internal fraud departments may lack the institutional resources to identify and pursue the perpetrators. In light of these facts, we expect we will be investigating many more of these types of attacks in the months ahead.

About Beacon: Beacon Investigative Solutions is a full-service investigative agency licensed in 45 states and Washington, D.C. We provide investigative services for private clients, major corporations, law firms, insurers, investors, and government agencies.

Beacon Investigative Solutions is pleased to announce that one of our business clients in South Dakota recently obtained a $775,000 summary judgment for tortious interference, in a decision that was supported by evidence obtained during our investigation of the defendant.

While business owners and executives may expect that a successful investigation for tortious interference, defamation and disparagement could potentially cost thousands of dollars, experienced private investigators are capable of delivering cost-effective results. The total bill for our services was equivalent to only three hours of investigative time. Clearly, our client made a smart investment. He also significantly increased the odds of a successful outcome by collecting all necessary evidence before filing suit.

Beacon was retained in December 2010 by the principal of a pest control and exterminator service firm in Rapid City, SD. Our client’s older brother owned and operated a competing company in the same market, and had reportedly been making false statements about our client’s firm.

One of our senior investigators contacted the competing firm, and over a period of time developed the confidence of its owner, who made numerous disparaging statements about our client and his firm. These comments were recorded and documented in accordance with applicable laws and rules of evidence.

Our client subsequently filed suit in the Seventh Judicial Circuit Court of Pennington County, SD (All Seasons Pest Control Co. et al. v. Michael Williams; case #CIV 11-46).

Facts obtained during our investigation and interview of the defendant were presented to the court. The judge found in favor of plaintiff, awarding damages of $250,000, plus punitive damages of $500,000.

About Beacon: Beacon Investigative Solutions is a full-service investigative agency licensed in 45 states and Washington, D.C. We provide investigative services for major corporations, law firms, insurers, investors, and government agencies. 

Corporate America has become a frontline for foreign espionage. Yet executives, inside counsel, corporate investigators and security professionals seeking to protect their company’s proprietary information may find there are more immediate threats — much closer to home — to their enterprise and its competitive edge.

Corporate strategy, R&D, financials, and operational data may all be, to some degree, chapters of an open book. Major competitors – not covert spies or Chinese hackers – are the ones most likely to flip through the pages.

Read the complete article by Beacon director John Powers at TheLawInsider.com.

About the Author: John Powers is director of Beacon Investigative Solutions and co-founder of Beacon Strategic Advisors. He has been featured in AOL Money & Finance, Huffington Post, Competitive Intelligence Magazine, and The Legal Investigator. Contact him at jpowers@beaconinvestigation.com or follow him on Google+ and @JohnPowersPI.

About Beacon: Beacon Investigative Solutions is a national private investigation agency that conducts high-level investigations for corporations, law firms, private clients and government agencies. Beacon also advises on competitive intelligence and trade secret protection through its consulting division, Beacon Strategic Advisors.

Many eyebrows were raised by the disclosures of Edward Snowden, the 29-year-old former NSA contractor who revealed details on top-secret U.S. domestic surveillance programs before fleeing to Hong Kong and Russia.  Mike Orchard, CEO of Beacon Investigative Solutions, considers the impact of these programs — and the plight of Snowden himself — from the perspective of a private investigator, in a guest blog for The Law Insider.

He observes: “One of the most conspicuous aspects of this national intelligence fiasco is the colossal failure of the background investigation conducted on Snowden, a high school dropout who was granted ‘nearly unlimited access to America’s intelligence secrets.'”

Read the entire article here.

Mike Orchard is president and CEO of Beacon Investigative Solutions, a national investigation agency with headquarters in Columbus, Ohio.  Specializing in surveillance and background investigations, Beacon is licensed in 45 states and Washington, D.C. Mike can be reached at morchard@beaconinvestigation.com or 800-535-2136.

 

The Role of Credit History in an Asset Search…

Credit history plays a critical role in any comprehensive asset search. Identifying the current debts of consumers or businesses is often a starting point for identifying active banking and lending relationships. It can also be a highly valuable took for evaluating the subject’s overall financial health, and adjusting strategies and expectations accordingly.

Certain criteria must be met before a consumer report can be legally obtained from one the credit bureaus, such as Transunion, Experian or Equifax, as outlined in the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). Permissible purposes include collection of a civil judgment, risk evaluations by insurers, investor due diligence and other legitimate business needs involving transactions initiated by the consumer.

Credit reports contain an overview of consumer credit cards, charge cards, car loans, credit lines, collection accounts, and mortgages, as well as their current status and payment history. This information often contains valuable leads for identifying the subject’s active banking relationships, which is a separate but related process.

For corporations and small businesses, credit reports will contain a generalized overview of credit accounts and supplier payments, as well as an assessment of the entity’s financial stress and delinquency risk. Revenue figures may also be provided for both public and private firms. However, when audited financial statements are not available, the revenue data is sometimes estimated based on proprietary formulas that consider factors such as the company’s size and specific industry (NAICS/SIC) and may therefore be widely off the mark. In other situations, company financials are self-reported by company principals, and may be unreliable. It is important to closely review any caveats and the sources cited for all revenue figures provided in these reports, and when practicable, obtain independent confirmation of the data.

If the subject of the investigation is an individual, but the nature of the case is not covered by any FCRA permissible purpose, then it is not possible to obtain an authorized copy of a consumer credit report directly from one of the bureaus. Fortunately, there are other investigative avenues that can yield valuable details on credit history.

Tax liens, bankruptcies, mortgages, evictions, foreclosures, collection suits, and other kinds of civil litigation are all public records. Recent civil suits and judgments against the subject should be closely reviewed for any garnishment filings that identify bank accounts and employers. Divorce suits also may divulge previously undisclosed assets. Commercial litigation may contain other significant details, such as ownership interest in closely held entities, intellectual property, affiliates and subsidiaries.

Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) financing statements are another area for research. UCC filings are public records that memorialize a secured loan, and they typically list the personal or business property that is being posted as collateral, which could be racehorses, crops, aircraft, copyrights, patents or trademarks.

My firm recently completed an asset search for a client who had a mid-six-figure judgment against an individual. Early in the process, we provided a credit overview of the subject that was overwhelmingly negative, containing numerous collections and charge-offs, a delinquent mortgage destined for foreclosure, and a home equity line of credit that had been suspended for nonpayment. The subject had no active consumer credit lines remaining – not one open credit card! – having burned nearly every institution that ever lent him money. The one exception was the satisfactorily maintained loan on his $50,000 Lexus – which was not at all surprising, because appearances are paramount when you are scamming wealthy investors.

The subject’s fraud against our client – which had resulted in a sizable judgment – was already proof this person had no sense of financial responsibility. What we did not know until we reviewed his credit history was that he also had no financial planning or self-preservation, which is quite common in fraud cases.

Within two weeks we had identified five active financial accounts for the subject, both investment and banking accounts. At least one account was overdrawn and the others had minimal balances. Evidently, the money he bilked from our client was long gone. If we had been retained to check his credit profile before the deal was completed – which is a service we provide when conducting corporate and financial due diligence – our client’s investment would most likely never have never been made. Or lost.

Beacon has identified more than $50 million in personal and business assets for our clients in the past two years. Knowing how to legally obtain and critically interpret a subject’s credit history is a small – but essential – part of that process.

About the Author: John Powers is director of Beacon Investigative Solutions. His articles on financial investigation and related matters have appeared in Huffington Post, AOL Money & Finance, Competitive Intelligence Magazine and The Legal Investigator. Email him at jpowers@beaconinvestigation.com or follow him on Google+ and at @JohnPowersPI.

About Beacon: Beacon Investigative Solutions conducts comprehensive asset discovery and financial background investigations for corporate clients, law firms, and government agencies.

When a child is lost, or a family member goes missing, the typical first response is to panic. The second is to call the police – and then endure many fretful hours, days or weeks waiting for news. Yet there are several other important steps that should be taken immediately to aid the safe return of a missing person.

MSN News recently interviewed Beacon CEO Mike Orchard, following the homecoming of three missing women – Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight – who were found inside a Cleveland house earlier this month, after allegedly spending 10 years locked inside. Those women had been reported missing to the police, but it was the actions of a concerned neighbor that ultimately led to their release and long-awaited reunion with their families.

About Beacon: Beacon Investigative Solutions is a national private investigation firm licensed and authorized in 45 states and Washington, D.C. With a staff of investigative specialists and field investigators in nearly every state in the U.S., Beacon has extensive reach and resources for heir searches, witness locates, and missing persons investigations.

 

Asset searches can be an extremely valuable tool for attorneys, investors, executives and individual litigants, if conducted by an experienced private investigator with the proper skills and resources. In addition to tangible assets, financial accounts and revenue/income sources, a comprehensive search should also reveal liabilities, bankruptcies, liens and lawsuits, resulting in a complete financial profile that is both accurate and actionable.

The 10 top reasons to consider conducting an asset search

1. Uncovering Embezzlement and Employee Fraud:

Did your junior bookkeeper just buy a yacht? Did your purchasing agent pay off a 30-year mortgage in 30 days? If so, the company books may have been cooked. The perpetrators of embezzlement, corporate theft, and kickback schemes are often employees who have been living lavishly beyond their salary. On the flip side of that same coin, however, employees who have been experiencing severe financial difficulties may also be more likely to commit fraud, according to findings from the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners.

2. Investor Due Diligence:

Multi-million-dollar investment frauds and Ponzi schemes have infamously masqueraded as private equity firms and hedge funds. Pump-and-dump schemes and chop stocks litter the lightly regulated OTC exchanges. Yet despite the clear risks, even experienced, accredited investors sometimes fail to kick the tires before investing in an unknown entity. Due diligence on an investment firm, portfolio company, or investment manager can be critical in uncovering red flags before funding is committed, compromised and lost.

3. Mergers and Acquisitions:

Much of the legwork in today’s M&A due diligence is handled by ‘clean teams’ of attorneys and accountants poring over financial records in virtual data rooms. Yet executives and advisors often have questions that cannot be fully answered by the proffered financials. An asset search by an investigative specialist can provide added insights and increased transparency for properly valuating M&A targets.

4. Before Litigation:

Litigation generally involves a major commitment of time and resources. Even a successful suit that concludes with a favorable judgment offers no guarantee of getting paid. Before filing a complaint for money damages, it is often advisable to know whether the defendant can cover the claim.

5. When Considering a Settlement:

Having an accurate financial assessment of your legal adversary can be highly useful when the other side signals they are ready to settle a case. A clear perspective on their assets will help you decide whether to continue negotiations, prepare for trial, or sign at the dotted line.

6. Divorce:

Contested divorce proceedings can turn into a lengthy, bitter battle when husbands and wives are unsure of – or unable to prove – the full extent of their spouse’s finances. There is an obvious and immediate financial motivation for identifying undisclosed and hidden assets. Yet there can also be significant legal leverage – and curried favor with the judge – if it can be proven that the other side has been misrepresenting their assets or acting in bad faith.

7. Recovering a Judgment:

When the losing side in a lawsuit refuses to satisfy the final judgment, successful collection efforts will ultimately depend on being able to quickly identify their assets. At the most basic level, this process involves locating and levying bank accounts, garnishing employment wages, and securing liens against real property. Yet for more sizable judgments – and when dealing with evasive debtors who will try every trick in the book to make themselves ‘judgment proof’ – more intensive investigative avenues must be pursued, including identification of assets held in shell companies, brokerage accounts, trusts, and offshore accounts, as well as any fraudulent transfers to associates or family members.

8. Stress-Testing of Business Partners.

Entering into a new partnership, joint venture, or major supplier contract can be an anxiety-producing proposition when there is insufficient knowledge about the extent of their debts and state of their financial health. With an independent asset investigation, business owners and executives can assess whether their potential partners have the necessary resources to fulfill their current and future obligations.

9. Probate Problems.

Executors of estates are frequently faced with incomplete financial records. Nevertheless, they are typically required by the court to tally an accurate inventory of the estate’s assets. This may seem like an impossible undertaking if the decedent was the household’s primary breadwinner and family bookkeeper – particularly if there was no financial planner, estate attorney, or accountant who kept a second set of records. Asset searches on deceased individuals can prove more time-consuming and costly if the subject has been dead for more than a year. Yet it may be an unavoidable expense if the surviving spouse, adult children, and family advisors cannot provide the necessary answers.

10. Lending Money.

Regardless of whether a loan is being provided by a bank or a private party, the lender has a common-sense obligation to consider the financial health of the debtor prior to releasing the funds. Long gone are the days of so-called ‘liar loans’ and ‘ninja loans’ (no income, no job, no assets) that fueled the housing-and-CDO heyday before the market crash. Many major lenders now require an independent evaluation of assets to quantify risk of default, while confirming the status of posted collateral.

About Beacon: Beacon Investigative Solutions conducts comprehensive asset discovery and financial background investigations for corporate clients, law firms, and government agencies.

In this new white paper, Beacon offers a fresh interpretation of – and partial corrective to – the popular ‘Black Swan Theory’ of Nassim Nicholas Taleb, in light of risk-related disasters at JPMorgan Chase, Sony, American Superconductor and Walmart.

Taleb’s best-selling book has taught business leaders to believe the greatest threat to their companies will be a black swan, an unpredictable extreme-impact event with the magnitude of a market crash or terrorist attack. By comparison, everyday risks seem like black flies: bothersome and persistent, but unlikely to cause calamity or collapse. However, this distinction is misguided. Though the consequences of routine risks may seem minimal – and therefore able to be ignored – their cumulative impact can be disastrous.

Risk mitigation experts, competitive intelligence professionals, and corporate investigators are often consulted after a crisis has occurred, by which time the worst damage is already done.

“In today’s global business environment, major corporations must continually recalibrate their risk assessments and innovation efforts amid the constant flux of political, economic and environmental factors,” says Beacon director John Powers. “Some events are true black swans, neither probable nor predictable. Yet in a surprising number of cases, businesses have conspicuously miscalculated and mismanaged well-known threats, or allowed seemingly minor risks to accumulate until they trigger a cascading failure.”

Distant disasters ripple through supply chains and counterparty contracts, revealing the globalized economy to be a daisy chain of interlinked vulnerabilities. Yet many executives, analysts and corporate investigators continue to perceive business risks as either random singularities or isolated irritants. Why do they search for a swan, instead of seeing the swarm?

Download a complete PDF copy of the report here.

A version of this report was published in Competitive Intelligence Magazine (January/March 2013).

About the Author: John Powers is director of Beacon Investigative Solutions and Beacon Strategic Advisors. His articles on competitive intelligence, corporate investigation and related matters have appeared in Huffington Post, AOL Money & Finance, Competitive Intelligence Magazine and The Legal Investigator. Email him at jpowers@beaconinvestigation.com or follow him on Google and at @JohnPowersPI.

About Beacon: Beacon Investigative Solutions advises business clients, law firms, and government agencies on corporate intelligence, investigations, and risk mitigation.

When most people think of GPS trackers, the images that spring to mind include cheating spouses, concerned parents, and police covertly tracking criminals. Yet GPS is also used for many legitimate business concerns. Recent legal precedents, however, have pushed GPS tracking into a legal grey area in many states, raising concerns among executives and their corporate counsel about how their companies should employ the technology.

How Innovative Businesses Rely on GPS

For years, logistics and delivery companies have relied on GPS tracking and geospatial technology to monitor their freight containers and trucks. UPS, for example, pioneered the use of commercial GPS to improve route-mapping and other operational efficiencies across its fleet of 60,000 drivers. “If I can just reduce one mile per driver per day, that’s more than 20 million miles a year, that’s tires that aren’t being wasted, that’s 2 million gallons of fuel, that’s 20,000 metric tons of carbon not going into the air,” UPS Director of Process Management, Jack Levis, told Penn State Public Broadcasting.

GPS tracking of company vehicles has also been used by businesses seeking to monitor their mobile sales force and field reps. Software applications, including Salesforce.com, can also be used to compile location-aware data from the smartphones of off-site workers. Of course, it’s not just people that need to be monitored: energy, construction and excavation firms frequently employ GPS to keep close tabs on the location of their heavy equipment.

GPS also plays an important role in corporate investigations. A company in Ohio recently retained Beacon Investigative Solutions to track company vehicles used by employees who were suspected of orchestrating an insider theft. With the help of GPS tracking, the perpetrators were successfully identified, and evidence against them was turned over to the police for prosecution.

The Legal ‘Grey Area’ of GPS

It has now been a year since the landmark Supreme Court decision in United States v. Jones, which ruled that warrantless GPS tracking by law enforcement is illegal. As Justice Scalia wrote in the majority opinion of the Court:

We hold that the Government’s installation of a GPS device on a target’s vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor the vehicle’s movements, constitutes a “search.” It is important to be clear about what occurred in this case: The Government physically occupied private property for the purpose of obtaining information.

For law enforcement agencies, the ruling was very clear: warrantless GPS tracking constitutes a violation of The Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. However, the Supreme Court did not address the use of GPS tracking by businesses or private individuals, leaving such matters up to state lawmakers and judiciaries.

Today, from state to state, there is still no consensus on the legality of GPS tracking in circumstances that do not directly involve law enforcement.

In most states, GPS tracking by licensed private investigators is considered acceptable if the company or person who requests that a tracking device be installed on a vehicle is an owner or co-owner of the vehicle. After all, if it is your property—either your personal property or your business property—you have the right to know how it’s being used, and you have a right to physically occupy your own property.

Those rights have been largely upheld amid legal challenges. For example, in 2007 a New Jersey woman hired a private investigator to follow her husband, whom she suspected of having an affair. After the husband managed to elude the surveillance, the investigator recommended that the wife install a GPS device, which she placed in the glove compartment of their SUV. The husband was soon discovered riding in the car with another woman. He later sued his wife for invasion of privacy and “substantial and permanent emotional distress” and he also tried to sue the investigator. Yet in 2011, a New Jersey appellate court ruled in favor of the woman and the investigator, concluding that the husband had no reasonable expectation of privacy because the GPS device tracked him on public streets.

Restrictive GPS Tracking Laws in Specific States

Several states have passed laws related to GPS tracking that are far more restrictive. These state laws include the following provisions, as summarized in a 2012 presentation by Cincinnati law firm Dinsmore & Shohl LLP, and supplemented with more recently enacted legislation:

California: California state law forbids the use of electronic devices to determine the location of other individuals, unless done with consent or by law enforcement.

Connecticut: Employers must give written notice of electronic monitoring to employees prior to commencing the monitoring. An employer is exempt, however, if the employer believes the employee is violating the law or the legal rights of another employee, or is creating a hostile work environment; or if it is believed that monitoring may produce evidence of these actions. The use of electronic monitoring during criminal investigations is also exempt.

Delaware: Electronic tracking is considered an “invasion of privacy.” The installation of an electronic tracking device on the car of another individual is forbidden unless the individual consents to being tracked. Exceptions to this law exist for law enforcement and parents.

Illinois: Prohibits electronic tracking of a vehicle without permission of its registered owner, lessor or lessee. The law includes separate provisions for law enforcement agencies. (New state law enacted January 2014.)

Michigan: Although unauthorized usage of a GPS tracker on a vehicle is a misdemeanor offense in Michigan, the state law explicitly exempts licensed private investigators from such restrictions in the course of his/her duties.

New Hampshire: New Hampshire now prohibits using “an electronic device on the person or property of another and obtain location information from such electronic device.” (New state law enacted July 2015.)

New York: Anti-stalking legislation known as “Jackie’s Law” prohibits use of global positioning systems to track individuals without their permission. (New state law enacted October 2014.)

Tennessee: It is considered a criminal offense to install, conceal or place an electronic tracking device on a vehicle without the consent of all owners of the vehicle, although exceptions exist for parents tracking the whereabouts of their minor (driving age) children, or when the device is being used to track stolen goods.

Texas: The placement of “electronic or mechanical tracking devices” on the vehicles of others without their consent is forbidden. Exceptions are allowed for law enforcement and licensed private investigators with consent of the car owner. There is also a “Good Samaritan” exception.

Wisconsin: State law now criminalizes the use of GPS devices to track someone’s location without their consent. (*New state law enacted July 2015.)

In other states, such as Colorado and Washington State, invasion of privacy and/or anti-stalking laws may apply. Legislators in several other states, including Virginia, Minnesota, and Rhode Island, have proposed laws to limit mobile tracking devices.

Knowing what state laws apply – and under what circumstances these devices can be legally employed – is critical for businesses that utilize GPS tracking technology. For national firms, with mobile employees and company-owned vehicles that routinely crisscross state lines, the challenge of keeping track of the still-emerging case law is particularly acute. Nevertheless, GPS tracking remains an essential tool for many businesses that utilize the technology in an ethical, effective and legal manner.

About the Author: John Powers is director of Beacon Investigative Solutions. His articles on private investigation and related matters have appeared in Huffington Post, AOL Money & Finance, Private Investigator Magazine, Competitive Intelligence Magazine and The Legal Investigator. Email him at jpowers@beaconinvestigation.com.

About Beacon: Beacon Investigative Solutions is a national private investigation firm licensed and authorized in 45 states and Washington, D.C.

During a recent engagement to conduct competitive intelligence and due diligence for a major corporation, Beacon discovered that the target was engaged in a complex, multi-million-dollar fraud. Beacon director John Powers details his experience coordinating with the Securities and Exchange Commission (S.E.C.) Office of the Whistleblower in a recent article in Huffington Post.

Four years after the arrest of Bernie Madoff, it’s still more difficult than you might imagine to enlist the help of federal securities regulators in exposing a large-scale investment fraud. Though the responsibilities of the S.E.C. have grown considerably, its enforcement budget — relative to total managed investment assets in the market — has fallen by nearly 50 percent since 2005.

Read more.