COSTA RICA ASSETS SEARCH The following letter was written for a potential client who had a need for conducting an assets search in Costa Rica. Because I get so many requests for this very same type of investigation, I thought it would be beneficial to post this letter on the website so that all parties concerned may review the same. If you have any questions after reviewing this letter, feel free to send me an email at wayne@waynebrewer.com. Dear Client: You contacted me because you were interested in my Costa Rica office conducting an asset search into possible assets and/or hidden assets for your ex-husband. During this conversation, I advised you of the “uniqueness” of Costa Rica and the complications in conducting this type of search in that country. I wanted to make sure you understood the challenges involved before spending any of your own hard- earned money, to possibly come up with no more information than I’m putting in this letter. First, Costa Rica is a country that is internally structured to hide assets and income for people. There are more North American and foreign people living in Costa Rica for the sole purpose of hiding themselves and/or hiding assets and income. Usually this money is illegally brought into Costa Rica after being obtained through fraudulent means in their originating country. Second, it is very easy and inexpensive to hide assets and income in Costa Rica and the surrounding Caribbean Islands. All you need are multiple “cedulas,” which are equivalent to social security or corporation identification numbers in the United States. When you are born, you have the right to one cedula; however, with a $50-75.00 fee, you can establish as many corporations under as many types of names as you can possibly imagine, and obtain separate cedulas for each new entity. People who are hiding assets use multiple cedulas for multiple bank accounts and assets. I have seen individuals put an automobile under one corporation/cedula, a piece of property under another corporation/cedula, a checking account and/or saving account each under various different corporations/cedulas, as well as real estate, off-shore bank accounts, gambling houses, businesses, etc. The assets for each separate corporation/cedula usually stay in that corporation/cedula and are easily sold or transferred by these stock shares, as opposed to going through the bureaucratic maze of trying to register or transfer an asset without this type of corporation/cedula. Third, what happens once a different corporation/cedula is established is that it, in turn, has assets/stock shares transferred to another person/corporation/cedula and this continues in a domino effect until it is almost impossible to follow the paper trail, even by law enforcement w/subpoena powers. Each corporation in turn then sponsors another corporation/cedula and I have seen literally hundreds of corporations/cedulas established by one group of individuals for the sole purpose of hiding assets, etc. Hopefully this information will assist you in deciding whether you want to spend the funds for this type of hidden assets search. The longer a person has been in that country, the more likely it is that the assets are hidden; however, you never know for certain until you conduct a due diligence search in that country.
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