Tucked safely away under his fake name of over fifteen years. Benny Wint is out cruising about town doing his thing going to and fro. Then the ‘oh shit” moment of life happens, a police car in the rearview. On go the bubblegum lights and the blast of a siren. Benny pulls over.
The heat stopped Benny because of a rear light by his license plate was not functioning. Benny, Benny, Benny how many times have we read about criminals and other non-do-gooders being busted because of a faulty blinker or broken taillight.
Benny told the officer his name was James Sweet but the officer knew there was something not so sweet going down. Because when the officer ran the name James Sweet in the computer, no James Sweet was located. The cop arrested him on suspicion of driving without a license and giving false information.
At the police station, Benny cracked like a bad egg and spilled the beans. He revealed that he has been on the run since the late eighties. Back in the day, Benny and his babe went to the beach in Daytona and he disappeared in the water. His woman contacted the authorities. The police in Daytona thought the disappearance seemed a bit fishy. The reason is that most people who drown at the beach typically float back to the sand.
The story goes that Benny was allegedly involved with some drug people prior to his disappearance and he believed the whip was coming down and incarceration was coming his way.
When the police ran his fingerprints and did a search, Benny had no wants or warrants. It turns out that Benny disappeared for no reason at all. He was squeaky clean.
If you plan on faking your death or disappearing because you believe the man is going to come calling, do your dam homework. Pick up a prepaid credit card, prepaid cell phone, get a bogus email address, call a private investigator, and tell them you are hiring a person and would like to do a background check that includes wants and warrants.
I do not know if Benny sees his life as a life wasted or if his life became better on the fake lam. Can you imagine fifteen years later realizing that you ran from something that did not exist? The suffering his family must have gone through thinking Benny was somewhere in the afterlife.
Benny is an example of what not to do for two reasons. The primary is he went on the run for no reason at all. Second, he had a fake identity that did not stand up to the inquiry by the man. You are probably thinking so what, he was on the run for years. Sure, he was but if he were a true criminal running from the law, he would be sitting behind barbwire at this moment. The bottom line here is Benny Wint should never have gone!
MR. SELF-HELP
I do what I call gotcha cases every so often. It usually involves searching for a person who owes large amounts of money. My Norwegian client was searching for Mr. Self-Help who was a defunct motivational speaker and the author of a few mediocre books about bettering one’s self. Mr. Self-Help borrowed a large amount of money from a group of investors and disappeared into the wind.
When hunting down a subject down all I need to do is find one nugget of information and chip away at that piece. In most cases, that piece usually takes me to another piece of information. The hope is that it leads to something tangible like an address or contact number. Mr. Self-Help was actually pretty slick at hiding and every piece of information I located led to a disconnected phone number or a dead mail drop.
Gordon Gecko says greed is good. What Gordon does not know is greed is great when hunting down certain types of criminals and deadbeats. I figured I would lure Mr. Self-Help out of hiding by posing as a foreign publisher interested in translating a few of his books into French. I built a website and loaded it up with a bunch of books covers and a few employee names. In an hour’s time, the Francois Beaumont Agency looked quite authentic.
I emailed Mr. Self-Help’s publisher and inquired if they had contact information for him or his agent. Mr. Self-Help reached out to me immediately and I Explained The Francois Beaumont Agency had interest in translating his books into French. Being the greedy soul, he happened to be he wanted to negotiate the deal directly and not use an agent. A meeting was set with Mr. Self-Help in Paris.
We met up in a hotel lobby, did our introductions and moved into the restaurant for lunch. I talked in detail about how his books would be translated and if they hit a certain sales mark, it was possible a new book would be requested of him. I handed over a few contracts and a sheet that requested bank information for wire payment.
Mr. Self-Help breezed through the contracts and signed on the dotted line in between Shrimp Cocktail and Coq au vin, we shook hands and parted ways. About a month later, law enforcement greeted Mr. Self-Help at his home and arrested him for intent to defraud.
If you are disappeared and a situation emerges where you need to step out of hiding you need to do some deep recon. If the scenario involves something very attractive as money, always consider the fact that it could be bait. If Mr. Self-Help took three minutes of his time and searched the domain name I used for the publishers website in WHOIS, he would have discovered that the domain name was only thirty days old.