Identity Document Scams

International Drivers Licenses - These are sold on the Internet. Legitimate ones are issued by the recognized auto club in your country and are ONLY valid with the normal government issued drivers license. The legitimate International Drivers License is little more than a translation document in numerous languages enabling authorities to see that you do hold a valid drivers license from your country. It is never a permission to drive by itself. It is never an identity document by itself since it was not issued by any government agency and if it is a real international drivers license you would have had to show a real drivers license to get one, so where is your real drivers license. Occasionally someone asks us if we would accept this as a form of identification and the answer is of course not.

Drivers Licenses - There are replica or false drivers licenses sold on the Internet. The banks are quite capable of knowing what is real and what is not real. People that buy these licenses are fooling themselves more than anyone else.

Passports - A few times a year our law firm gets presented with a hand written passport. Most large countries have not used hand written passports for over 35 years. Some of the less developed countries used them until the post 9/11 era, say around 2002. While it is possible to have a valid handwritten passport that is still current, the offshore banks will never accept one as an ID document. It must be a machine-readable passport. I would also say that traveling on a handwritten passport into the modern world would be difficult if not impossible. Most countries have machine readable passports with digitized photos, some even have RFID chip passports now and along you come with a handwritten passport and a picture glued into the passport with a stamp and signature across the bottom of the picture. I would think big problems. Get your country to issue you a new machine-readable passport with a digitized photo.

Camouflage Passports - A camouflage passport is a non-official document printed in a passport type booklet. Such passport booklets could be ordered from printers in Asia, not sure if this is still allowed to go on, doubt it. The camouflage passport was issued from a recently defunct country like Rhodesia. So the name of the issuer sounded quite real because at one time it was. When these first came out some offshore banks opened accounts based on them. After they were on the market for a while that soon stopped and the people who used them to open the accounts had their funds locked down. Perhaps they were allowed to show new identity documents; perhaps they were treated as criminals defrauding the bank and lost their money. Not sure since these countries at the time had bank secrecy. We are going back a number of years here. We are sure that numerous memos have been sent to offshore banks warning them of this and it was also a topic at numerous due diligence seminars. Again the person fooled the most by one of these camouflage passports is the buyer. Using one of these in the event of a terrorist detention in an airplane, hotel or elsewhere is unwise. You would be treated as a person of interest and probably questioned vigorously. If they simply decided you were nothing more than a person who likes to play games they would possibly lose interest in you but then again you came to their attention and became singled out and that is never a good thing is such a scenario. Contrary to what you see on TV and in the movies serious terrorists would be likely to do what any self respecting Mexican Road Bandito does and that is strip 100% naked the victims. This does not play out well on family oriented TV shows. This enables the bad guys to find things like identity documents, official credentials, keys, discrete weapons, money, contraband, and anything else that might have been concealed. So they will now find your other real passport and again you are a person of interest to the bad guys.

Traveling with a camouflage passport is of course idiotic. If the authorities of some country find one on you it would be likely that you get detained and experience a long interrogation or worse especially if the name was different. This is a novelty item, not a second passport. These camouflage passports can only come back and hurt you. If you really fear traveling on your own passport go through the trouble of processing through immigration in another country and get a real second passport. Then you should have a government issued residency card, a driver?s license from the country and a visa card from a bank in that country, as we suggest and help our clients obtain. This is a full set of real legitimate ID that will pass scrutiny in any country.

Fantasia Passports - These are passports issued from non-real countries. A famous one is Hutt River. There is a fellow who has a very modest parcel of land in Australia. He read some law and as a result declared war on Australia. They apparently did not mobilize the army and just ignored him, which left him able to declare his independence, or so he thinks, claims, or whatever. He calls himself a country and issues passports. He bought the passport books most likely in Asia. I believe his are printed but not machine readable so he probably is not able to get newer ones or he just wants to use up the ones he has. I even saw a diplomatic version of one of these once.

These passports are not good for much. Maybe if you were in a real depraved third world country and tried a land crossing through an obscure border crossing going from one depraved third world country to another depraved third world country and there was an illiterate guard there it might work. People often take these fantasy passports and submit them for entry visas to third world countries in Africa who are happy to sell anyone a visa stamp. They collect a few entry visas and then try using it since it looks more real in that other countries have accepted it. Of course all the countries they have allegedly visited have only entry visas without an exit visa, which will raise many red flags in a civilized country.

Another instance of these involved an old WWII oil platform a few miles off the cost of the UK called Sea Land. This was an oil platform that declared itself sovereign and issued passports. For a funny touch of humor. Over the years counterfeiters have printed their own versions of the fictitious countries selling passports and sold them thus cheating the original promoter out of sales knowing a prosecution would be almost impossible since the country in question is not real. The Florida Keys tried issuing their own passports some years back issuing Conch Republic passports. Conch is a fish used in seafood in the Florida Keys. These are very real looking fantasy passports. I imagine by now they have been pressured into stopping this practice. In a nutshell you are far safe and better off without one of these fictitious country passports than with one.

Scam Expose: W. G. Hill

Introduction - There once upon a time before 9/11 was a guy who used a pen name of W.G. Hill. He wrote a series of articles and books explaining how to operate offshore anonymously and not be found, tracked etc. Perhaps up until the late 1990?s these strategies worked. Today they are extremely out of date. W.G. Hill is not a scam his work just became out of date.

Selling his works today without a disclaimer stating they are seriously out of date is less than ethical. People buy these books as a roadmap through the offshore world and they are anything but that. The offshore world has changed a lot. There are a lot of people who like to read about the offshore world and never do anything about it. For them this book or any other book is fine.

Taking any action based on a book is a bad mistake since the information in books is by definition going to be written at least 18 months previously with 24 to 30 months a more likely time frame. Thus you can be reading out of date material.

Same applies to websites. There are a lot of websites offering offshore solutions that are out of date. For example do a search for Sparbuch. A Sparbuch account was an anonymous Austrian passbook bank account. To operate it you needed the passbook and a pass code. If you used it in Austrian special ATM machines it would allow up to $20,000 a day in transactions all without ever giving any ID. In Dec. 2000 FATF told Austria they were going to be added to the blacklist if they did not drop the Sparbuch accounts. They did so promptly. Now today, in the year 2007 you can still see people selling the Sparbuch accounts on the net. If Austria Banks were allowed to have such accounts many other countries would also. If the ones being sold were real anonymous Sparbuch Accounts, Austria would be violating its agreement with FATF and be on the blacklist. This goes to show you that websites can be greatly out of date (giving them the benefit of the doubt) or the alternative is much worse.

Just in passing W.G. Hill was a big advocate of the Sparbuch account. Selling information, books and reports that has subject matter greatly out of date is less than ethical. Imagine some fellow buys the W.G. Hill reports, books etc learns about Sparbuch accounts and then searches for them on Google, sees sellers and places an order and of course it would be impossible for his order to ever be filled. See how scammers work? Would it surprise me if there were a connection between the sellers of the W.G. Hill literature and the sellers of the Sparbuch accounts? No.

Second Passports - How, Where and Why

Introduction - Our Law Firm gets numerous inquiries from clients around the world for second passports and second citizenships. Generally these programs require one to have a substantial sum of money that can be invested. The Panama Instant Passport program requires one to place about $175,000 in the bank in Panama for five years in return for $750.00 a month in bank interest paid monthly and a five-year passport, which includes a five-year residency. Not everyone has this much money to invest, even though they can decline to renew the program after five years and just take their money back making the program practically free.

The concerns with this program are what if the program is not available in five years? What if the program requires more money at the end of five years to renew? Will I need to present another passport to renew this passport at the end of five years or can I renew based on the Panama Passport? We do not know what the renewal requirements will be in five years. This has caused us to come up with alternative measures for those wanting to leave their home country and start all over with a new residency, citizenship, passport, driver license, bank account and Visa card. This is essentially a new start.

South American Passport Free Travel - In the European Union one can travel around the various countries based on a National Citizenship or Permanent Residency Identity Card. This eliminates the need for a passport unless one is going to travel on an airplane or out of the EU. Some air travel may be possible without a passport in the EU. What most do not know if that South America is also operating this way.

Why South America - A number of reasons. The real estate is most affordable. The medical is great and cheap with insurance available for most. Hospitals may be better than what you are used to. Doctors make house calls. Dentistry is affordable for almost all. Food is basically pure as in organic and cheap. Cars cost about the same. Governments are stable, some more than others but homeless people; people living in cars, etc are absent for the most part. A live in maid runs $120 to $250 a month. A full time driver runs $150 to $325 a month. Crime is lower than North America or Europe. Gun ownership is real easy in some countries. Prescriptions can generally be bought without a prescription with few exceptions like heavy pain and sleeping pills. Most of these countries we deal with will not tax money coming in from outside of their country. Some have some form of bank secrecy. Freedom is high; taxes are for most of you going to non-existent in the new country. These countries have criminalized businesses and the governments tend to focus on real crimes. South America by and large has poor relations with many of the high tax, privacy invasive countries. South America is even starting its own IMF and World Bank called Bank Sur, Bank of the South. Actually it is already open. South America is the place to go for a fresh start. It has everything you have now and then some. You will probably live calmer and better.

Differences between The European Union and South America - Some of you may think well why don?t I go to the EU for a residency. Most of what the client is trying to get away from is going to be present in the EU and even more so. There is a severe loss of privacy. Bank secrecy and corporate secrecy is generally just a memory. Taxes have reached the 80% mark in some of the European countries, admittedly there are some social services available but for you in the high-income brackets this sort of taxation would be torturous. Plan on offshore income being taxed and at high rates. Plan on really invasive filing requirements. Plan on paying high VAT rates in addition to other taxes, think 25%. Real estate prices are going to be at least four times higher than South America and in some cases much more than that. Lawyers can run wild there since actions concerning events in one country can be collected in any of the EU countries. Forget asset protection in the EU. The cost of living is generally higher than from where you came from. Weather conditions are generally not tropical or even semi-tropical but they are good for snow skiing and ice-skating. Crime is present in significant levels. I do understand that not all countries have all these factors in play at the same time.

Andes Community of Nations - This is essentially a trade block in South America consisting of: Bolivia, Columbia, Peru and Ecuador. These countries allow cross border travel if one has a residency ID card from any of these countries and they also extend the privilege to those holding a residency ID card from any Mercosur country including associate members. (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela).

Mercosur - Mersocur is another trade block in South America that allows those holding resident ID cards to cross borders without a passport. Mercosur consists of Paraguay, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Venezuela.

South America Passport Free Travel- This means that one can travel passport free in these 10 countries - Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, Venezuela, Bolivia, Columbia, Peru and Ecuador.

Residency Advantages - Getting a residency ID card from some of these countries is a process that requires as little as 30 days. Usually a temporary card is issued which becomes permanent in about six months. It is usually required to get a letter with the temporary card stating that the permanent card has been applied for to enable cross border travel with the temporary residency card. This is easy to obtain. Getting a Passport is generally time consuming the exception being the Panama Instant Passport Program, which requires 60 days. Many of the economic Citizenship programs take six months or longer to get a passport and the investment required is usually in excess of $350,000 and this is not money that you get back someday like the Panama Instant Passport Program.

Residency Country Time Requirements in Country- Generally it requires about 30 days initially to apply when you must remain in the country. Please bear in mind this can vary from country to country. Usually you will need to return for a few weeks to pick up the permanent residency card. You should plan on spending several weeks a year in the country until you get your passport. Down the road two to five years later.

Getting to a Passport - It can vary from country to country. The least amount of time is one has to have a permanent residency for two years and in other countries it is three years or five years. REMEMBER you can always obtain the Panama Passport, which is good for five years in sixty days. Then you have a five-year passport, which will carry you over until the South American country issues you a passport.

Time Spent in the Other Participating Countries - You would be allowed to stay for very long periods of time, months if not years. You would be free to come and go just by presenting your ID card. You could live in any of the other listed countries, working would be a different matter that would need to be addressed on a country by country basis with legal counsel in the country since there could be a lot of variables involved.

Banking as a Resident - Once you have your permanent residency card which takes about six months, opening a bank account in the country without being required to show your old country passport will not be hard at all. When the residency is temporary the bank will want a passport from somewhere. When you have your permanent resident card opening bank accounts should be easy without you needing to present your passport at the bank registering the account to a citizen of whatever country your passport is from. It helps to get a drivers license in the country which is generally a matter of just showing your existing one. You should be prepared with a local address and telephone when opening a bank account with just your residency ID.

Civil Collections in your New Country - Generally any existing civil debts should not follow you to your new country. We do always suggest banking in Panama through a Panama Private Interest Foundation or anonymous bearer share Panama Corporation. The Panama Foundation has superb asset protection features. The banks in Panama are world class, which is probably not going to be the case in the country granting you the residency. Panama has no tax treaty or civil judgment collection treaty with any other country. What would be advisable is to bank in Panama and transfer money to live on several times a year to your new resident country if you chose to reside there year round. In any event civil judgments, lawsuits etc. following you to your new residency country would be extremely unlikely. How would the creditor know where you are, you are banking with an anonymous foundation in Panama aren?t you. These countries are not tolerant of cross border civil processes.

Which Country - We work with several of the 10 countries and can vary the country to suit the needs of the client. Some clients want a country to live in cheaply, safely, with good food, weather and medical. Some want more of a metropolis type environment with lots of nightlife. Some seek beaches. Some want snow skiing. Talk to us; tell us what you need, that?s what we are here for.

Uruguay - This is our favorite. It is the easiest most direct way to get this residency for cross border travel. There are several easy to meet the residency requirements. You can start a business in a duty free trade zone and employ yourself. You can show proof of income like bank statements, this is not retirement income just any income like self-employment income, rental house income, investment income etc. You can buy or rent a house. You can deposit money in the bank ($5000.00). Easy to qualify with several different options available.

General Requirements - You will need a police clearance letter. You will need to undergo a thorough physical in Uruguay. You will need a passport, birth certificate and marriage certificate. You will need birth certificates for minor children and spouse. You will need to be able to obtain a Visa to travel to Uruguay.

Name Changes - We do not get involved with name changes. If you really want to draw attention to yourself this is the way to do it. This is the biggest red flag you can wave. Numerous agencies and governments around the world pick up name changes. If you need a name change consider applying after you have your permanent residency for some time not as a new applicant, but again we do not get involved in name changes so you would down the road need to do it yourself or retain a local attorney for assistance.

Police Records - If you have a police record you may be eligible to apply. It would depend on a number of variables such as the time the offense occurred, the sentence, the offense and the country. Things that would be difficult to get approved would be criminal sentences with more than one year in prison, convictions for drugs, money laundering, weapons trafficking, terrorism, sexual offenses involving force or minors, and crimes of violence. Feel free to discuss this with us if you like. No one knows what will happen until the complete application is presented to the immigration authorities and a decision is made. We cannot ask them for an opinion without them seeing the full application. A criminal record could result in a denial of the application.

Will You Appear Personally in the Immigration Office - The answer is yes. They will fingerprint and photograph you. They will check with Interpol. You will have a local attorney with you who speaks English and Spanish so no translation worries. Your Residency ID card will be picked up by you and the local attorney at the immigration offices. You will be posing for the photo at the immigration office. These are above board programs that all run through the immigration department of the country. It will all be done in a large official government building in the country.

Extradition Considerations - If you are under arrest, under indictment or criminal charges, out on bail or bond, or already convicted and trying to flee before reporting for sentencing these programs are NOT for you. We cannot help you at all in any way shape or form. You would fail the police records check and Interpol would flag you. This would result in you being turned over to the authorities in the country the offense was from. You would only have tourist status in the country you were applying in, since the application would not yet be approved and tourists get no special considerations under these circumstances. No UN country wants to provide safe harbor to fleeing or wanted criminals. If one country did it then many would do it and then a cross border crime wave would be the result. This does not happen.

Extradition exclusions or protections generally apply only to a citizen or permanent resident AND they must have had that status BEFORE the time the crime was committed. There are usually exemptions for drugs as well so narcotics cases may be extraditable. When the country denies extradition it usually offers to prosecute the person for the crime in his or her own country using their own justice system. This is often a farce since the other country will have to mobilize lawyers to prepare for the trail and attend it, plus bringing in witnesses and evidence to that country. Even then the courts or jury may be most reluctant to hand down a guilty verdict. In any event extradition requests are based on treaties called Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties between countries. So one must read the individual treaty the two countries in question have signed to begin to understand some of the factors that come to bear. Then comes the publicity, severity of the crime and so forth, which seem to also at times work their way into things one way or another. Some of these treaties have an element of dual criminality in them. This generally means that the crime in question must be a crime in both countries. This prevents things like religious, political and racial discrimination from being prosecuted that the person would not be subject to in their own country. Remember if the crime occurred before the residency or citizenship was granted it generally leaves the door open for extradition, but again this too is not an absolute. We do not specialize in extradition cases nor do we take them.

Costs - This is going to vary from country to country. Plan on a fee of $14,000 for Uruguay. You would have additional fees for certifying documents, photos, travel, housing, filing fees (generally nominal under $500) and so forth. These extra costs are usually not a major consideration.

Finally a law firm that gives it best in terms of offshore corporations.

"Panama Legal is the best law firm in Panama. The company specializes in providing legal solutions for Offshore banking, offshore corporate activities and asset protection. The firm consist of a team of experienced and reputed lawyers who are specialists in different areas. Panama Legal can represent your company to establish your offshore asset protection scenario. Information shared by the company with the law firm is kept strictly confidential. The firm is so transparent in its dealings that the site even displays the licenses of its lawyers on its website.

Panama Legal can make arrangements for you to visit the law firm to meet the lawyers, discuss any arrangement or to visit your bank. Arrangements of accommodation and transport will be made by Panama Legal. The law firm can also help you check out your bank account in Panama and also help you to get a new bank account anywhere in Panama.

In case you have a corporation in Panama and you want to set up a Panama stock brokerage account Panama Legal can get you the best results. You can then make all your transactions online and also manage your accounts online. You will also be able to start a stock brokerage account in a reputed bank in Panama. Panama Legal also helps its clients with real estate. In this direction the firm helps its clients with all the due diligence and  legal procedures involving the buying and selling of property. When it comes to issues regarding asset protection there is no better firm than Panama Legal who can handle the procedures.

All the transactions handled by the firm on behalf of the clients are kept confidential. In case you are looking for asset and estate protection then you should look no further than Panama Legal. This is because the firm devises the best strategies which help you to protect your assets in the present and in the future. You do not have to travel to Panama physically in order to open a bank account in the country. You can then even send wire transfers online once you have opened a bank account. You can safely trade in stock online from anywhere in the world. In case you want a Panama passport, the firm can help you with this and other immigration options. This passport will help you travel to neighboring countries as well.

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Buy Panama Real Estate With a Self Directed IRA

Introduction - Did you know that a self directed IRA can buy your dream Panama Real Estate? This article while not tax or legal advice will get you pointed in the right direction in terms of using your Self Directed IRA to buy Panama land, condos, homes, or even commercial property.

IRA Custodian Resistance - Most of the custodians will not approve the purchase of foreign real estate. They prefer to sell you investments they offer instead. There is actually no prohibition in the IRS code against investing in foreign real estate. So do not let the custodian deceive you into thinking it cannot be done, they just do not want to do it.

Custodian Problems - One of their problems is the valuation of the house. They do not know how to do this. Did you get a large kickback from the acquisition of the property thus affecting a deceitful and unlawful early withdrawal without penalty? What about a real estate commission you received. You are also not supposed to live in the home acquired through a self?directed IRA. How will the custodian enforce this? What if you live in the home on vacations only? What if you rent the home out and do not tell anyone? What if you use the home to trade homes with using a service that will let you swap homes with others in other countries for six months or a year at a time? The custodian cannot detect all these games one could incorrectly play so they prefer not to get involved and it is always better to earn a commission on something they sell you.

Custodian Control - One needs to make sure the custodian lets you invest in investments of your choosing, not theirs. You want to be able to write the checks for investments.

IRA as an LLC - This seems to solve a lot of the problems with the custodians. An LLC is structured utilizing the Self -Directed IRA as the owner of said LLC. The monies would then be put into the LLC, which would in turn purchase the real estate investment(s) foreign or domestic.

Mortgages, IRA's, LLC's, Foreign Real Estate - Yes you can have a mortgage on the property. The debt?recorded instrument has to be a non?recourse promissory note.

Profits - These are to be credited back to the IRA.

Taxes - The IRA has to have enough money to pay for the taxes, property maintenance and upkeep such as condo association fees.