How To Vanish…Forever

By Christopher S. Stewart

The first person Frank Ahearn ever disappeared was a guy we’ll call Ken. Frank spotted him at a Borders, thumbing through a pile of books he’d just purchased on Central America and offshore banking. “If you’re running from someone,” Frank said, “they’re going to find you.”

Frank worked as a “skip tracer”, someone who specialized in finding people – mobsters, drug lords, wife-beaters, rock stars – and so when it came to disappearing, he knew all the tricks. “You bought your books with a credit card”, Frank said. A couple of well-placed phone calls and any respectable private eye could find Ken in the time it takes to microwave popcorn. He wished Ken luck, then offered him a business card.

Two weeks later, Ken contacted Frank and said that not long ago, he’d been pressured by the government to testify in a fraud case against his former employer, a supplies company with government contracts. Ken had been one of the company’s accountants. His name had leaked, and a man had approached him on the street and told him his “life would be made uncomfortable.”

Ken thought about calling the police, but how much could they really protect him? He had no wife, no children, nothing he couldn’t leave behind, and the more he thought about his dilemma, the more he felt there was only one option. So Ken contacted Frank and asked: “Can you help me disappear?”

Frank met him once more and laid out a plan for Ken that would become the template for the three-part strategy Frank had used to disappear about twenty people in the past few years.

Stage 1: Misinformation

The first step is the total obliteration of personal files, from phone bills to apartment leases to health-club memberships. Ken cancelled all his credit cards and got rid of his cell phone. Frank instructed him to change the spelling of his name – not a total name change, just a few wrong letters – on all his utility bills and have everything forwarded to an address Frank set up in Salt Lake City. A month later, Ken moved his mail from Salt Lake to Boise, Idaho. The again, from Boise to Los Angeles. He kept all his balances current and paid in full.

Stage 2: Disinformation

Next comes the creation of false data to lead pursuers astray. Frank sent Ken to a town in Colorado, where he had him apply for an apartment rental. The credit check the landlord ran on him would appear as an inquiry on his credit report, so if someone started looking for him, they would see the Colorado entry and head there. Frank also told Ken to deposit money into a checking account, then had colleagues withdraw money around the globe.

For another client who didn’t have the resources to fly around faking apartment searches, Frank had her mother and sister make a phone call at the same time every day for a while to a single number, and then the calls would stop and switch to someplace else so anyone tracking the woman through her family’s phone records would be thrown off.

Stage 3: Reformation

The final step is the creation of dummy companies to hold and spend money. In Ken’s case, Frank moved his money off shore by creating three international businesses whose money resided in countries whose banks couldn’t be penetrated by police or foreign governments. From that point on, Ken would use the corporations to make any purchases. Once that was done, Ken would be on his way to not existing as a private individual.

About three months after he had first encountered Frank in the bookstore, Ken was ready to be disappeared. He picked a tropical island as his new home, but at Frank’s instruction, he would travel a circuitous route. He took a plane to one country, bought a ticket there with cash, then headed to a second country, where he met Frank and purchased a ticket to his final destination.

To this day, Frank remembers Ken, in his golf shirt and khakis, grinning as he got into a cab and headed for the airport. A few seconds later, he was gone.

Frank Ahearn has a website full of information.