The Expert Podcast

With any kind of fraud investigation that we do. One of the first things we look for are who…is the total pool of potential liability. For recovering from that fraud Look, if you're a victim of a Ponzi scheme that Ponzi schemer whoever it is. Allegedly. May have some assets. To be recovered from maybe the Ponzi schemer has a bank account Maybe they have real estate Maybe they have vehicles. And you want to definitely go after those assets but many times a Ponzi scheme or fraud or scam whatever it is. The person or company directly behind it, doesn't have all the money available. To pay back all the victims So. Third party liability or nominee trustees or other legal theories are many times used. To recover all the funds from victims So if you're a Vic. you want to make sure that whatever investigation is being performed for your scam or your fraud is looking at all the deep pockets They can pay back the money because if you only go back. After the primary actor. There might not be enough funds to go around. Right. So remember we're not attorneys we're not giving you legal advice You want to get good legal advice from a qualified. Law firm if that's what you need. But. As you're looking at this make sure that whoever's working on your case whether it's an attorney, a private investigator and agency. Is looking at these third parties Remember the Scott Rosting case in…Florida or even the Bernie Madoff case in New York. The victims in those cases got back almost all their money, a hundred percent on the dollar. And the reason why is because third parties. banks. We're…claimed against to get back the money. And here we go again. FTX the major crypto scam that…people have been reading about for the last weeks and days. That's going bankrupt. there's billions of dollars at stake you know 20 30 billion 50 billion depending on how you add it up. And the…primary…source of that fraud allegedly Sam Beckman freed I may not have all that money to go around So already. There are attorneys that are suing and looking for third parties. In one case they're going after the golden state warriors, because they. Had…Received endorsements from this FTX calling it the official cryptocurrency platform. So for your. a. Major. NBA team And you say this is our official cryptocurrency platform. You may have liability. To pay back unrecovered losses to victims…And they're being sued. In other cases some celebrity endorsers, Tom Brady shack, those promoters are now being sued…By victims and liability may depend on whether it's Dean day security. And it also hinges on whether compensation was disclosed. We've seen this in other fraud cases where. A celebrity or even advertisers. There was a case for a real estate scam that there was paying for ads in the wall street journal. And the wall street journal had to. Give back the money. That they were paid for these ads and even commodity. even more. Another famous case. The Jeffrey Epstein case. They have victims and those accusers are suing Dorsha bank and JP Morgan. Because they say the claims, the banks facilitated. These crimes. There's a legal theory that you'll hear many times called. Extending the fraud or enabling the fraud, even if you are a third party. Who is. Kind of. Distant from the fraud. If you accidentally enable that fraud because you did not do your own proper due diligence. Many times attorneys can. Look at those third parties as sources of recovery for victims So make sure that when you're doing an investigation, you're not just looking at assets for the fraudster for the scammer. Yeah. are getting a list of potential third parties. Who can come forward. With. Filling the gap funding. If that scammer is not able to make you whole as a victim. Now it's up to your attorney. And the court to decide how much comes from each party if any. But make sure you at least have that information to present. To the court A lot of times attorneys won't do it The court's not going to do it. So you want to make sure that you bring that forward and look not all these third parties may end up having the liability and all this is alleged at this point with FTX. But if it can be shown that they know knew about the fraud or should have known about the fraud or even if they didn't know. But they let slide some of their best practices For example, in the Scott Rothstein case, there was a bank. that allowed. The scammer to open up bank accounts without filling out all the proper paperwork Look, it was just basically an administrative error paperwork problem. But. The court said if the bank had done their due diligence and made that fraudster do the paperwork correctly…Then. The council wouldn't have been able to be opened. And the fraud wouldn't have been able to go as big as it did. So you always want to look at what are the third parties Are they accountants Are they salespeople Are they. Employment agencies are they even landlords there's been landlords that have been sued because they let a fraudster rent space in their building. Or or criminal. So always look at third parties make sure you get a wide net of possible deep pockets, and then let the, the legal side sort out. who owes what And who's liable for what So if you're a victim, don't despair. If at first it doesn't seem like. The fraudster scammer allegedly whoever doesn't have all the money. Because there may be others that can kick in Also remember these third parties all have insurance policies…Many times as soon as a legitimate professional company person…Golden state warriors whoever. It gets a notice of claim. Many times your insurance company says look, we'll just put a policy limit on the table. Because we don't want to get involved with this kind of a case with fraud and discovery and depositions and everything else. Just put policy limit on the, on the table and let them sort it out. So sometimes the insurance companies are your best friend because they just want to put the money out there and buy their way out of the problem…