< Magazine Index  > < Index For This Edition > < Subscribe >

Becoming a fugitive is a romantic concept that is at once full of terror, excitement and opportunity.  There are many reasons people become fugitives.  Some involve criminal matters, some involve personal or civil matters, but in either case, stuff one no longer wishes to deal with.  Sometimes it involves liberty and sometimes it involves convenience.  Sometimes the people are inherently bad people and sometimes they are good people who have either screwed up and wish to start over or innocent people who are tired being persecuted and wish to be left alone. Becoming a fugitive is a complicated bit of business.  It is more often than not, a one way street.  The decision is irrevocable and irreversible.  If it is not, then it is a matter of choice and convenience and much of what I will say might be useless information.  However, many of us long for a life with some amount of freedom for the intrusion of government in our lives, and many lessons learned by our brothers and sisters on the lam, may be quite useful to us all.  But there are some of you who desperately need this advice, so heads up. Let’s take the hardest case first, since it will have almost all the elements of all the other possible cases, and the hardest case is fleeing criminal prosecution. Some observations.  If you are knowingly in a high risk profession then a some amount of energy and investment should be spent rigging your chute while the rigging is good.  After you’ve been indicted or arrested is not the right time.  Many front door citizenships which afford both fresh starts and perhaps some protection from extradition are not available after you have a felony conviction.  So, even if your crime is small and you get probation, you will be excluded from front door immigration to every civilized country on earth.  No matter what, even it is not impossible, it will not be easy.

AJC delle Marche is better known as the Stealth Expat - He is very adept at attaining second passports for his clients In addition to 'front door' citizenship programs he is also able to get passports under difficult circumstances by way of his contacts with government officials in various countries. Officials who are willing to listen to reasonable proposals. delle Marche has relocating his offices to the offshore banking district of Panama and will soon be available for personal consultation.

What are high risk professions?  Being a banker, a stock broker, a real estate broker, an insurance broker, an environmental engineer, a lawyer, anyone who takes a company public, anyone who needs permission from a federal agency to accomplish something, anyone who pays over $100,000 in taxes, anyone who is unlucky from time to time, anyone who is human.

When do you run, when do you stay and fight?

There is a simple formula in criminal prosecution.  It is especially valid in federal prosecution.  Indictment = Conviction.  Plea bargain = less time, Trial = more time.  It is an extremely simple formula.  No one ever believes that it applies to them, but it does.  Fighting a serious white collar criminal prosecution is almost always a doomed effort.  It will simply bankrupt you emotionally and financially.  Yeah, I don’t need the ‘innocent until proven guilty’ lecture.  I’ve giving you the honest answer that almost no one wants to hear. 

So . . . the next question is, how much time you looking at and where will you serve it.  Another simple delle Marche rule.  If it’s anything under three years and the time will be served in a decent facility, don’t even spend a night debating about running.  The return on investment is not there.  Running is dangerous and expensive financially and emotionally.

There are times you need to do it.  One is political persecution or a system run amok.  Naturally, as soon as you admit you live in a ‘bad’ country, you can flee and no one will think twice about it.  And in that example, as soon as you cross a border, the hunt stops.  But sometimes the system in a good country is crooked.  I got a call from a man recently who was being persecuted by a vindictive ex-wife over child support.  The game worked like this.  He must make child support payments and the ex must send the kids for a visit.  He makes the payments, she never sends the kids.  He lives in Virginia, the ex lives in Tennessee.  Failure to make child support payments will get you arrested anywhere these days.  Failing to keep the child custody agreement is much harder to punish.  Last visit he got one kid, not two, but was happy to see his child.  He’s in the Navy.  The day before he was to deliver the child back, he was called to sea-going duty.  The man’s new wife called the ex and said the child would be a couple days late coming home since she had to rearrange her work schedule to drive to Tennessee.  In due course, the child went back to its mother.  But the ex went to her cousin the judge and got a warrant to have the man arrested for custodial interference.  The same judge who had refused to hold his cousin accountable for keeping up visitation.  At my insistence they called the FBI and the Virginia Attorney General’s office who did nothing and refused to help.  The Navy, meanwhile, rounded up the sailor at the insistence of Tennessee and was ready to turn him over to Tennessee authorities.  The arrest would mean an end to his security clearance and thus is career in the Navy. 

Now, if these people were not poor, for a couple hundred thousand dollars they could eventually have the whole nest of vipers, including the judge, slammed in a federal prison.  But they are not rich and so they become victims of a system gone bad.  How can this man escape his duty to pay child support to a woman who refuses to give him access to his children?  He can’t.  Not in this country.  You wonder why a parent turns to kidnapping in frustration.  As long as this man stays in the Navy or the U.S. he is an easy target from a Tennessee judicial system out of control.  This is a man, and his new wife, who needs a fresh start somewhere else.  The price?  Loss of his children.  The price if he stays?  Loss of his children and loss of his freedom.

But what if you did commit a crime . . .

 and the mandatory minimum sentence, in your opinion, is too severe for the crime.  How about this.  A nice looking 25 year old kid grows a number of marijuana seedlings.  They would fit on top of your desk.  It’s his first entrepreneurial adventure and he’s caught by the feds.  He really has no defense.  Even the judge wants to give him parole but he can’t.  The U.S. Congress in its infinite wisdom passed the mandatory minimum sentencing act which, for this crime, mandates a minimum of ten years.  10 Years!  On the appointed day his parents drive him to a federal camp where he will spend the next ten years of his life.  Well, only 8½ years since he gets 15% good time.  This is crazy.  It is also the law.  Would society really be hurt if this kid took a hike?

The price of running . . .

Being separated from people you love and who love you is terrifying if you run.  And giving up any sort of control over your destiny is terrifying if you stay and face the music.  For a time, no matter how powerful or important you were in life, you will be at the mercy of people with GEDs (High School Equivalency Diplomas) and gun permits.  GEDs and guns.  The minimum qualifications for jail personnel.  Your medical care will suffer, but you will probably not die.  The conditions will suck, but many people in the world live worse.  You will be deprived of everything you know and love and you will learn to survive.  You will learn that things have very little value and people do.  You will learn that family can be loving or family can be dangerous or both.  You will learn that you have few friends.  The experience will be awakening or deadening depending on your spiritual state before you were incarcerated.

If you run . . .

Naturally, a fresh start is in order.  Fresh starts cost $20,000 minimum and take a minimum of two months to put together.  You will be leaving the country.  That’s easy.  You will need to give thought to what your resources are and how you will get them to you without leaving a major trail for law enforcement to follow.

The people you leave behind . . .

When someone bolts, law enforcement agencies (LEAs) check airlines.  Takes a few hours at most.  If you’re clever, you don’t leave much of a trail when you exit.  So what LEAs do is put tails and taps on everyone you know.  They are visited and told to report all contact.  Their mail is intercepted, but not opened, and notice is made of return addresses or lack there of, post marks, etc.  Phones are often tapped for a time.  Tails may be put on persons known to be close to you.  Financial institutions are put on notice, required to report transactions, or assets are seized (if they have not already been seized).  Phone records are examined regularly to see where calls come from and where they go. 

As elementary as this seems, it works 95% of the time.  Almost all LEA assets are committed to the first three months.  By the end of the year, you may be on someone’s list, someone’s file, but you are not the hot crime.  Agents or detectives will await evidence to come to them from the automatic reporting devices that they have put into action.

Here’s what they know.  Almost everyone screws up by trying to get in contact with loved ones.  Kids, wife, parents, brothers, sisters, girl friend, family doctor, priest.  Almost always that means an arrow pointing somewhere.  That new clue means new funds approved and new investigation.

But what about really bad criminals . . .

Really bad criminals, murderers and such, have behaviors that they cannot control.  It doesn’t matter how they try to hide, their behavior will always give them away.  The heinous nature of their crimes will insure that serious personnel are allotted to capture them.  If you are a career criminal, there is no place to hide. 

And what about the reformed criminal . . .

If you are a white collar criminal who violated Section 237A.124 / b (2) of some statute you never heard of, it is unlikely you’ll do it again.  Do bankers get five years?  Yes.  You’d be surprised who gets that amount of time and for what. 

A guy sends out an invoice to one of his customers for $100,000.  Many of his invoices are for much more, so the amount is not unusual.  But this time his accounting department makes a mistake.  The invoice should have been for $10,000 but he doesn’t know that.  He calls the customer up when he’s not paid and raises hell.  He tells his secretary to call the customer every other day until he pays.  During this period of time the guy gets dissatisfied with Nations Bank and changes to First Union.  The customer takes offense at the billing practices of the guy and calls the FBI.  Well, the FBI won’t take a call from anyone, but this time they do.  When the feds show up, the guy does a careful audit and finds he’s made a mistake.  He says he’s sorry.  No one’s been injured.  It does no good.  Here’s how the charges stack up.  Mailing out invoice for $100,000 six times in six months.  Six counts of mail fraud.  Phoning the customer 20 times for collection efforts = 20 counts of wire fraud.  Asking the secretary to collect debt = conspiracy.  Changing banks = money laundering.  20 years worth of time.  Or one year on a plea bargain.  Unfortunately, this is a real case and the guy thought he was innocent so he went to the mat over it and only got five years.  Oh, did I mention that the customer was a little known indirect agency of the federal government?

Now, I ask you, is this guy likely to commit this crime again.  No.  If he disappeared tomorrow, your three year old daughter would be safe in her bed.  And so would you.  What we are talking about is insanity vs common sense.  Even if the man were pond scum, a fine of $100,000 or so should have settled the score.

So let’s imagine that this man was not offered a plea bargain and he was looking at 20 years for this crime.  Would a reasonable man at least contemplate taking a powder?  Yes. 

The most dangerous thing a fugitive can do . . .

. . . is to think about going back and forth between the old life and the new life.  This puts not just a tremendous strain on the your luck, but it puts the contacts of your old life in a difficult legal and even moral situation.  According to LEAs they’re suppose to turn you in at the first sign of contact.  You are going to be portrayed as a danger to yourself and to society.  Everyone you know will be asked to do the right thing if you contact them.  You are never going to know who will be Judas.  Not necessarily for the reward money, but only “for your own good.”   If they are found to have lied to protect you, they can be charged with a crime themselves.

But can you ever make contact?

Yes, but you’ve got to give it at least a year.  And you’ve got to choose your contact carefully.  You’ve got to give thought to using intermediaries.

A meeting?  Yes.  But better the persons you wish to see travel to a place outside the country and not any where near where you live.  An amusement type place where you can watch them arrive from a distance and make sure they haven’t accidentally brought friends. 

But this is to appease them, not you.  To let your parents know you’re ok.  So they can sleep at night.  It is hard for a parent to know you are somewhere out there and wondering if you are alive or whether you’ve eaten.  In order to make running work, you’ve got to imagine you are in exile or that you were put on a prison ship to be sent forever to Australia or you left for the New World, never to be seen again.  Many a man and woman said good bye to family and friends and left to find their fortune somewhere else.  It may be your turn.

Part Two of Life on the Run will deal with re-uniting families and Part Three will deal with the nuts and bolts of your final curtain call.