On Q Professional Investigations

Suspicion, dishonesty, and fear of deception can overwhelm a person’s psyche. He even tells you that you’re crazy and have nothing to worry about, but your womanly intuitions say that this guy is a sneaky, cheating, little prick. She reassures that the handsome guy from work is just a friend, but you know men well enough to know that he is just trying to get a piece of your honey. Are your accusations spot on or are they slowly killing your relationship? Like a magicians secrets revealed, here are the tell tale signs that your partner is cheating….

7 Jealousy and Insecurity

You reap what you sow. Those who find the slightest suspicion in the most obscure places are usually guilty themselves.

6 Remnants of Another Person

You’ve seen those CSI shows, look for traces left behind i.e. hair, make-up, perfume, cologne, hair clips, bobby pins, socks, dishes. I’m no forensic scientist, but strands of hair that appear in your bed, car, or on your clothing that isn’t mine, is sketchy.

5 Disinterest, Distant, and Distracted

General disinterest in intimacy may mean that they are being fulfilled elsewhere. If your partner seems distant or distracted, they may have that other person on their mind.

4 Atypical Nitpicking

If you notice your partner starting arguments over issues that are out of the ordinary, chances are that they are looking for excuses to leave you by projecting their guilt from cheating on to you.

3 Emphasis on Social Life

Having a social life outside of your relationship is absolutely encouraged, but when that social life becomes repeatingly more important than spending alone time together then that separate social life turns into a separate secret life.

2 Unhappiness

If there are no severe issues in your relationship, and your partner isn’t happy, then somebody else is making them happy. Simple as that.

1 The Confidential Cellphone

If your partner conceals the content of their cellphone like they are a top-secret, international spy, then most likely there are hints of an extracurricular relationship within that phone. Your are not apart of the CIA, relax.

I know its difficult to distinguish between insecurity and legitimate acts of infidelity, but make sure you choose a side. Constantly badgering your partner with accusations and suspicion gets exhausting. Either you believe your partner 100% or get to steppin’. Life is too short for the inbetween. Trust issues are difficult to overcome; take a step back and assess if these suspicions are a result of your own jaded past or if your partner is a cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater. Take it or leave it.

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SALT LAKE CITY — A private investigator says he has tracked down a homeless Utah man and delivered some good news: He’s inherited a lot of money.

David Lundberg said he found Max Melitzer pushing a shopping cart filled with personal possessions in a Salt Lake City park Saturday afternoon.

Lundberg declined to disclose how much money Melitzer will be receiving, but said the man’s brother who died of cancer last year left him a “significant” amount in his will.

“He’ll no longer be living on the street or in abandoned storage sheds,” he told The Associated Press. “He’ll be able to have a normal life, and be able to have a home, provide for himself, and purchase clothing, food and health care.”

The story about Lundberg’s two-month search for Lundberg has been reported by the Deseret News and KSL of Salt Lake City.

Lundberg said he was hired by the family’s New York law firm to locate Melitzer, and some family members plan to meet Melitzer next week in Salt Lake City. He declined to identify them.

Melitzer’s family wishes to remain private, and lawyers are deferring questions to Lundberg.

The investigator said he broke the news to Melitzer while they were sitting on a bench at Pioneer Park. While Lundberg said he didn’t tell Melitzer how much money he was inheriting, the man was excited.

“He’s still in shock. This came out of nowhere,” Lundberg said. “He’s a really mellow guy in his 60s, very sweet and more articulate than I thought for a man in his position.”

Melitzer has been homeless for years and last had mail correspondence with his family in September. But when family members gave him a number to phone, he never called.

Don Hill, house manager at the Rescue Mission of Salt Lake, told Lundberg on Friday that he had seen Melitzer near the facility two days earlier.

Hill said he has known the homeless man for four years, and Melitzer stayed at places like the Rescue Mission when he’s not roaming between Salt Lake City and Ogden.

“During the summer, I’d imagine, once in a while he’ll stay out nights — outside,” Hill told the Deseret News.

Earlier this month, a police officer found Melitzer sleeping in a car in an Ogden salvage yard.

Lundberg said Melitzer was taken Saturday to an undisclosed location in Salt Lake City and doesn’t want to talk to the media right now. But Lundberg said he would talk to family members about possibly holding a news conference next week.

The investigator said he found Melitzer with the help of a tip. He received about 60 or 70 such calls after news about his search went out Friday.

“Someone called today (Saturday) and said they saw him at Pioneer Park. I thought it was another crazy tip, but sure enough, there he was,” Lundberg said.

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A Texas man who is a self-proclaimed supporter of Anonymous says he’s joining the hacking ring’s purported fight against one of Mexico’s most violent drug cartels.

Barrett Brown, 30, told CNN that in the next two days he expects to receive thousands of e-mails naming alleged Zetas drug gang affiliates that he’s been told were taken by hackers from a Mexican government website.

“It’s possible this is all a big hoax, (but) I’m more involved in this because of the possibility of striking a blow against the Zetas. … The issue to me was more about how do we do this operation. I’m intent on what we could do with the information when we release it,” Brown told CNN in a telephone interview Thursday.

The Dallas resident, who describes himself as a former member of Anonymous and has frequently spoken publicly about his involvement in Anonymous activities, posted a YouTube video Wednesday explaining why he planned to join the effort.

“I’ve decided to support the operation, which I understand is controversial for a number of reasons. In this case, there are lives hanging in the balance, in that those who are identified are likely to be killed,” Brown says in the video, leaning back in a leather desk chair as he smokes a cigarette.

He told CNN he learned about the so-called OpCartel after Mexican members of Anonymous reached out to him in an online chat forum.

In the video, Brown says he wants to help Mexicans in their effort to stop cartel violence. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration says more than 43,000 people have died in drug-related violence in Mexico since December 2006, when President Felipe Calderon began a crackdown on cartels.

Some Mexicans have decided to take matters into their own hands, Brown says, doing what they can to stop the Zetas.

Is Mexican cartel the next ‘Anonymous’ target?

“It’s Mexicans themselves who started this operation, who conceived it. It’s not a bunch of stereotypical computer geeks sitting somewhere else in safety. These are people on the ground,” he says.

The purported threat against the Zetas began in early October with an online video of a masked man warning that the names, photographs and addresses of cartel supporters in the Mexican state of Veracruz can be published “if necessary.”

The video demanded the release of a member of Anonymous who had allegedly been abducted by the Zetas in Veracruz. CNN was unable to verify that accusation, or online posts claiming the alleged kidnap victim had been released. A Veracruz government spokeswoman said no such kidnapping complaint had been registered with local officials.

This week, another video purportedly from Anonymous surfaced, vowing to continue the campaign — but warning of the possible risks.

“This is not a video game. It’s a dangerous operation that puts at risk the lives of you and your loved ones. Don’t identify yourself as a member of Anonymous. You should never do it, but even less right now,” a masked man in that video says.

It’s unclear whether Anonymous is behind either online video, or what the organization plans to do. The hacking group has no clear leader and no central official website.

A website purporting to be an official site connected with Anonymous in Latin America said early Friday that no information on the Zetas would be released — for now.

“A message has been sent to us, that if Anonymous reveals a name related with the cartel, the family of the kidnapped Anonymous member will suffer the consequences, for every cartel name that is revealed, 10 people will be put to death. … The collective Anonymous has decided by consensus that the information that we have available will not be revealed for the time being, now that we understand that we cannot avoid the threats that involve innocent civilians that don’t have anything to do with our actions,” the site said.

But other online posts — which CNN was also able to independently verify — have said the operation is moving forward.

“Looking over the forums of Anonymous discussions, it is clear that there has been disagreement over whether or not to pursue and publicize information on the cartels,” Ben West, a tactical analyst for the STRATFOR global intelligence firm, wrote in an e-mail to CNN Thursday night. “Many Anonymous members seem to be aware of the threat that the Mexican cartels pose and seem disinclined to risk the consequences of incurring the cartels’ wrath.”

Earlier Thursday, a security analysis from the intelligence firm said it seemed likely that some members of the organization would move forward with the purported plan.

“Anonymous’ collective nature means activists can select the actions they participate in, including Operation Cartel. It would only take one dedicated individual to continue the operation,” the analysis said.

Brown, the Texas man, said he planned to use a computer database to methodically sift through the e-mails he receives, verify them with the help of an experienced journalist and a cartel expert and then possibly release names — or entire e-mails — in small batches over time.

“If we have 100 names, we’ll release 30 or 40 names that seem right,” he told CNN.

Brown’s online video — which showed his face and was posted under his own name — is notably different than many Anonymous posts, which commonly feature men in Guy Fawkes masks.

He told CNN Thursday that he was not afraid to come forward.

“I don’t feel I should be. I should have the right and the ability as someone who is a fairly public person to work to ID criminals in a foreign country without having to worry about being murdered,” he said.

Brown also said he had weighed the possibility of wrongly identifying someone, or causing killings.

“Both my grandfathers were bombers in World War II (and) they killed innocent people and did it with less information. I’m more confident about the ratio. I’d be surprised if many people (in the e-mails) were incorrect,” he said.

While whether — and who — Anonymous planned to attack remained unclear, some self-proclaimed members of the group were already declaring at least one victory.

Last week and this week a former Mexican state prosecutor’s website was apparently hacked, with bold letters stating he “is Zeta.”

Late Thursday night, the website featured a picture of a Mexican Day of the Dead offering and the words, “Anonymous Mexico OpCartel continues.”

In the past few years, Anonymous has taken credit for disrupting a number of prominent websites, including those of PayPal, Master Card, Visa and the Church of Scientology.

In September, the group claimed it was targeting the Mexican government, launching attacks on a range of official websites, including those of Mexico’s defense and public safety ministries.

The Zetas started with deserters from the Mexican Army, and quickly gained a reputation for ruthless violence as the armed branch of Mexico’s Gulf cartel. It split off into a separate drug-trafficking organization last year.

In recent months, the Gulf coast state of Veracruz has become a frequent site of clashes between armed groups as drug-related violence grows. In September, 35 bodies were abandoned in a roadway during rush-hour traffic in a popular tourist area there, two days before a meeting of high-ranking state prosecutors and judges.

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In monitoring fraud activity across the United States, it has been no surprise to see so much attention to and interest in mortgage related frauds. Among the myriad of mortgage fraud schemes that exist, they generally fall into one of two categories, depending on their intended purpose: for property (i.e. housing) or for profit.

Fraud for property involves schemes whereby those wishing to become homeowners or purchase property lie or employ deception in order to qualify for a mortgage. They may do so because they cannot afford the property (“dream-house”) or because they know they will not otherwise qualify for a loan without lying. This is most often done by falsifying information on a loan application, sometimes to include moderate “back-stopping” (a tradecraft term whereby which resources are employed to give the appearance that information is accurate if checked).

These are not the frauds which cause significant individual financial impact, as the borrower generally intends to pay the mortgage and use the property, often as a primary residence. In recent years, speculators have caused this type of fraud to have a greater impact because of the negative turn in housing values and demand. In those cases, property that was mortgaged based upon fraudulent loan applications by borrowers intending to make payments until such time as the property could be fixed-up and sold, could not be sold and went into foreclosure.

Most fraud for property attempts can be easily detected and prevented in the loan processing and underwriting process. Though there are many controls that can be employed to prevent fraud for property, some basic training of loan processors on red flags to look for, along with incentivizing them to prevent/detect fraud, goes a long way. Combine this with verification of key information on the loan application (i.e. employment, income, credit, savings, etc…) and the risk for this type of fraud is significantly mitigated.

Unfortunately, in many recent cases, otherwise honest homebuyers were coached by unscrupulous mortgage brokers and lenders to enter false information into their loan application (in some instances, loan application information was altered without the homebuyer’s knowledge or consent), being told that doing so was not illegal or common practice. That’s a lie. Though this type of fraud may better fit into the next category, a lie on a loan application is a federal offense with a long statute of limitations and big penalties, including prison time.

The other category of mortgage fraud involves those committing fraud for monetary gain. These can be the really financially damaging frauds with broad impact, usually involving multiple parties conspiring and working together to deceive lending institutions and homeowners or prospective buyers. As was described earlier regarding the entering or altering of false information on loan applications, numerous instances have been uncovered over the last few years where this was done on a grand scale, particularly by mortgage brokers. Their ability to do so was made easier with the acceptability of “stated income” or “no document” loans, which accepted the information on the loan application without question, much less support.

Following are descriptions of some of the more common fraud for profit schemes:

Equity Skimming/Foreclosure Rescue Schemes – Generally targets homeowners who cannot make their monthly payments and may be on the road to foreclosure. The scheme involves an offer to the homeowner to pay off the mortgage loan, while permitting the homeowner to remain in the home as a renter, sometimes with an option to purchase the home back at a later time. They may also involve the collection of fees from the unwary homeowner. Ultimately, no payments are made while rent is collected and/or equity is stripped through a deeding of the property. The original homeowner is eventually evicted as the home is foreclosed.

Air Loans – A loan on non-existent property, often perpetrated by an unscrupulous mortgage broker. While the property may be a complete fabrication, the broker creates documentation and fictional transactions to give it the appearance of being real. In some cases, some level of backstopping may even occur in order to further conceal the fraud from simple verification techniques.

Property Flipping – Though flipping can be done legally in the sense of one buying a property which is then “fixed-up” (repaired, upgraded, etc.) and re-sold for a profit, there are also schemes to do so that are fraudulent. In these schemes, a property is usually purchased at an amount above its asking price and real value, then quickly sold. To facilitate the process, a false appraisal is needed. The schemes may also entail the promise or actual payment of kickbacks to various players in the loan process, such as homeowners, title company employees, real estate agents, appraisers and others. By doing this, a property that has an actual value, for example, of $250,000 may be re-sold for $500,000. At some point, after the loans are made, the various parties receive their “cut” and no payments are ever made on the loan. In some cases, multiple flips might be made, each successively increasing in amount.

Straw Buyer/Nominee Loans – These are schemes whereby the borrower is not the actual borrower. In some instances, a person may be approached and offered some form of payment to act as a borrower on behalf of the fraudster, who convinces the nominee of his honesty and legitimate desire to purchase a property. Once the loan is made, the fraudster will then attempt to strip any equity value from the property though illegal flipping, renting or other means, leaving the nominee on the hook for the loan. A slight variation on this scheme entails the fraudster stealing someone’s identity and using it in the loan process.

Double Dipping – With preparation, good timing and some luck, one could attempt to get two or more loans on the same property at the same time, playing on the float/lag time for filings to be recorded before they can be found by title search agencies.

Police inquisitors, detectives, and interrogators have long been taught that one method of getting to the truth is to have the subject recount events in reverse order. The theory appears sound: people like to fill in the blanks in a story with constructs, thoughts or images that did not actually happen, to make a tale run smoother. Remove the linear nature of storytelling and the tendency to confabulate should decrease. The theory is so sound, in fact, that police forces in Australia, Britain, New Zealand, Norway, and Spain, to name a few, have been using reverse recall as a matter of policy for years.

I attended a seminar on interviewing where the speaker actually said that this method of interrogation was the most useful way to elicit a truthful statement from an interviewee. “They don’t have the time or the creativity to make things up in reverse-recall,” my instructor said.

Well, as with many a fine theory, when put to scientific rigor, it falls short.

A brief story in September 2, 2011 issue of The Economist details a study by Lancaster University which basically debunks this theory. The researchers showed a short film depicting a cell phone robbery. Two days later the subjects of the test were separated into three groups: 1 – recall the events freely then in reverse order, 2 – recall the robbery in reverse order first then freely, 3 – (control group) recall the events freely both times.

The researchers found that the control group recalled the events correctly 48.7 percent of the time. The group that began with reverse-recall and then recounted the story freely scored 42.2 percent accuracy. The group that started with free recall then reverse-recall scored a pathetic 38.7 percent. I think it’s important to note that eyewitness testimony has already been proven to be less than reliable on several occasions. Seriously, none of the groups achieved even 50% correct recall.

The most interesting finding, however, was that the number of mistakes made among the three groups was roughly the same, but the group that recalled events in reverse order first, actually made up (pure confabulation) recollections 600% more often than the control group.

The majority of the confabulations were observed during the reverse recall portion of the exam. This flies directly in the face of what I’ve been taught in seminars and classes about interview and interrogation.

Why people, people who have no reason whatsoever to lie, make up events when using reverse-recall is a mystery. The Economist says that this study, “…does, however, point out the dangers of taking even logically plausible ideas on trust, rather than testing them.”

Those of you who testify as expert witnesses in court proceedings might want to check out the study here. It could come in handy one day.

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