For the last year, Jennifer feared that her marriage was ending. In some ways, it was not a surprise. She was American and Laszlo, her husband of seven years, was Hungarian. Sometimes Jennifer tried to decipher whether the culture clash was the primary problem.
Other times, she wondered if she and Laszlo had simply drifted apart since the birth of Szusza, their four-year-old daughter. Jennifer worried that Laszlo was hiding money in Eastern European banks. She had not worked outside the home since Szusza was born and she knew it would be difficult to re-enter the job market and immediately earn a reasonable salary. When they argued, Laszlo threatened to leave her with nothing. Then he threatened to return to his home country and take their daughter with him.
After the threats accelerated, Jennifer worried that he was setting the stage to make good on the threats. He had conversations and corresponded in his native language, which Jennifer could not read or speak. To prepare for the worst, Jennifer met with an attorney who contacted . The attorney requested that investigators conduct surveillance and an asset investigation on Laszlo.
Missing assets in divorce is more common than the general public might consider and, in this case, the search for hidden bank accounts would go global. Using data bases and resources available only to highly skilled and experienced investigators, began unraveling threads leading from unknown bank accounts locally to off shore accounts allowing investigators to find international accounts as Jennifer had suspected.
In a short period Laszlo was traveling, Jennifer made the family computer available for a computer forensic examination. It didn’t take long for the computer forensic specialist to secure the digital data, but because of the language barrier, it took a little longer to complete the computer forensics analysis.
Through forensic data recovery, Jennifer’s concerns were proven valid. Emails between Laszlo and family in Hungary outlined his plan to take his daughter to Hungary permanently. There were searches for airline tickets to Hungary and housing options in Budapest. From those, Jennifer was provided the dates Laszlo was planning to leave.
The surprise from the computer forensics investigation was evidence that Laszlo was involved with another woman and he intended to take her to Hungary with him, along with Jennifer’s daughter.
In the end, it was Jennifer who filed for divorce. With the documented evidence provided her attorney Jennifer was able to present her case to the courts, preventing her husband from having the opportunity to kidnap her daughter. Hidden assets were also then included in the divorce assets, and Jennifer was awarded a share of those.
Computer forensics and investigations are all conducted at to get to the truth for our clients.
-Brenda McGinley, CEO, All in Investigations, All in Investigations
