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Feb. 2, 1999 - Art Bell

03:14:27

Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell - Ed Pankau - Hide Your Assets - Detective Work

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	Music From the high desert in the great American Southwest, I bid
	you all good evening or good morning as the case may be and welcome to another edition of...
	The strangest thing in the nighttime.
	Otherwise known as Coast to Coast AM spreading its wings from in the west, the Tahitian and Hawaiian island chain.
	Eastward to the Caribbean and the U.S.
	Virgin Islands.
	South into South America, north all the way to the pole.
	And worldwide on the internet, thankyoubroadcast.com, this is, in fact, Coast to Coast AM and beyond, I suppose.
	Tonight, in the next hour, we are going to have A bit of change of pace.
	I thought this sounded like a very interesting book title and concept.
	But then, you know me.
	Edmund J., I believe it's Pencal, has written a book called Hide Your Assets and Disappear.
	He is one of the nation's top ten private investigators.
	And he actually can teach people how to secure their money and never be heard from or seen again.
	For whatever reason a person might want to do such thing.
	And so I thought that's going to be a very interesting program.
	Ex-wives, listen up.
	That'll be next hour.
	Now, this hour will be open lines when we get to it here shortly.
	And I'll try and make it shortly.
	House prosecutors questioned President-to-friend Vernon Jordan.
	Vernon Jordan and Drew concessions that they hope may bolster their case for live witnesses at the impeachment trial, Jordan asserted again in testimony that the President was directly behind his efforts to find Monica Lewinsky a job, but the effort was never designed by her silence.
	Well, why would the President of the United States Ask anybody to find an intern a job if it wasn't driven by something.
	Just a random thought there.
	U.S.
	jets bomb Iraq missile launchers.
	We're doing that now on a daily basis.
	So we did it again Tuesday.
	We attacked Iraqi anti-ship missile launchers.
	And you would think the Iraqis would be getting sick of that.
	In other words, the Iraqis are not actually attacking us.
	They're simply turning on radars.
	And how would you like... We have these harm... They're called harm missiles.
	Good name, huh?
	And what they do is, they lock on to a radar signal, and then they go and destroy the building, and the dish, and the... You know, everything concerned with the radar.
	Kaboom!
	And, you know, if you were an Iraqi, you'd have to think ten times before you push the on button on the radiate, you know, to irradiate an object with radar, knowing that what you're going to get back for your efforts is going to be a big bang.
	So I think, you know, I know there's nothing humorous about it, but you can almost picture in your mind's eye these Iraqis pushing the button and then getting the hell out of the building.
	I don't know.
	Maybe they're just doing that to mess with us.
	Abortion foes who created wanted posters and a web site listing the names and addresses of quote, baby butchers, end quote, were ordered to pay $107 million in damages by a federal jury Tuesday.
	Oh my.
	Oh my, oh my, $107 million.
	Well, guess that site won't be up for a while.
	People who have taken two kinds of common antibiotics are less likely to suffer heart attacks.
	It is now been determined according to a study that bolsters the tantalizing theory that infections, get this, may be an important cause of heart disease.
	Oh boy!
	Infections, huh?
	That is really interesting, heart disease.
	And once again, you know, earlier today I talked to my boss Alan Corbeth.
	Alan and I have worked together now for a lot of years.
	And he said, you know Art, I went to get a haircut today.
	To my barber.
	And there was a sign on the door that says closed.
	Now, bear in mind, this man is the picture of health.
	52 years old.
	Does nothing but go hunting all the time.
	Hiking through the woods.
	And so I guess he asked somebody nearby, what happened?
	And they said, oh, you didn't know he died yesterday.
	Just dropped dead.
	They don't have the coroner's report yet, but seems like I've been seeing a lot of that lately.
	People my age and younger just dropping dead like flies.
	And then there's another thing that I've noticed, and that is that a lot of these people have really healthy lifestyles.
	I mean, some of them are vegetarians, some of them hike and press hundreds of pounds every day and they exercise and they go, you know, they do this and they do everything and they just drop dead.
	There's been a lot of that going on lately.
	I don't know.
	Well, here it is.
	Look, I've got about ten stories on this.
	Russians may turn night into day.
	I'm not the only one using that phrase, even though that is not what it is yet.
	The crew of the Russian space station Mirror will stage what it hopes is going to be a spectacular experiment Thursday, using a huge mirror to reflect a beam of sunlight back to Earth.
	The Banner experiment Envisions unfolding a space mirror made of a membrane covered by a metal layer.
	In theory, the mirror is to work kind of like the moon, reflecting sunlight on Europe and North America.
	That would be us.
	According to the mission control spokesperson.
	Who the hell gave them permission to do this to us?
	I'd like to know.
	The mirror, about 25 meters in diameter, would serve simply as a prototype for even larger models.
	This is where it gets important.
	That one day may be used to eliminate sun-starved northern cities.
	And they also may turn into solar sails.
	If the sky is clear, this small little experiment would resemble a shooting star racing quickly across the sky.
	Clouds, however, would make it invisible.
	So this is just sort of a little Let's see if we put a mirror up there and see if we can see it from Earth kind of experiment.
	If it works, then they're going to put up the big guys, hundreds of them.
	And my comment is just saying, YET!
	I like my night time and I'm not ready to lose it.
	A small, their words, meteor streaked across the western sky yesterday morning, startling people from San Francisco to Las Vegas, More than 400 miles away.
	It was bright blue, and one caller said, absolutely fantastic, KCBS.
	Many others reported on it.
	People called the police.
	The object, according to scientists, was probably a fireball or bull-eyed.
	That's the director of the Cabot Observatory Science Center in Oakland.
	Who goes on from the description, I would say it was simply a small meteorite that entered the atmosphere, said he.
	It's not unusual, but it was clear last night, and so a lot of people saw it.
	Which may be a perfectly proper explanation, but you know, it's the only one ever given.
	And my question remains, how the hell do they know it was a meteorite until somebody goes and finds what fell?
	You know, they ought to say something entered the Earth's atmosphere, or streaked into the Earth's atmosphere, rather than saying it was a meteorite.
	Fireballs, all the rest of it.
	Meteorites, bolides, maybe.
	Maybe not.
	Show me the rock.
	Where's the meat?
	You know, that sort of thing.
	Anyway, I had an awful lot of faxes about whatever this was that went streaking across
	the atmosphere.
	A Lawrence Livermore and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Russia have announced
	they have made element 114.
	It has been done, folks, with 184 neutrons, one atom, after four months of calcium bombardment
	of a plutonium target.
	Not exactly a thimble full, and it had an apparent half-life of about 30 minutes, much
	longer than the half-life of element 105, 106, and so forth, somewhere near the island
	So in other words, as they continued to go up, they're reaching not less, but more stable elements.
	And there were those who said, here's the table of elements, and that's all there is to it.
	Well, guess what?
	They're coming up now with new elements, and they're getting closer and closer to what Bob Lazar described as, you'll recall, element 15, used in the saucers that he got to inspect at Area 51, right?
	So now we're at 114, and it is more stable.
	Follows 115 would be yet more stable.
	And so forth and so on.
	What lies ahead you can only guess.
	Is it a sad day?
	It is official now.
	Ships at sea will no longer use Morse code to signal distress.
	They have all changed to a GPS-based system.
	When you consider Y2K, you've got to wonder if this is really a cool idea.
	So, very, very interesting.
	SOS is no longer going to be, you know, in a way that really is kind of sad.
	I mean, what replaces SOS?
	I guess somebody talking into a satellite phone saying, get me the hell out of here!
	I don't know.
	But it is now officially replaced.
	They say, who does something like that anyway?
	I mean, who decides things like this?
	That all of a sudden, SOS is no longer going to be the distress signal.
	I don't even know why I'm nostalgic for it.
	I've never sent an SOS, but I've always thought if I heard one, I certainly would know what to do.
	And now there's not going to be any more SOS.
	I know what SOS meant in the Air Force, and it was lousy, and it was for breakfast.
	And I can't repeat it here.
	But, you know, the save our souls thing from the sea, I'm sorry to see that go and I don't know why.
	NBC News has learned that the CDC in Atlanta has placed, you're gonna, this'll kill you, no pun intended, has placed smallpox at the top of their list of potential biological agents of mass destruction.
	U.S.
	intelligence officials conceding They have very little either way, cite Russian intelligence reports that concluded North Korea and possibly other former Soviet client states were now conducting experimental research into using smallpox as a weapon, and we no longer have any vaccine against smallpox either.
	Oh, well isn't that just great?
	So, there you have it.
	That is sort of a summary of what's going on.
	Pretty weird stuff, huh?
	Stuff streaking through our skies.
	The Russians getting ready to unfold their mirror on Thursday.
	And smallpox is about to be used as a weapon as we meet up with Element 114.
	it to 1-14, strange times, huh?
	Okay, tomorrow night Richard Hoagland, though I don't have the information and phone numbers
	yet, they're going to send it to me.
	They always do that at the last minute.
	Richard C. Hoagland and Ghost Wolf and company, and I understand they may well dig up, pun intended, an archaeologist who's been working on the Miami Circle, so that we can hear expert opinion on what it is that we're trying so desperately to protect.
	I might add, with some success, thank you all.
	Then the following night, Dr. Jeff Long and Tricia McGill are going to be my guests, and they're going to tackle a topic that nobody tackles.
	You've heard a lot about near-death experiences, right?
	Usually good.
	Oh, look at the light!
	There's dad, there's mom.
	It's heaven!
	They're going to be here talking about not the white light and the relatives and the welcome to paradise.
	They're going to be talking about what happens when the opposite occurs.
	And Dr. Long has been there.
	He'll tell you about it.
	So, I guess you might call them N.H.E.' 's, Near Hell Experiences.
	I don't know.
	I think an interesting topic, though.
	And then Friday night, Saturday morning, Brad Steiger is going to be here.
	And we've got a big announcement for you.
	If you're on my web page, you can probably scroll down to Brad's name and learn the secret ahead of time.
	Otherwise, you'll have to wait.
	Let me see.
	There is one other little item regarding what we call Miami's Stonehenge, or what may be the American Stonehenge in Miami.
	There are some new listener-supplied photographs on the website tonight.
	If you would like to go and take a look, you're welcome to.
	So, with all that in mind, to the phones we go.
	First time caller line, you are on the air.
	Hello, hello.
	Hi, I'm just calling to see if Art's done a show before on the Chinese weapon that they have to blind people with.
	Are you referring to lasers?
	Yeah, yeah, the lasers that they have.
	I hear they have it on the open market now.
	Well, you can buy lasers generally.
	Yeah, a laser could do damage to you.
	You can buy one on the open market.
	I hear, though, that they have for the PLA, they have like a really heavy, extensive one that they use, but not only that, they're selling one.
	Yeah, I can even tell you that there was a US aircraft that was purportedly, as a matter of fact, the co-pilot and the pilot both had some damage to their retinas.
	As a result of, not the Chinese, but the Russians doing that kind of a test.
	I hear the Israelis, they might have something to do, or they had the technology before that, but what I hear is they've got a 4.3 meter mirror that they're putting in one of their so-called observatories or whatever, and supposedly they're going to use this not only as an offensive, but like a defensive type thing too.
	They can shoot it at one of our satellites or anything, or even one of our missiles.
	Well, look, that's out on the edge.
	I saw one test in which the US, with a laser, destroyed a missile in flight.
	But it was all planned, and it was a close-in shot.
	Now, lasers degrade in the atmosphere the way anything else would do.
	So, I'm not sure I'm prepared to believe that we've got something that can destroy a satellite of that sort from the ground.
	Worse yet, the other way around, if you could imagine something from space, a zapping Earth.
	although I have at times wondered if, and you've got to think about it, crop circles
	could be created by an experimental weapon of that exact kind.
	You've got to imagine it would be possible.
	Would they do it?
	Well, not America.
	America would never do that kind of thing, would it?
	Would it?
	That was the America that fed plutonium to children, right?
	According to government officials recently, revealing secrets.
	Nevertheless, it's still our America.
	Good morning, everybody.
	From the high desert, I'm Art Bell, and this This is Coast to Coast AM.
	Guy's name is Neil Diamond.
	Far, we've been traveling far.
	Far, we've been traveling far Without a home, but not without a star
	Free, only want to be free We have a close, hang on to a dream
	Ooh, you can dance, you can jive Having the time of your life
	Ooh, see that girl, watch that scene She's dancing free To talk with Art Bell in the Kingdom of Nigh from outside
	the U.S., first dial your access number to the USA, then 800-893-0903.
	If you're a first-time caller, call Art at 702-727-1222.
	From east of the Rockies, 1-800-825-5033.
	West of the Rockies, including Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico, call Art at 1-800-618-8255.
	800-825-5033. West of the Rockies, including Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico,
	call Art at 1-800-618-8255 or call Art on the wildcard line at area code 702-727-1295.
	This is Coast to Coast AM from the Kingdom of Nye.
	Soon we'll have new bumpers from Ross, Ross Mitchell, because they're changing my area code.
	We're changing every number we have before it's all over and replacing them with you
	know what.
	If you were going to hide your assets in Disphear, where would you go?
	Have you ever thought about that?
	I mean, if you were to just, whatever your situation is, say, that's it, I'm out of here, I'm going to be a new person in a new place where nobody knows me, and I'm out of here.
	You know, a lot of people have done that.
	Now, if you're curious about how you can do it, I've got a guest coming up who's going to tell you, I guess.
	That's the name of the book, Hide Your Assets and Disappear.
	I'm really, really, really curious about this topic.
	I had always thought, maybe a South Pacific island.
	Maybe Tahiti.
	We're heard in Tahiti, thanks to KHVH and Honolulu that just go blasting across the salt water.
	And I get these wonderful letters from friends in Tahiti who listen to the show.
	And they've always got these exotic native dancing girls.
	Oh, the postcards.
	Oh, the postcards.
	And, you know, it's just, it's sort of a dream that you dream.
	a sunny, warm, tropical South Pacific island.
	Hmm.
	Vacation time, maybe.
	East of the Rockies, you're on the air.
	Tally-ho.
	How you doing, Art?
	This is John.
	I'm in Ohio.
	Hi, John.
	I was just reading the newspaper here.
	Yes?
	And I don't know if you know about this.
	I just came across the Y2K hotline.
	Oh, yes.
	Federal government?
	Yep, they have a number.
	Okay.
	They have a number now.
	That's right.
	Do you ever get ahold of that tree guy that sits up in the trees?
	You know what?
	They just finally sent me a fax today, and I've got to digest it.
	I really wanted to talk to the guy who was 200 feet up.
	Yeah, that's what I was interested in.
	Me too.
	What would you do up there?
	Be very careful for speed.
	I don't think I'd park underneath there.
	You know, how do you sleep up there?
	You've got to wonder about that.
	And then, of course, you've also got to wonder how you do what else you've got to do up there.
	That's why I don't think I'd park underneath him anywhere.
	No, no.
	Not if I went to see him.
	Not close, no.
	Also... You imagine something at 200 feet.
	I mean, you wouldn't quite hit terminal velocity, but... First time callers, area 702-727-1222.
	Well, sometime soon, I presume.
	Yeah, it's been a while.
	It seems like since I've heard him on there.
	Yep.
	All right, sir.
	Thank you.
	Okay, I love all of you.
	Thanks.
	Yep, you take care, and have a good morning.
	West of the Rockies, you're on the air.
	Hello.
	Oh, I hate when you bleep out the good parts like that when the guy's talking about the tree art.
	Oh, well.
	Serious.
	Well.
	Anyway, this is Lee.
	Turn your radio off, dear.
	Oh, I killed it.
	I had to walk across the camp.
	I'm sitting here feeding this wood stove.
	It's freezing up here.
	Up where?
	In Knick, Alaska.
	Knick.
	Yeah, I've been hearing about, they reached a wind chill of 100 degrees below zero the other day in, I guess, interior Alaska.
	And that's 100 degrees below zero, that's what, like 30 seconds for flesh turning to stone?
	Like liquid oxygen.
	Yeah.
	Pretty close.
	What are your temperatures?
	What have you reached for a low so far this year?
	Oh, I couldn't even tell you.
	I don't even want to think about it.
	Give me a guess.
	You know, you sit there and talk on commercials about how you left here and went to the desert.
	I know.
	Give me a guess.
	Tell us about it.
	Give me a guess.
	I don't know.
	Maybe 34 below?
	34?
	Over here.
	Yeah, because I'm over by the inlet.
	I saw 47 below outside Anchorage one year.
	Yeah, I know.
	It's like when your tires start getting square in the morning.
	But see, I completely rejected the cold.
	I had a heater.
	In the oil pan, in the water, in the interior of the car.
	I had everything heated.
	I must have used more electricity when I lived up there than half of what comes out of Boulder Dam.
	Well, I found a woman's best friend up here with a hair dryer and electric blanket.
	It'd be a three dog night, but I don't do pets, you know?
	No kids, no pets.
	This ain't why I called you.
	All right.
	Okay, the other night I tried to get through when you had Ed Dames on there.
	Yes.
	And you remember how he was sitting there and he was talking about when he was doing that remote viewing, how he knew that Lucifer was watching him?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	Well, what I was thinking about, well, being he's the father of lies, okay?
	Lucifer.
	He knows that he's being remote reviewed.
	Wouldn't he want to, like, put that out there to make it look like he's just a little baby conceived in maggots laying in a ditch when he's actually, you know?
	And then you did that Antichrist line, which means the spirit of Antichrist is what, already in the world?
	You proved that, right?
	Yep, yep.
	Okay.
	So the way that I'm looking about it is, I thought maybe somebody was calling from your international line.
	You know, you've got that son, Ben Laden.
	You know, he's from the line of Ishmael.
	Yep.
	And then, what you've got?
	You've got Juan Carlos, the King of Spain.
	If I were to open a Ben Laden line, I would get, I'll bet you, an entire string.
	If I had time tonight, I'd prove it to you.
	I'd get all kinds of Ben Ladens.
	Well, you know how Clinton had, well, you know, like the country ain't going to take him down because the economy's good?
	You know, people ain't going to judge him?
	Well, I think Mr. Bablin's going to get judged.
	Alright, well I appreciate the call.
	Thank you.
	I don't know.
	It's not the country, it's not the people that want Bill Clinton taken down.
	It's the Republican majority in the Senate and the House.
	Whether you like it or not, I do believe the polls.
	You know, I hear people screeching on the air all the time, I don't believe the polls, I don't believe them!
	Well, they're generally right.
	About 75% of the people just want this over with.
	And they're gonna drag it out for every... You know, I was gonna say ounce of political asset they can get, but I don't think they're getting much political asset from this.
	They think they are, apparently.
	But those who are out to get the president now, I don't think are gaining any political capital from the effort.
	So, I don't know.
	West of the Rockies, you are on the air.
	Good morning.
	Yeah, Mr. Bell?
	That would be me, yes.
	Yeah, you were talking about Kraft hovering over your location out there.
	This is Larry from California.
	My location?
	Well, where you live, out in the desert.
	There was one that passed directly over me some years ago.
	Let me tell you a little story.
	I was taking my girlfriend home at around 2 a.m., 1996 of March, and driving out where I live here in Thousand Oaks.
	Looking into the sky, my girlfriend saw a craft just sitting there, but it wasn't a A triangle was rectangular.
	She saw the lights below it.
	Yes.
	And then I did a foolish thing.
	I got out of the car and started flashing the lights.
	Yes, that is definitely crossing into the Darwin Award category.
	You flash lights at the craft.
	Now, if this is something like out of Independence Day, Yeah, well, I did flash it, but she got very, uh... Upset?
	Disturbed about it, and she says, take me home right away.
	So I got back in the car, and we took off.
	We looked up again, and it wasn't there anymore, but it was just sitting there.
	What do you think could have happened, had you continued... What do you think could have happened?
	If you had continued to flash the lights.
	Well, I did continue for about a minute, but nothing happened.
	I understand, but if you had continued persistently...
	A beam would have come down and your girlfriend would have vaporized.
	Now, how would you have felt had that occurred?
	Well, quite bad, but I looked...
	I like to...
	I don't know how you felt about it.
	We both would have probably been vaporized.
	Possibly.
	All right, sir, I appreciate the call.
	Yes, women don't like that.
	I do that all the time when we go out for a walk at night.
	I tell Ramona, this is how you signal them, and I've got a very bright light, to the world's
	brightest spotlight.
	They definitely see that.
	So I fool around with that all the time.
	Tempting fate.
	First time caller on the line, you are on the air.
	Hi.
	Hello, Art.
	Big howdy to you, sir.
	And to you, where are you?
	Houston, Texas.
	Houston, alright.
	That's right.
	I can hear the Texas in you.
	Marijuana thing.
	Yes, you mean the fungi?
	Yes, I want you to know that a certain group of botanists are now working on a preventative We have a preventative for the growing factor.
	You mean an anti-fungal thing?
	Well, that we're still working on things like Daconil.
	Something that would eat the government's fungus alive, maybe?
	To keep the government's fungus alive?
	No, no, God no, we wouldn't want to do that.
	What we're basically working on with growers is to have a preventative of how they can grow their Why not?
	Why not?
	So then why not create something that kills what the government puts out there to kill them hot?
	You just might be opening Parrot and Doors' box there, pal.
	Well, no, no.
	Look, the door is being opened by those dispensing this thing to kill all the hemp plants.
	That's opening the door.
	All this is doing is trying to pull it back shut again.
	That can know it does slow the process down a bit from from what we gather of it, but we just can't get that
	Yeah, we lost We lost it. Sorry about that your phone a
	Wildcard line you're on the air hi hi Andrew calling you from Whitby Island. Oh yes, Andrew. How are you?
	Okay, we've been out of power for the last 10 hours or so, but 10 hours out of power
	Yeah, 10 hours. Why I don't know with something major and apparently Mount Vernon
	Which is our main power source for this whole island was actually out of power as well, so
	Mm-hmm.
	I don't know, it was a long time.
	They fixed it in a half hour the first time it went out and it was flashing last night.
	Generator?
	Do you have a Beijing radio?
	Do you have a light?
	What do you have?
	Hey, I've got my trusty, you know, three LED deal, so I was set.
	Oh, isn't that excellent?
	Yeah, and I've got a dual fuel stove, you know, burns gas the whole nine, and so I was fine.
	Had my barbecue going, so.
	Good for you.
	More Americans are going to have to learn that they're going to face what you are now facing sometime within the next year.
	Yep, that's for sure.
	Yeah, I thought it was weird.
	You know, actually, I went by my bank today, and after the power failed the first time, they have a backup generator, and theirs, for some reason, did not kick in, so they had the bank closed.
	And, of course, you know, the whole nine of the stoplights were out.
	So, no power, no bank.
	Yep.
	No banking transaction today were performed in Oak Harbor.
	Again, that, of course, has us all considering Y2K.
	No power, no bank.
	Yeah, it's amazing.
	You know, no gas, no gas.
	That's right.
	Nobody can fuel their cars.
	Anybody who is out of gas is out of luck.
	Americans are really used to just doing it one way, you know, and that way is turn on the tap, turn on the switch, stuff it down the garbage disposal, Flip on the TV and the stereo and the radio and all the rest of it and it just always works.
	Well, I have a feeling we're coming into a period of time where that's going to be tested quite a bit.
	Yeah.
	Anyhow, about that picture you had up of the plant, I've seen that before a few years back on some of my plants.
	You grow hemp plants?
	I used to, yes.
	And you had that kind of fungus on it?
	Well, no, I mean, just that, it looked like that picture, whatever it was, I don't know what it was.
	Well, the person represented it to be the government's new anti-fungal agent that will destroy implants.
	Yes, I was aware, I just, I don't know.
	If they had it going a couple years ago, then it's a possibility, but... Knowing our government, I'm surprised they didn't start out on something simpler like daisies.
	I mean, kill all the daisies in the world first.
	Just prove you can do it.
	Yeah, which reminds me, by the way, the guy who was telling you about the government growing, I think there are seven people that still do get it from the government.
	I believe that may be correct.
	That's sort of the remnant of a program that will close.
	Right.
	Yeah, I think you're right.
	All right, my friend.
	Thank you.
	Good to talk to you.
	Take care.
	I think he's right, but it's that small.
	East of the Rockies, you're on the air.
	Hi.
	Hi.
	My name's John.
	Hi, John.
	I have a question.
	Maybe you can help me.
	I do a lot of traveling, and I'm always trying to tune into your station when I'm in a different state.
	Is there a way of getting a list of all the radio stations?
	Of course.
	Most networks are loath to publish their list of affiliates for some paranoid reason, but we're not.
	You can get a list of our affiliates on my website, which by the way is an accurate list.
	It's another thing we do is we print the truth.
	Most radio networks lie their butts off.
	We don't.
	It is an accurate list and it is on my website.
	You can print it out.
	Well, my problem is Because I do a lot of traveling, I don't have access to the internet.
	Well, yes, you do.
	I do?
	Sure.
	Next time you go by a library, go in.
	Okay.
	How about that?
	Well, I could do that.
	What's your website?
	www.artbell.com Of course.
	How many times I've heard that.
	Thank you very much.
	All right.
	You're welcome, and take care.
	West for the Rockies, you're on the air.
	Hi.
	Hey, Art.
	Jack in Tempe, Arizona.
	How's it going today?
	All right.
	If you were to take all your assets, whatever they may be, and disappear, Jack, where would you go?
	Where would I go?
	Yep.
	Um, Indiana, because I think that's where I might go if this Y2K thing goes down.
	You'd run away to Indiana?
	Yep.
	Got family back there.
	It's a small-town mentality.
	One interstate that goes into the town.
	But I mean, these are people you know, right?
	Yeah.
	So you're kind of missing my point here.
	No, if you were to hide your assets, your money, If I had money.
	If you had money.
	And disappear, yes.
	Just totally establish a new identity.
	Not to a place where you were born or something, but to a totally alien place on Earth.
	Right in the middle of a Scientologist church someplace.
	And then I just do my own experiments from inside.
	Really?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Anything else?
	I think that'd rock.
	But I do know the Antichrist.
	Personally?
	No.
	I was watching a PBS special.
	Yeah?
	And they had a photo of that Benjamin Netanyahu.
	How the hell do you... Benjamin Netanyahu, yes.
	You think he's the Antichrist?
	There was a picture where he was looking right at the photographer.
	Yeah?
	Well, a lot of people do that when they get their pictures taken, you know?
	I mean, it's not exactly... Right.
	But the look on his face... Did you see glowing red eyes?
	No, no.
	It was just cold.
	And it wasn't an excited look.
	Calculating.
	Cold calculating.
	Kind of like I am the one who will bring on, I will bring Armageddon to the world.
	Faithful and powerful.
	I will bring Armageddon to the world.
	I don't feel that way at all about Benjamin Netanyahu.
	I think he's one of the best they've ever had in Israel, frankly.
	And I like him a lot.
	But then again, I'm the one they call the devil's toe jam, right?
	Maybe we have something in common.
	we will be right back music playing
	music playing music playing
	Lonely sailors pass the time away and talk about their homes.
	And there's a girl in this harbor town and she works laying whiskey down.
	They say, Brandy, fetch another round.
	She serves them whiskey and wine.
	The sailors say, Brandy, you're a fine girl.
	What a good wife you would be.
	Such a fine girl.
	Yeah, you'd have to steal a sailor from the sea.
	From the Kingdom of Nye, this is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.
	From east of the Rockies, call Art at 1-800-825-5033.
	West of the Rockies, including Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico, at 1-800-618-8255.
	First time callers may reach Art at area code 702-727-1222.
	Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico at 1-800-618-8255.
	First-time callers may reach Art at area code 702-727-1222.
	And you may fax Art at area code 702-727-8499.
	Please limit your faxes.
	And indeed, one day, Brandy got married to the fine figure of a woman with a great personality.
	But then, years later, Brandy turned into a horrible, shrieking shrew of a bitch.
	brandy what a fine life you'd make and indeed one day brandy got married to the fine figure
	of a woman with a great personality but then years later brandy turned into a horrible
	shrieking shrew of a bitch and you had to get away from her having been away from the
	ocean for a while how would you do it?
	Sorry.
	Well, my guest is going to come on and tell you.
	He's the author of Hide Your Assets and Disappear.
	I love that title.
	He's actually a PI.
	Edmund J. Pankow.
	And I may be slaughtering his name.
	I hope not.
	I'll tell you more about him in a minute.
	Alright.
	I hope that Premier Executives Jay Korn Clear Channel are listening very carefully this morning.
	Edmund J. Pankow, I have a dry sense of humor, is one of the nation's top ten private investigators.
	He has also become recognized as one of the most informed financial and asset recovery experts in the country.
	His expertise has prompted many clients in industry and government to utilize His investigative talents to document fraud, locate and recover hidden assets.
	Now, he's a best-selling author and renowned public speaker.
	In his fifth book, Hide Your Assets and Disappear, he's taken an about-face approach to research and recovery techniques.
	Techniques that he has taught to thousands at seminars and spelled out in fine detail in his bestseller, Check It Out.
	In other words, I guess, he has tracked people down for most of his adult life.
	And so he would be the ideal guy to tell you how you could not get tracked down, right?
	He is an associate editor for PI Magazine, private investigator and contributing writer to International Living.
	He writes regularly for numerous financial and investigative trade journals.
	Authored several award-winning books on privacy and investigation, which include, of course, Check It Out, Everyone's Guide to Investigation, How to Make $100,000 a Year as a Private Investigator.
	That sounds like fun.
	I wonder if that is fun work?
	His experiences in numerous high-profile cases have been featured in such national publications as Time, Businessweek, People, USA Today, New York Times, He's been interviewed on literally hundreds of local and syndicated radio talk shows, including ABC's 2020, Larry King Live, BBC London, and so forth and so on.
	Let's see.
	He has investigated some of the highest profile cases in American history, located the hidden assets of foreign dignitaries, bank embezzlers, celebrities, and politicians.
	Has served as an expert witness in many precedent-setting court cases and trials, resulting in the recovery of millions of dollars for his clients.
	He's a graduate of Florida State University's School of Criminology, the founder and director of the Pankow Consulting and International Investigative Agency, headquartered in Houston, Texas, which is where he is.
	Welcome to the show.
	Thank you very much, Art.
	Edmund, gee!
	You began, I guess, as an investigator, hunting folks down and recovering fortunes.
	How long have you spent on that?
	Well, I've really been doing this now more than 25 years.
	I started, as many people as a private investigator, doing the same thing that everybody else does, making movies of errant spouses and filming insurance cases.
	Was I right about Brandy?
	Oh, listen, that's a true story.
	We know many too many Brandys.
	Tell me the truth.
	If somebody comes to you and they say, look, I married this gal.
	I've made a fortune.
	I'm really doing well.
	And she is a shrill, shrieking, shrew of a bitch that I've got to get away from.
	I want to despair.
	I want to take all my money with me.
	Can you tell them how to do that?
	Oh, yeah.
	In fact, many people have the idea or the plan of how to do it themselves.
	They just don't know the proper vehicle.
	And without expert advice, somebody like you, how much trouble?
	Let's say somebody really shredded every bit, you know, their social security card, all their credit cards, all their ID, took off, ended up thousands of miles away, somehow or another, got their money with them.
	I don't know how they do that.
	You would know that.
	Could you find them?
	Well, the one problem, Mark, and the thing that everybody has to remember, is that three can keep a secret if two of them are dead.
	You can't call your mother on holidays, you can't check in with your former wife, family, anybody, because in the United States, the record-keeping system is so good that they can track phone calls, they can track Federal Express packages.
	They can track anything that goes into a computer if they really want to.
	There's no real safe way to do it.
	I mean... Well, you just have to go and be committed to your new life.
	Do not go back to your old life at all.
	In other words, disregard every aspect of your old life.
	That's right.
	Just hit the delete button and that's it.
	That's really hard, isn't it?
	Government agencies specialize in doing that for People who testify in particularly nasty criminal cases against the mob and stuff like that.
	And they put them through a whole program and I suppose they teach them all of these things, don't they?
	Well, they try, but the way that a lot of these people get caught or get, you know, banged up later in life by somebody that's on the other side is the same thing.
	They go back to their old ways, they call their old family, they get drunk one night and, you know, make contact with someone that It just blows their whole cover.
	How many people, percentage-wise, do you think that have decided to disappear have actually successfully done so?
	That's a pretty interesting question.
	It calls for conjecture, I suppose.
	That would take some thinking, but I'd say that it's probably about one in four or five that really commits to this and decides to do it, does it, and does it right.
	Not very good odds, huh?
	And that's what you do, is improve the odds.
	Exactly.
	Did you think real hard before you wrote this book about the negative side of writing this kind of book, telling people how to run away from everything?
	Well, I thought about it.
	What had happened is for many years I've taught for the government and for professional associations how to find all this.
	And then one day somebody came to me and said, Ed, would you teach the other side?
	Would you come on a cruise ship, go into the Cayman Islands, and teach a group of people that want to have the privacy?
	Would you do this?
	We have a lousy telephone line here.
	Yeah, I think we've got our connections winding out a little bit.
	We may reconnect at the bottom of the hour.
	Let's see if we make it.
	Anyway, so you went on a cruise ship.
	You had that opportunity.
	Right.
	And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that Things have gone overboard.
	There's far too much invasion in our personal lives, and really, we need more privacy.
	Coming from you, that's a strange thing to say, because you spent all of your earlier career invading privacy.
	Right?
	True story.
	Tracking people down.
	I mean, looking for phone records.
	I don't know.
	How do you track somebody down?
	Phone records?
	How else?
	If you've got somebody who absconded with a whole bunch of embezzled money, let's say, half a million dollars or so down into South America, or a million dollars, a lot of people do that.
	Right.
	How do you get them?
	Well, there's a lot of ways.
	When you travel, there's a record.
	Every time you do an airline ticket, there's an agency in Virginia called the Airline Reporting Corporation that knows where you've gone.
	No kidding.
	I didn't know that.
	Yeah, there's just tons of agencies that collect government and they give it to the government if they ask for it.
	Well, how do you get that information?
	Well, a lot of the information becomes publicly available through the courts or through things that you do.
	Uh, it's like your most personal private document is your tax return.
	That's true.
	But, it becomes a public record if you have a divorce, if you get involved in a lawsuit over money, they subpoena it, and it goes into a file that becomes public to the rest of the world.
	So, those things happen.
	And then when you travel, there's a record.
	The airlines have a record, the government has a record when you re-enter the United States.
	Well, true.
	Now, the passport part would be harder.
	Flying domestically, of course, all you've got to do is show picture ID and they're happy.
	You could buy a ticket, I think, using paying cash, right?
	And then using a false picture ID.
	You can't try to go buy a ticket and pay cash today.
	You can't do it?
	They don't want to do it.
	They want credit cards.
	They want a paper trail.
	You mean to say they won't take cash?
	You can't make them take cash?
	I have seen times when no, they will accept no cash, they want a credit card to verify identity.
	When you check into a hotel, don't they want a credit card to swipe just to verify your identity?
	Well, they want a credit card to swipe, yes, but they say it's ostensibly for any room charges and so forth.
	That's what they say.
	And you don't have to do it, you can say no.
	True, but they don't have to give you the room.
	The thing is, it becomes more and more difficult to move and travel just on cash.
	It can be done.
	And see, the thing is, you can be smart, you can be cool, you can do this yourself, but if you take someone with you, a wife, a girlfriend, a child, anybody, you quadruple the chance of getting caught.
	So your best chance is doing it all by your lonesomeness?
	Just pick up and go, and remember the magic words, three can keep a secret if two of them are dead.
	Don't tell anybody anything.
	And if you do, you've got to kill them.
	Just about.
	Going back to your former, before we come back to disappearing, but going back to the former work you did, did you ever feel guilty about doing what you did?
	I mean, for example, Some poor slob of a guy who was married to the disastrous Brandy, and he makes it to someplace in Italy or South America or Asia or something, and you, for Brandy and for a sum of Brandy's money, you go find the guy, and then when you find him, you're about to turn him back over to this shrill, shrieking, horrible little bitch.
	So, do you ever feel guilty about that?
	Well, I have felt for some cases like that.
	That either they deserved each other or neither one of them deserved anything.
	Usually when I do it, I don't do it for Brandy.
	I do it for Brandy's law firm of Dewey, Cheatham & Howe.
	Doing this this many years, I've seen the abuses and that's one of the reasons I really started doing this.
	In other words, you really got sick of that kind of work?
	Well, to some degree, yes.
	I did a lot of the failed bank and savings and loan investigations.
	Oh, yes.
	I saw a pattern of what went on there.
	And on one side of it, there was.
	There was a lot of fraud.
	There was a lot of problems, etc., etc.
	But on the other side of it, there's a lot of people that got caught up in something that they didn't know what was going on, and they were ruined for life.
	Sure.
	Sure.
	And so, at times, you would feel sorry for your targets.
	Yes.
	But you've got to go ahead and do it anyway.
	Business is business.
	What about, do private investigators ever get... I mean, let's back up a little bit.
	The typical Hollywood portrayal of a private investigator is of a guy up on a ladder taking picture of a couple of people copulating for the spouse who thinks somebody is fooling around.
	The way Hollywood typically depicts a private investigator, kind of the first rung on the PI ladder, I suppose.
	Is that roughly accurate?
	Well, it was 25 years ago when I got in the business.
	Everybody that was a private investigator had failed as a police officer or something like that.
	Today, there's a lot of people in the business that never wore a gun, never wore a badge, And their background is in computer skills, or in real estate searching, or in one of a dozen other fields.
	And the business they do today is not the errant spouses, because the laws have pretty much legislated out fault and divorce.
	Yes.
	But there are bigger issues today.
	One of my best friends, Bill Kucurik, has a nationwide firm that does nothing but make movies of people that are Making injuries.
	And then another one, good friend of mine, does nothing but things like I do, which is checking out the backgrounds of people.
	Only he does it for women who want to know if their prospective spouse is really worth what he says he is.
	I do it more for business.
	In other words, find out if a company is really worth what they say it is.
	Yes.
	Or, is this money that I'm getting ready to invest going to someone that's going to treat it as well as I am?
	Fascinating.
	Do you enjoy your work?
	I really do.
	It's a fun business.
	I learn something new every day.
	In most cases, I really feel that I've done some good and I've helped somebody.
	But there apparently are a few where you still carry guilt.
	We all carry guilt about some things we've done in our lives.
	There's always a thing or two you say, if I could have done that different.
	If I could have told this person three years ago, you know, just walk away from this.
	Don't do it.
	Then you would have saved them?
	Yeah.
	I see people all the time that have gotten so far into something that there's no getting them out.
	And I really feel sorry for them.
	What kind of people mostly want to disappear?
	I mean, really disappear?
	Well, there's several kinds.
	We'll say first is a person that's really done something wrong.
	Somebody that's either broken the law or they've gotten into some situation where they see no out.
	Oh, can you help somebody like that without yourself breaking the law?
	Oh, yes.
	You're kidding.
	I'm not going to tell anybody to break the law.
	No, no.
	I'm talking about after the fact.
	Now, that would seem to be An accessory almost to the crime.
	Listen, now, hold on.
	We'll clear that one up when we get back.
	But, imagine one day, a phone booth.
	It's snowing.
	It's New Jersey.
	You hear this song.
	you're gone.
	I've been forgotten on a winter's day. I'd be safe and warm if I was in L.A.
	California dreaming on such a winter's day. Stopped into a church. I passed along the way.
	Well, I got down on my knees.
	All right. Once again, we go to my guest Edmund J. Pankow.
	Edmund, I am pronouncing your name correctly, am I not?
	Yeah, Pankow's fine, but call me Ed.
	Ed, okay, Ed is much easier.
	Good, Ed.
	Ed, let's say I came to you and I said, look, I want to disappear to a nearly uninhabited or barely inhabited South Pacific island, or maybe even an inhabited one like Tahiti or something like that.
	Describe to me roughly the steps that I would have to take.
	Before you do that, I'm sorry.
	Let me take you back because we've got to clear that up.
	If somebody had committed a felony, let's say somebody robbed a bank and they've got three quarters of a million dollars in hard cash, hard cold cash.
	Right.
	They come to you and they say, Ed, I've got to get the hell out of here.
	FBI's after me.
	Everybody's after me.
	All I want to do is go live a quiet life in Rio de Janeiro or something.
	You can assist them without yourself breaking the law?
	I could give them advice of places to go.
	I could not specifically say, tonight you go get this ticket and this name and do this and do that and everything else.
	But in a way, it's just like this book, Hitman, that Paladin Press did.
	They can write a book about how something is done, but if you choose to do it a certain way, that's your choice, not mine.
	So in other words, even limited advice would not be considered Wouldn't risk you getting charged as an accessory?
	No, because I wouldn't be giving them specific advice.
	And usually, you know, I don't do it for somebody like that.
	And, you know, I've never really had that circumstance.
	What I get is the poor schmuck that gets caught up in a lawsuit like the McDonald's coffee case.
	And this person is the one that poured the coffee and along with McDonald's is sued for $4 million.
	They get a judgment against him, and he can never own anything in his name for as long as he lives.
	So as long as this person remains using their regular name... In the United States.
	They don't have a life.
	Virtually, they don't have a life.
	Exactly.
	So you can help somebody like that?
	Yes.
	Would you normally relocate them, just out of curiosity, in the U.S.
	itself, or is that too dangerous?
	Would they have to go out of the country?
	In the United States, literally everything we do every day is tracked.
	Big Brother has their own way of doing it, and there's a semi-secret government agency called FinCEN, the Financial Crime Enforcement Network, that can find out anything you've done.
	But even more than them is the credit bureaus, and that's the real Big Brother.
	The credit bureaus are the agency that really tracks your daily movements, And gets a record of something you do every day.
	So, unless you go and get an entire new identity, which can be done, you're far better off to go to a very nice country like Belize or Honduras that will welcome you.
	Yeah, I hear a lot of good things about Belize.
	Well, I've got a home down in Honduras.
	We do!
	Both of them are great!
	Yes, I get callers from Belize.
	I'm listened to a lot down in Belize.
	People call me, and I have always wondered about some of the people that call me.
	They don't ever identify themselves.
	Not that I would allow them to, but I mean, they're kind of a low profile, let's put it that way.
	They hearken to the beat of a different drummer.
	Could a person have a pretty good life in Belize?
	Oh, yes.
	You can live there for less than half the cost it costs here.
	Really?
	Live very well and a whole lot healthier.
	Really?
	Suppose you had to retire tomorrow and retire on what Uncle Sam gives you for Social Security.
	There's no place in the U.S.
	you can do that and live at anything but a subsistence level.
	And that's a lot of people in the U.S.
	Assuming Social Security holds up, what's average?
	About six or seven hundred dollars a month?
	Even if it's a thousand.
	That will not pay your rent and utilities and leave you enough for food.
	That's right.
	But you can go to a place like Belize or Honduras.
	That same amount of money will get you a three-bedroom, two-bath home with a good view for $500 a month.
	Wow!
	That includes a maid.
	Wow!
	The food there is cheaper, especially if you eat native, and it's healthier.
	You eat a lot of rice.
	You eat a lot of fish.
	You don't have Biggie Burgers.
	They must have Belize Burgers.
	They have Belize Burgers, I'm sure.
	But you live better, healthier.
	My neighbors down there, everybody there asks no questions and tells a few lies.
	And the Belize government Welcomes this?
	Oh, they do!
	The Belize government is one of the few countries in the world that did not sign the MLAT, the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, and they want no part of any inquiries by the U.S.
	government.
	Uh-huh.
	So, I would, uh, would Belize deport you back to the U.S.
	for any reason?
	Only if you committed a major felony, uh, and You know, the U.S.
	really pushed for it.
	What kind of countries can you go to that simply, absolutely, positively will not deport you under any circumstances?
	Well, those kind of places are usually the ones you wouldn't want to go to, like Libya.
	Libya?
	Oh, really?
	But there's some countries that still will not do it, and part of it is a function of money.
	I have a neighbor down in Honduras that the U.S.
	government wants very, very, very bad.
	He thumbed his nose at the IRS for over $5 million.
	He did a few other things.
	But the government there is very happy to have him.
	He runs a very successful business there, and when the government asks to have him back every month, they basically tell him to put it where the sun doesn't shine.
	Oh, yes.
	So, if your crime is only one of upending the IRS or something like that, then you and your money are welcome?
	Very much so.
	In fact, if you deposit $50,000 in the bank in many of those countries, A, they pay you 9-12% interest, tax-free, and B, they give you citizenship And a passport.
	You're kidding.
	In any name you want.
	You're kidding.
	Oh no.
	50 grand will get you a passport, a name, and citizenship?
	Virtual citizenship?
	In any name you want.
	You're kidding.
	No.
	I had no idea this could be done.
	That's the way it goes.
	You're really serious, huh?
	Pick a new name.
	I had no idea this could be done.
	Oh, yes.
	that's really the ultimate way to start over but you you don't advise
	taking family members That one will do you in, huh?
	Well, it will lead back to you.
	I mean, unless you've done something truly heinous, something that they're going to pursue you to the ends of the earth for, you know, you can bring your family And you just maintain a low profile.
	But if you've done something that someone really, really wants you for, then you've got to sit back and say, you know, do I really need to bring them now?
	Given a choice of being in trouble with our government or the mafia, which would you choose?
	I'd rather be in trouble with the government.
	The government, yeah.
	Do you remember there was a movie that Roy Schneider starred in years ago called Sorcerer?
	It was a remake of the movie The Wages of Fear.
	I should remember that, because I'm a movie buff, but I don't.
	He was a wheelman for a robbery where a Mafia Don's son or nephew was killed, and they stole his money.
	And he fled to South America to avoid them.
	And they don't much care, do they, about They don't bother about borders, no.
	Of course, the mafia today is not what it was back then, but there's still probably one or two guys around that could make you an offer you don't refuse.
	Yeah, it's still possible to offend somebody to the degree that they would come and knock on your door in Belize or anywhere else.
	Yeah.
	How old are you now?
	Fifty-three.
	Oh, you're my age.
	Exactly my age, as a matter of fact.
	How about that?
	How often, frequently in your career, have you been in serious physical danger?
	I'll say once for sure, once other maybe.
	Can you tell us anything about the for sure one?
	I help the government do a real big deal.
	And in that deal, my personal liberty was taken away for a week.
	By the government?
	No, no.
	By the other side.
	The other side?
	Yes.
	I was an unwelcome guest of some people for a week.
	I see.
	A foreign nation of some sort.
	Something like that.
	That is frightening.
	I would not recommend it and would not do it again.
	I spent some time in Russia.
	It's a very interesting place right now.
	Whatever our mafia is not today, they have it there, believe me.
	Oh, I know.
	I was asked to teach the KGB how to find the hidden assets of their people.
	And there are plenty of those, aren't there?
	There is a bunch of them.
	And so you actually taught the KGB?
	Yeah, they brought them to the United States, put them in a program at the University of Chicago, and they flew up me and other experts to teach them and other similar investigators how to do white-collar crime financial investigation.
	I suppose today, in your business, you almost have to be a computer expert.
	Or you've got to have somebody that works for you that is.
	That is, right.
	I have people that work for me.
	See, Art, you and I grew up before color television.
	That's correct.
	If you grow up before color television, you are not astute on computers like those with pimples.
	I know.
	And the really heavy-duty stuff that we really do our digging, I relate down to one of the people that I trained.
	That actually does that level of work faster and better than I do.
	I write the parameters, and I create the program, and they go do the keyboard work.
	I'm pretty good.
	You know, I'm pretty good at computers.
	I'm very deeply involved in computers, but I'm still absolutely amazed my son, who's now 17, can sit down at a computer game that he has never seen in his life.
	That I can't possibly figure out, and in 20 seconds, he's got the whole thing figured, and he's already halfway to battling the big monster.
	Oh yeah, they have a mindset.
	Blows me away.
	People that grew up with this have a mindset that you and I will never have.
	So you hire somebody like that?
	Oh yeah.
	Do you have a big staff that works for you, or a small?
	I used to.
	I used to have a staff of more than 60 people, and a couple years ago I said, I'm working for them, they're not working for me.
	And I sold my branches to my staff and I just do what I want to do now.
	Which is mostly the opposite of what you did do.
	To a good degree.
	I still teach a lot and I've got a lot of people that I've helped put their lives back together.
	I'll give you a for instance.
	I had a woman who had to find her ex-husband because their daughter needed a bone marrow transplant.
	Oh boy.
	And if we didn't find him within a week, the chances were that the girl was going to die.
	Right.
	So in two days we found him, we put them back together, you know, and something like that really makes me feel good.
	So you get occasional good jobs?
	Every now and then I get to wear the white hat, yes.
	But I bet it's fairly rare.
	Well, for every person that I make happy in my business, there's somebody on the other side that's unhappy.
	Have you ever had both clients come?
	For example, have you ever had somebody who has embezzled a whole bunch of money from a company come to you, and you got them the hell out of Dodge with a new name and a new identity, and then had the company come to you trying to hire you to find the guy?
	Not quite under those circumstances, but I've had the attorneys for both the husband and the wife both come to me on the same day.
	Oh my!
	The wife wanted to find the husband's assets, the husband wanted to find the wife's boyfriend.
	Which side did you take out of curiosity?
	I don't know if I can answer that.
	It's funny, in some cases I say I don't want to deal with either one of you.
	You say in here that it's possible to learn to be a private investigator, as you are, and reasonably expect to make about $100,000 a year.
	Is that correct?
	That's really very easy to do, yes.
	That's basically just making $400 a day, which is one little case a day.
	You have to do two things.
	A, you've got to understand the philosophy of investigation, but even more so, you've got to understand business and marketing.
	Doing the work is half the work.
	Being able to get clients is the other part.
	Most investigators never get any business or marketing or sales skills in school, so they starve to death.
	How do you get a good reputation as a PI?
	That's got to be mainly how you get your business, I would think.
	The Yellow Pages probably don't yield a lot.
	Oh, no.
	The bigger the ad in the Yellow Pages, the worse the investigator.
	I see.
	Rule of thumb.
	Really?
	Really.
	This is a results-oriented business.
	If you do one good job, it'll bring you two more.
	When you do a good job for somebody, whether it's a lawyer or an individual, they'll tell ten friends.
	And those ten friends will tell ten more, and at least one or two or three of them will need you.
	Today, you know, I do no advertising.
	I have more business than I can want to do.
	I just pick and choose those cases, A, where it's interesting, and B, where there's somebody I want to help.
	So, you get so many cases now that you don't have to choose the seedier side.
	You can sort of ignore that if you want to.
	Yeah, and most good investigators work that way.
	As I say, this business has changed so much that most of the people in this today, they wear a coat and tie, they go to work like anyone else, and what they do is they either find people, they locate information to help somebody make some other decision, this, that, or something else, or they're out documenting fraud for somebody.
	Most people don't know it, but one of the biggest hirers of investigators is the credit card companies.
	Really?
	Our credit card debt is going up higher and higher every day.
	One thing I feel is that we're going to have a depression again, and all the signs are there.
	In 1998, we had more bankruptcies than any year in history.
	Well, I was about to say, why would you be involved?
	Because people can, right now, declare bankruptcy pretty much and get out from under.
	Yes.
	Well, the thing is, many bankruptcies are set up, many bankruptcies are done with the intent to commit fraud.
	And I won't say many as a percentage, But in numbers, if only 1 in 10 is set up that way, that's still a pretty high number.
	That is a high number, yes.
	And do you think an honest assessment would be that it's about 1 in 10 that are absolute frauds?
	I would say at least that, yes.
	At least that.
	And so what might be your mission in such a case?
	Well, my mission in such a case is to document that this person created the steps for their bankruptcy with the knowledge and intent to avoid the debts of their creditors.
	If you can prove that and go to a judge, then you can have the bankruptcy invalidated and they get a payoff?
	Yes, they will strike the bankruptcy, and even if they go through bankruptcy, the debt will not be voided.
	Any debt that is found to be related to fraud cannot be discharged through bankruptcy.
	Fascinating.
	So, at that point, you've created a client who needs to come to you to disappear, probably, right?
	That may happen.
	That's really something.
	That's really something.
	Well, all right.
	What we're going to do, I think, is we're going to pause here at the top of the hour.
	And when we come back, I would like the opportunity for the audience, who I know, I just know, they're going to have a ton of questions for you.
	I have been curious all my life about how a person would actually completely disappear, just sort of go away and never be heard from again and be sipping drinks with little umbrellas on them.
	On a nice sunny beach someplace, so... We can talk about that.
	Alright, good.
	We will talk about that.
	It's about Papa.
	He's a rolling stone.
	He's gone.
	Never heard nothing but bad things about him Mama, I'm depending on you
	He's about Papa, tell me the truth He's a rolling stone
	Mama just hung her head and said, He's gone
	Papa was a rolling stone Wherever he lay his hat was his home
	Until he met Ed All he left was a long
	Papa was a rolling stone Mama just hung her head and said,
	Wherever he lay his hat was his home Papa was a rolling stone
	Be it sight, sound, smell, touch, the something Inside that we need so much
	The sight of a touch, or the scent of a sound, or the strength of an oak when used deep in the ground.
	The wonder of flowers to be covered and then to burst up, Through tarmac to the sun again.
	Or to fly to the sun without burning a wing.
	To lie in a meadow and hear the grass sing.
	How all these things in our memories soar.
	And they used them to cover us in fire.
	Ride, ride my sea-soul, take this place on a strip just for me.
	To talk with Art Bell in the Kingdom of Nye from outside the U.S.,
	first, dial your access number to the USA.
	Then, 800-893-0903.
	If you're a first-time caller, call Art at 702-727-1222.
	If you're a first-time caller, call Art at 702-727-1222.
	From east of the Rockies, 1-800-825-5033.
	West of the Rockies, including Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico.
	Call Art at 1-800-618-8255.
	Or call Art on the wildcard line at area code 702-727-1295.
	This is Coast to Coast AM from the Kingdom of Nye.
	It sure is.
	Ed Van Gogh is here, and he can tell you how to disappear.
	Take your assets.
	Back to Ed Pankow in just a moment.
	and simply disappear he knows because he
	tracked people down who did that
	and now he's written a book telling you how you can do it get away with it
	i guess back at that now in just a moment
	alright here we go again with that that pentagon and can you imagine
	being able to take fifty thousand dollars on the one hand a lot of money
	or on the other hand not a lot of money go to a country open a bank account
	they issue you citizenship passport in the name of your choice
	and you are in business in more ways than one And...
	Ed, welcome back.
	Thank you, thank you.
	All right, I would like to go to the phones and see what people have to say about all of this.
	This is kind of an unusual topic for a lot of people.
	I suppose at one time or another, Almost everybody has considered simply disappearing.
	I mean, it's one of those things.
	You might not admit it, but at least it crosses your mind.
	And so I guess that's how your book kind of struck a chord, huh?
	It amazes me.
	My book doesn't come out for two weeks yet, but it's already on some of the top lists on Amazon.
	That figures.
	That figures.
	By the way, folks, you can get it through my website.
	Just scroll down to Ed's name and click on the link and you'll go over to Amazon.com, which is exactly where you can get that book.
	Alright, first time caller on the line, you're on the air with Ed Pankow.
	Hi.
	Hi, this is Joe from Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.
	Hi, Joe.
	I have a question for Ed.
	Alright.
	Ed, about ten years ago, when I was a little bit younger and stupid, I screwed up on my driver's license.
	The wonderful Commonwealth of Pennsylvania decided that I won't be able to get my license back until around 2020, which would make me about 50 years old.
	Okay, so in the meantime, I drive around because I have to.
	I have to make a living.
	But I'm kind of tired of being paranoid.
	And my question to you, sir, is simple.
	If I was to move to another state, like maybe out west, how does that work with a driver's license?
	Is there reciprocity laws where I can't get a license in another state?
	Do you have any information on that?
	Well, yeah.
	Many states have a reciprocity, but the problem is it doesn't always make the computer.
	If you went and applied for a license in another state, they ask you on the form, has your license been suspended in another state?
	And you have to answer that question, but they don't have the means, unless it's put in the big FBI computer, the NCIC, to know that your license, particularly if it was 10 years ago, was suspended in another state.
	Well then what does he put down?
	No?
	Well, that's a personal choice.
	But I mean, if he... I mean, if he wants to get a license, that's what he has to do.
	OK.
	Either that or just leave it blank.
	And, you know, they may never even ask him.
	Because I had visited California this past summer and I talked to several people and I didn't even think it'd be a problem.
	But I just wanted your advice on it.
	I don't think, especially from 10 years ago, that's not going to be in a computer system that's going to come up anywhere.
	Now, if there was a warrant for your arrest, that would be... No, it's nothing like that.
	No, I've got to know, caller, what could you have done that would have kept you from getting a driver's license for how many years?
	Uh, basically until 2020.
	Good Lord!
	What could you have... Well, to be honest with you, sir, it was one DUI, okay?
	That was a mistake.
	But in the meantime, I had to drive to work, and they kept catching me for driving under suspension.
	Uh-huh.
	And they called me habitual.
	Uh-huh.
	And so they tacked it on and tacked it on in Pennsylvania, It doesn't give you any mercy on your driver's license.
	Once you lose it, they don't give it back until it's time to get it back.
	That's my point.
	I don't want to wait until I'm 50 years old to be able to legally drive a car.
	The thing is, too, there's probably also a legal way to get what's called an occupational license.
	You show that you need it to and from work and everything.
	They used to have it in the state, bread and butter license.
	They don't have it anymore.
	I've talked to my state rep.
	And I had her check Harrisburg with PennDOT, and they said, they told me, no way.
	You've got to wait until 2020.
	So I'm thinking, I might as well just go to another state.
	This is exactly the kind of guy that you would typically help, isn't it, Ed?
	Exactly.
	That, and what I'd probably do is tell him to move to Honduras.
	They'd give him a Honduras driver's license.
	I don't know if I have to go that far, do I?
	You might like it.
	Trust me.
	You might.
	Do you have agencies or something I could get in contact with you somehow, or how does that work?
	Well, if you want to find me, one of the easiest ways is to go to my website, which is www.pankau.com.
	Oh, you should have told me that one earlier.
	We'll get a link up right away.
	And, you know, I answer about 50 or 60 emails a day, and, you know, if I can help you with something specific like that, I'm more than happy to.
	Sir, I really appreciate your time.
	All right, take care.
	That's amazing.
	They can really take your driver's license away for that kind of period of time?
	Oh, yeah.
	Holy smokes.
	I had no idea they could do that.
	I thought a year, 18 months maybe, but until he's 50?
	Well, the law can really be out of sync.
	Look at these cases where people that had no knowledge whatsoever that their tenant was doing drugs lose their homes and properties and everything.
	Oh, the old zero tolerance thing.
	So, in other words, you're a landlord, and somebody you've got staying in one of your apartments gets popped.
	Right.
	And they can make methamphetamine in the microwave, and you're guilty.
	And you're guilty.
	Have they backed away from that, or are they still doing that?
	I've seen they're still doing it.
	That's not my kind of America.
	Understand.
	Wild Card Line, you're on the air with Ed Bancow.
	Hi.
	Good morning, John.
	This is Greg from Elkhorn, California.
	Hi, Greg.
	Ed, how are you doing tonight?
	Doing good.
	You mentioned earlier in the show that if you're going to disappear, go alone.
	If you have luggage like a wife, kids, that type of thing, you've got a pretty good chance of getting caught.
	It's increased because you would have more discipline in staying hidden than they would.
	Right.
	Or put in a federal witness protection program, and they had a wife and a few children, that type of thing.
	Do you have any information?
	Would they be advised even by the federal government to go alone because of them being afraid of being ID'd and having a lot of trouble for your family, in your opinion?
	The government doesn't always tell you the whole truth.
	The government will tell you, we'll take you and your family and relocate them.
	But I remember quite a few years back, all of a sudden, a bunch of government witnesses in the program were all being knocked off by the other side with a .22 caliber bullet to the head.
	And it's just because of this, because there was somebody on the other side that knew the program and tracked the people, not through the witness, but through their spouse or children.
	Interesting.
	It sure is.
	Well, thank you, gentlemen.
	All right, thank you.
	And that brings up a really touchy question that I'm going to ask you, Ed.
	If you had somebody come to you and say, look Ed, as I'm sure some do, money is no object.
	I want to find this person.
	They disappeared three years ago as a witness for the federal government.
	They went through the protection program and I want to find this person.
	Could you do that?
	I probably could, but I don't.
	Most of my work It's still working for the side with the white hat.
	The book I've written does more for those of us that want to disappear than anything else, but my real business isn't helping people disappear.
	My business is finding those that have really, you know... Well, at best, that's a gray hat.
	Well, yes and no.
	You know, the gray hat I can wear.
	The black hat, no.
	No, well, okay, then we'll call it a gray hat.
	But I mean, if you're helping somebody run away, in a lot of cases, you don't get charged with aiding and abetting, huh?
	No, and again, if somebody comes to me and says, Ed, I really want to establish a new life and do this and that, I listen to them and I see why and I'll say, yes, I can help you and here's how.
	Uh, I will tell them, here's half a dozen places you can go and get more information, but, you know, I'm not the guy to help you.
	Well, look, to disappear, number one, you need a passport.
	Well, not really.
	No?
	You can travel outside the United States to most countries on a voter registration.
	Well, you could go to Canada, you could go to Mexico, sure, but... You can go to Honduras, you can go to Belize, you can go to most of the islands of the Caribbean... Without a passport.
	Then how do you come back?
	Why come back?
	In other words, you don't come back?
	You get the new ID over there and come back as the new ID.
	As a Belize citizen?
	Yeah.
	There's a guy that was in the United States.
	His name was Richard Minns.
	He was charged with ordering a hit on his common-law wife-girlfriend years ago.
	In fact, this was the subject of a book called Sleeping with the Devil.
	Pretty serious.
	And he's lived all over the world for the last 20 years and was never caught until one time he came back through U.S.
	Customs and the little old lady in tennis shoes looked at him and said, click, click, click, blue eyes, blonde hair, American voice, Honduran passport, drug dealer, drug dealer.
	Right.
	And she asked him, she said, Mr. Smith, how are you doing today?
	He said, fine.
	And she looked at his ID and said, what's your date of birth?
	And he couldn't remember what date of birth he put on what of his five passports.
	Five passports?
	And the thing is, if you've got an ID, you've got to live it.
	You've got to know it, you've got to do... Exactly.
	This guy never would have had a problem, except he couldn't remember the birth date on that particular phony passport.
	Alright, so would you ever go so far as to sit somebody down for several days on end And literally make them live and memorize their new life?
	Not really.
	I've had one of my friends that I, well basically I did, yes.
	He wanted to do this.
	His problem was that he had somebody else that he owed a lot of money to that probably ended in a vow and he wanted to avoid them.
	So I helped him do that and I told him all the ways to do it and what to do and everything else and he did a pretty good job of it.
	He did, huh?
	Alright, East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Ed Pankow.
	Hi.
	Hi.
	Hello.
	I'd like to ask Ed a question.
	This is Reba Dallas.
	Alright.
	The Unabomber was somebody who eluded everybody.
	Good point.
	For a very long time.
	He sure did.
	In fact, the only reason he was caught was because his brother turned him in.
	Exactly.
	And they had a lot of investigators.
	What were they doing wrong?
	How come they couldn't catch him?
	Well, the reason they didn't find him is because he didn't have any utility service.
	He didn't have a driver's license.
	He lived the existence of a monk.
	And you can hide in the U.S.
	if you want to live in that lifestyle.
	He had nothing in his name.
	Nothing traceable?
	Yeah, nothing traceable.
	You know, that's a whole different world.
	You could do that and, you know, poof, you're gone.
	But, if you want to have an existence, then you've got to do things that keep you in the system.
	Yeah, as horrid a creature as he was, he lived what he preached.
	And see, as I've said, three can keep a secret if two of them are dead.
	His own brother turned him in because he recognized his writing style.
	That's right.
	That's right.
	So there's your answer, ma'am.
	So that's what gave him away.
	Yeah.
	Okay, thank you.
	Thank you.
	Uh, what's for the Rockies?
	Good morning, you're on the air with Ed Pancow.
	Good morning, gentlemen.
	Good morning.
	Um, Ed, sir.
	Yes.
	I would like to know is, okay, you were talking earlier about, uh, residing in Belize.
	Yeah.
	And living, uh, living the life of luxury.
	Good life, yeah.
	I would like to know.
	Now, see, I'm a person that's disabled, and if one is in such a state as I, could I essentially retire to Belize?
	And continue to get your disability check?
	And continue to get my disability, yes.
	Good question.
	Certainly.
	What you would do is set up a bank account in the U.S., a trust account, and have the money sent to that bank here.
	And then you have the bank sweep your account once a month or whatever, and transfer the money to wherever you want it to go.
	Or, you open an account with an attorney or somebody you trust, let them get the money, cash the check, and see that it gets to you if you don't want it traceable down to Belize.
	So now, my question on that is, by all that's righteous with the government, you're supposed to inform them of your living address and uh... and obviously you wouldn't... where does it say that?
	um... in part of my papers uh... on SSI?
	again you don't have to be a permanent resident you can be visiting down there you're supposed to inform them of your permanent residence so you're a visitor so is that something you might do caller?
	Well, it's entirely possible.
	Belize sounds just wonderful.
	Well, let me tell you something else about Belize and a lot of these third world countries.
	Yes.
	They are begging for Americans with technical skills.
	Everybody here can turn on a computer and operate Windows 98, but down there, it's a miracle.
	Oh.
	So, if you can repair automobiles, if you can work or program computers, Then you've got a job.
	You know, the skills that we take for granted, down there you become a self-employed person with a built-in job.
	That's fascinating.
	And hold on a moment, we'll be right back.
	Now again, here's our one-minute story.
	Once again, here I am.
	My guest is Ed Pankow.
	He's a guy who can tell you how to take the longest road home, so long that you don't ever get back there.
	His book is just coming out.
	It's called Hide Your Assets and Disappear.
	an interesting topic to be sure and we'll get right back to it
	all right ed bengal was getting Ed, I'm sure you have a lot of contact with the police in the work that you do.
	Do you, most times, find yourself greeted well by the police, or are they kind of contemptuous of you?
	Well, I'm pretty fortunate in that I've got a good relationship with them.
	For several reasons.
	Number one, I teach a lot of police agencies how to investigate better.
	And the second thing is, many times people hire me to go and basically get somebody that the police don't have time to do, or they don't have the manpower to do, or they don't have the sophistication to do, put the report in a big package and just hand it to the police and say, here, book them Dano.
	Really?
	On the other hand, at other times, you are performing a service that the police probably wouldn't be wild about if they knew about it.
	So you sure live in a sort of a strange, gray territory.
	To some degree.
	What about technology?
	Today, for example, if you want to bug somebody's house, or you want to listen to their telephone conversations, Or you want to plant a bug, how easy or hard is that to do?
	Well, it's not really like they show in the movies.
	A, it's not that easy to do, and B, it's five years in jail and a $50,000 fine.
	On television, they show this stuff that just poof, it's done.
	It's not really like that.
	Television makes things wonderful, but first off, There's a lot of other ways to get the very same information.
	It's illegal to record someone's conversation, but it's not illegal to get the phone numbers they call.
	If you know who they called, you can pretty well figure out what they said or find another way of finding out what's going on.
	It seems like in some states, it's legal to record a conversation if you're part of that conversation.
	Right.
	That's the federal law and the law in like 90% of the state.
	Okay.
	But not legal to serotypically... I can't even say that.
	Yes, I understand.
	Well, Linda Tripp knows all about that.
	Yeah, Linda Tripp knows.
	What about these old portable phones?
	I talk about them all the time on the air.
	These 49 megahertz phones.
	You can literally... So many people have them and they don't even think about the fact that they are broadcasting.
	Now, what about that?
	You can park outside somebody's home and you can record every conversation they have without tapping any line at all.
	Well, you can do that, but if you use that information, you can be charged with violation of the Electronic Communications Act.
	I had a circumstance where somebody was playing with a scanner and they accidentally picked up somebody's conversation.
	And then they used that information for their own, shall we say, personal gain.
	And they were charged with violation of the act for the intent and purpose for which they did it.
	Fascinating.
	For personal gain.
	Like a stock tip or something like that.
	Well, something a little stronger than that.
	It was sort of like blackmail.
	Oh, oh, oh.
	Yes, the FCC has now passed a law which forces manufacturers, interestingly, to block out the cellular band, for example, in scanners.
	Right.
	So you cannot listen.
	Most cellular companies are going to digital transmission anyway, which makes that a whole lot tougher.
	Correct.
	Now, one other subject I want to cover, and then we'll go back to the phones, and that is, I have some friends Who keep their money offshore to beat taxes.
	Right.
	I don't know how the hell they do it, but I've been urged a million times to do it.
	And I just can't bring myself to do it.
	And that's that's no great self horn blowing on my part.
	I just I just can't bring myself to do it.
	I mean, I live here.
	I enjoy what I have here.
	and I frankly don't mind even though I cringe and it kills me to pay taxes and I pay a bunch I can't bring myself to do that kind of thing but a lot of people do it and it seems to me tell me if I'm wrong but we talked about this briefly before the program the other day at the end of the day at the end of the line if you're going to put your money offshore you're putting your money In somebody else's hand.
	Not necessarily.
	No?
	Oh no.
	First off, it's not illegal for you to have a foreign bank account.
	Right.
	The government just asked that you report any income you have on it.
	Correct.
	And the thing is, a bank here in the United States today will pay you 3, 4, maybe at the most 5% interest.
	Correct.
	In most of these countries where your money is just as, if not more, secure, You get nine or ten percent.
	And you don't have to go to somebody that says, we'll set this up for you.
	You can very legitimately go to one of the major banks, like a Barclays Bank in Belize, open an account.
	It's all in your name.
	It's all yours to do.
	You manage it.
	You direct it.
	It's just like a bank account in the U.S.
	Interesting.
	But of course now, South America is in the middle of a financial crisis.
	But the money doesn't sit in South America.
	Well, no, but Belize could eventually be affected by what's rolling across South America, so while you do get a good rate of interest, you also have a higher rate of risk.
	Well, yes and no.
	What you can do, many of the banks that do this have branches all over the world.
	If you pick up the newspaper tomorrow and say, well, Belize has got a little problem, You can call your friendly neighborhood banker and say, transfer it from the branch in Belize to the branch in Canada, and your money electronically, instantly, goes out of the country, away from the risk, and it's back to London or this or that or wherever you want it.
	What a world we live in!
	Many of our U.S.
	banks do this.
	Most people don't know it, but American banks don't pay interest over the weekend.
	Many of our largest banks send millions and billions of dollars to offshore banks to collect interest over the weekend while we're sleeping.
	You're kidding!
	Oh, listen, this is a done deal.
	And they get the money back in their bank, you know, 8 o'clock Monday morning, and they've made themselves a tenth of a percent or something.
	Wow.
	Wow, I say again.
	First time caller on the line, you're on the air with Ed Pantow.
	Hi.
	Hi.
	I've got a question for Ed here.
	All right, where are you?
	I'm in, uh, this is Tom from Leroy, Ohio.
	Okay.
	All right?
	We'll listen out of 1100 out of Cleveland and 570 out of Youngstown, kind of in the middle there.
	All right.
	But, uh, you know, just about every war this country's fought, we wound up with the people that, you know, vanished without a trace.
	You know, a lot of these got recovered or whatever.
	Yep, yep.
	But I'm not worried about all the wars, just World War, Vietnam, my big one, you know?
	I'm wondering if Ed knows of any MIAs that are listed on the wall in Washington that are still alive.
	Personally, I don't know.
	It's something that I know people and I know people that work on trying to find them.
	At this point, my personal opinion is that there's not Any of them left.
	There's been a very strong effort on the part both of our government and a lot of the private agencies that have, you know, family members to document this, to find them, and everything else.
	And I think they're doing a pretty good job.
	I can't find any evidence today that there's, you know, some of these people out there that are still being held against them.
	Well, I don't know, Ed.
	I could imagine somebody in Vietnam, for example, going AWOL Oh yeah.
	And then going native.
	Now I spent... That could happen.
	That could happen.
	I spent 10 years on the island of Okinawa.
	I lived in Okinawa.
	Kadena Gate 4, Shibana.
	I was there, yeah.
	Oh my god, you were there too?
	Oh yeah.
	Well, I spent a year and a half at Kadena and I liked it so much that I came back, I got discharged and got on a plane and went right back to Okinawa and worked there as a civilian for many, many years.
	Working for KSBK, the radio commercial broadcast station there.
	Right.
	And at the end of the time, I came to a point in my life, Ed, where I knew that if I was going to remain on Okinawa, I was done as an American.
	I mean, I was going native.
	Yeah.
	And frankly, when I got home after a decade, just about.
	Yeah, the adjustment must have been terrible.
	It was terrible.
	I was so scared.
	I didn't recognize what was going on.
	I didn't recognize the country.
	I was homesick for Okinawa for a long time.
	Oh, I understand.
	So I was that close.
	And so I could imagine that somebody in Vietnam would go AWOL and then go native.
	Could there still be some of those over there?
	Well, that wouldn't surprise me at all.
	Because some people, for one reason or another, they did something that they were ashamed of, they got involved in the drug trade, they did this, they did that.
	I'm sure there's people that voluntarily MIA'd.
	Yep.
	You've got it.
	And, you know, we'll never know, because over there, it's so easy to get IDs of any kind that, you know, you're just never going to track them.
	It's not that hard here either, is it?
	Not at all.
	I've heard stories that people can come from Mexico, and for $50 to $300, they can get Social Security, they can get a driver's license, they can get all these different IDs.
	Is that true?
	Well, you can, but most of them are not legitimate IDs.
	They won't pass the test of, you know, being stopped by your friendly neighborhood gendarme.
	These places that make these phony ID mills, they're like throwaways.
	Now, there are ways to go and build a whole series of legal documents for identity.
	So the better way to do it is to start at the very beginning with one little piece of ID and turn that into another and another and another and pretty soon you've got MasterCard and Visa and all the rest of it.
	Exactly.
	Just build yourself a life.
	It's like, you know, many people say they can't get a credit card.
	Well, there are companies out there begging to give you a secured Visa And if you have that a few years, you can get everything else.
	In fact, what you could do is you could deposit $500 in an account and get a visa in your own name.
	Then you put a second signature on that account of the new identity you're going to create called Joe Bag of Donuts.
	And Joe Bag of Donuts suddenly exists.
	He has credit.
	He is doing transactions.
	And you build on that ID.
	And then eventually Joe Bagadonatz has got a real credit card.
	Exactly.
	And he can leverage that into some other kind of ID.
	All kinds of things.
	Oh, man.
	Wild Card Line, you're on the air with Ed Pandow.
	Hi.
	Hi, good morning, gentlemen.
	This is Ivan Cohen from New York.
	I listen to you on WABC 770 on the AM dial.
	Yes, sir.
	Thank you very much.
	This has been a great show so far.
	Ed, good morning.
	Good morning.
	I apologize for the mercenarious aspect of my question, but just how does one become a PI?
	What schools should one go to?
	What seminars should one go to, please?
	Well, a lot of our professional associations put on great seminars.
	I do one a week.
	Somewhere around the country every week.
	I teach a class, two classes basically.
	In the morning I teach Be Your Own Detective to teach you how to use the databases and the information, and in the afternoon class I do my How to Make $100,000 a Year.
	But if you really want to learn this business, the best way is to go to investigator association meetings, meet people, get to know them, see who's got The business, the ideas, the stuff that you want.
	If you go to my webpage, a lot of the articles I write for our investigator trade journal, PI Magazine, are on there.
	By the way, we've got a link up right now, so if you go to my webpage and scroll down to Ed's name, hit the link.
	I hope you can take a lot of hits, because you're going to get them, Ed.
	I can do it.
	Okay, good.
	But, yeah, I put a lot of stuff on my web page to show people, you know, where to go and how to do and how to start.
	I love to see people get into this business and do well.
	You want to become a private investigator, sir?
	Well, two things, two aspects.
	A, the money, of course, but another thing that Ed mentioned was to do some good.
	And the way things are going in our beloved republic, we could use some more of the good guys on our side, as it were.
	Now, there's an interesting question, Ed.
	Be brutally honest with this fellow.
	If he wants to become a private investigator, to quote, do some good, end quote, is he going to be disappointed?
	To really do some good, it's going to take a lot of sweat and energy.
	I have... If you only took cases, let's say you opened the door, there you are, Frank Jones, private investigator.
	You've got your office.
	You've got a secretary that chews gum or something.
	And you sit and you wait for the good cases.
	In other words, the I'm on a mission from God kind of cases.
	Do you think that you'd starve to death first?
	Probably so.
	Unless you have a brother-in-law that is Cousin Vinny that has business to give you no matter what.
	In this business, when you start, you basically take what comes in the door.
	You have to do a little bit of everything.
	You basically, like they say in the business, have to earn your bones and do whatever.
	Does the business make you somewhat cynical, Ed?
	To some degree.
	You will see things in this business that you'll never see anywhere else, and it's like the movie, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
	They're all out there.
	I still basically love to help people, believe in humanity, and every now and then somebody catches me doing a good deed, but I don't admit to a whole lot.
	I hear you.
	East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Ed Pankow.
	Hi.
	Hi, this is Mylon in Des Moines.
	Des Moines, Iowa.
	All right, you're going to have to speak up.
	Okay.
	What station are you listening to in Des Moines, please?
	KRNT.
	All right.
	I like you on K-X-T-S.
	Well, we went to KRNT.
	Took me a while to find you.
	Anyway, my question, my thing is for Ed is that he's a very interesting guest and I'm enjoying him very much, but he made mention of the fact that it's almost impossible to travel without credit cards.
	Well, no, I didn't say that.
	I said that most people have them today and want to have them.
	You can't I do.
	I don't have credit cards.
	You can't do the hotels without them, but there's there's ways around all of that
	I do just the credit cards make it easy for us today Even if you go to a grocery store, they say let us swipe
	your credit card Or your grocery card, and we'll give you free airline
	points. I Don't have credit cards. Well. You don't have my air. See
	that's your personal choice It's a Vince. He didn't want them and didn't have them
	either yeah, and you travel buyer right I travel by air train bus
	I stay in the better hotel.
	You do what?
	You pay cash?
	Yes.
	And they don't ask you for a credit card just for the verification?
	They ask.
	And you just tell them no?
	I just tell them I don't have one.
	Okay, well, and also one of the things that people told me right away was I'd never be able to rent a car anywhere.
	Uh-huh.
	Sure you can.
	You'd have to put up a reasonable deposit.
	Well, again, you know, you found a way around that.
	Many places, they won't even do it with a deposit, but some will.
	It's just, you know, it makes it a lot harder.
	It's not impossible.
	Well, I've never chose to have a credit card.
	I don't like credit.
	Yeah, well, a lot of people are better off without it.
	Well, yeah, I personally think so.
	But that's one of the reasons why Y2K don't upset me too much, because I've prepared for it and I don't have a credit card, so I'm not worried about losing anything.
	All right, well, let's ask Ed about that.
	With respect to Y2K, Right.
	Everybody is pretty well connected to computers, credit cards, the information superhighway.
	Is it all about to come to a screeching logjam of a halt for even a short period of time?
	Y2K, I tell you what, we're coming to the top of yet another hour.
	Can you stay another hour?
	Certainly.
	Excellent.
	Have you given a little bit of thought to Y2K?
	Yeah.
	I bet you have in your business.
	Okay, stay right where you are.
	We'll be right back.
	Ever wonder how you could disappear?
	Tonight you find out.
	There's a man who leads a life of danger.
	To everyone he meets, he stays a stranger With every move he makes, and every chance he takes
	Odds are he won't live to see tomorrow Don't touch that dial
	Secret agent man, secret agent man They've given you a number, and taken away your name
	Secret agent man, secret agent man Beware the pretty pieces that you find.
	Without a home.
	Not without a star.
	Free.
	Only want to be free.
	With heaven closed.
	Hang on to a dream.
	the the
	the to talk with art bell in the kingdom of nine from east of
	the rockies dial one West of the Rockies, including Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico, 1-800-618-8255.
	West of the Rockies, including Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico.
	1-800-618-8255.
	First time callers may reach Art at area code 702-727-1222.
	And you may call Art on the wildcard line at area code 702-727-1222.
	To reach Art from outside the U.S., first dial your access number to the USA.
	Then, 800-893-0903.
	Good morning.
	Ed Pankow is my guest.
	He's a private investigator.
	He's got a brand new book out.
	It's called Hide Your Assets and Disappear!
	We'll talk more with him in a moment.
	If you have questions, get in line.
	A lot of people want to talk to Ed.
	Okay, going back to the phones with Ed Pencow in a moment.
	First, facts from... I don't think I'll give the name in Seattle.
	Somebody asks, Ed, how do you get a new social security number with a new identity if you're, say, in your 40s?
	In other words, how do you explain to the Social Security Administration why, at the age of 40 years, you need a social security number when you should have already had one?
	Well, there's a lot of people that their family was in the military, they were in business overseas, and they never got a social security number because they weren't back in the United States.
	And, you know, there's... First off, if you go to Social Security Administration and ask for a Social Security number, and you've never had one, they don't care.
	They don't ask you, you know, why do you not have a Social Security number?
	They don't care.
	In other words, their presumption, I guess, is that if you had a Social Security number, you have been contributing to it, and you certainly wouldn't give it up.
	Because that's going to give up all the benefits that have been paid in on your name.
	That's right.
	That's right.
	I hadn't thought about it that way.
	One more, and then to the phones.
	Art and Mr. Hancow, I have been looking for my brother who literally dropped out about six years ago.
	Credit reports, DMV reports, been negative for the last five years.
	Ordered your book, by the way, just now on Amazon.com.
	Plug, plug, it says.
	Please ask how I could locate him.
	His family simply wants to know he's okay.
	Nothing else.
	We just want to know that he's out there and okay.
	That's a good question.
	If somebody drops out, how do you locate them beyond the normal DMV and credit stuff?
	Well, first off, run a full credit report, and number one, see if there's any inquiries, and also see if any insurance claim was made on him.
	If someone dies, then there's an insurance inquiry If there's an insurance policy.
	So for $5 or $6, first you run the credit report.
	The second thing you do is run a 50-state driver's license search, which costs very little, through one of the super databases like DBT or AutoTrack.
	You know, one of the ones that we as private investigators use every day.
	There are presently Some pretty interesting things coming out that previously only police agencies really had.
	You can go and get software, CDs, that list every phone number in the U.S.
	just about.
	Oh, you don't even have to buy the CD.
	You can go to a free website like Bigfoot or Anywho.
	And just find them?
	Yeah, they're free.
	You know, there's a kind of a little bit of a worry there.
	I mean, isn't it privacy?
	In America, beginning with the electronic age descending on us this quickly, it's beginning to disappear, isn't it?
	Well, it really is, but most people give it up.
	See, we have a choice, Art.
	We have a choice between privacy or security.
	If you want privacy, then you have to give up information about yourself so people can make credit decisions, loan you money, give you mortgages, give you airline points and free credit cards.
	If you want security, then you've got to give up privacy.
	So there's a balance there, and each of us has to make our personal choice, which is more important to us.
	As a nation, we're beginning to make that choice, actually, at the moment.
	First time caller on the line, you're on the air with Ed Pankow.
	Hi.
	Hello.
	Hello.
	Oh, hi.
	I'm Kathy calling from Nashville.
	Hi, Kathy.
	I'm listening to you on WWTN.
	The Monster in Nashville, yes.
	That's a great radio station.
	And this is a really great program tonight.
	Thank you.
	I've got a question for Ed.
	Okay.
	I wonder if you're familiar with a missing persons case which dates back quite a ways to the mid-1960s and there was a CIA employee whose name was Bishop who disappeared and has since been cited a couple of times in Spain.
	Do you know about that case?
	I think I've heard a little bit about it.
	I haven't really followed it myself.
	Oh, okay.
	Well, anyway, he was a CIA worker, apparently, and was well trained in survival type of, you know, things.
	In disappearing, if you wanted to.
	Right.
	And so I was wondering, why would he, and apparently the thought nowadays is that he's over in Europe somewhere, and he might even have passed away by now, but anyway.
	If you were going to look for a person like that, how would you go about it?
	Yeah, that's a good question.
	Somebody CIA trained, they'd be a tough target, wouldn't they?
	Well, they would, particularly if they were committed to it and to giving up their old life.
	But, you know, time and time again, I see that after a year or two, people think the coast is clear, and they either call somebody, do something, That somehow lets people know what they're doing.
	Now, another thing that really can be done, and if you've seen this new movie, Enemy of the State, you'll know a little of what I'm talking about.
	Literally, we can profile somebody, and if we know enough about them, given A, B, and C, we can predict what they're going to do in the future.
	Wow.
	In other words, people really are habitual creatures.
	If you learn enough about them, you'll know what they're going to do.
	Yes.
	And you can predict what and where, if they have a particular interest.
	Like my former secretary said, Ed, I've worked for you for years.
	I know all your secrets.
	I could hide and you'd never find me.
	And I laughed at her.
	I said, I can find you every month.
	And she said, how?
	I'll tear up my credit cards.
	I'll have my driver's license go.
	My mother, I'll get a post office box in my mother's maiden name.
	Right.
	I said, but every month you get the Barbie catalog from the Franklin Mint.
	And that's it.
	We all have something that makes us a human being.
	It's really true, isn't it?
	And since you know her that well, you would get her that quick.
	Oh, yeah.
	OK.
	As a matter of curiosity, knowing that she got that, Yeah.
	How would you get access to that database?
	Oh, it's for sale.
	There are mega information companies that make a living buying and selling mailing lists.
	So you would simply inquire about buying their mailing list?
	Exactly.
	Or going to the company that has it and says, I want you to tell me if this name shows up on it.
	And, you know, what would be the fee to tell me if it's there?
	Or, in worst case, where they wouldn't do that, would you simply approach an employee and try and slip them a few hundred bucks under the table and say, please?
	Well, that could be done, but again, today with the wonderful electronics we have, there's much easier ways.
	That alone is... Wild Card Line, you're on the air with Ed Van Gow.
	Hello.
	Oh, hi.
	Let's see.
	How about if you had a relative who passed away and may have left stocks or money in bank accounts or some real estate in foreign countries or maybe in some of these offshore trusts that the IRS can get a hold of.
	How would you find such assets, say, if they're in the Bahamas or Japan or...
	The first thing you do is go through their house with a fine-tooth comb from attic to basement and get every piece of paper, every envelope, every letter, every document, and you may find something that indicates a place.
	Another thing you do is either get their passport or request under Freedom of Information Act, since they're a relative, a copy of the passport or the foreign travel to see what country they went to.
	Then you order a credit report on the deceased and see what inquiries and what other accounts did they have.
	Piece by piece, you pull together what they had, where they went, what they did.
	This is something that's more sophisticated than the average person can usually do, especially They've worked at doing this, but that's why I make the big bucks.
	I do that for a living.
	Well, how would you use a detective?
	Could you trust a detective in this?
	So they don't walk away with the assets if they find out?
	Well, they can't.
	First off, most detectives are legitimate, and we have to carry like a million dollars worth of insurance to protect our clients.
	Most state law requires us to have a bond or insurance policy.
	But the other thing is, I can tell you where the money is, but I've got to prove to that trust or that bank or whatever that I'm the legitimate heir to get my hands on it.
	I had people come to me once and said, we're the grandchildren of Haile Selassie.
	We want you to get the $100 million our grandfather hid in the bank.
	And I said, well, it can be done if it's there, but let's sit down and talk what you've got.
	So these things are doable.
	It's all a function of getting enough information.
	So you would recommend hiring a private investigator?
	Well, first I'd do my own work.
	First I would go and, as I say, try to find every piece of paper and put it together.
	I'd order a copy of his credit report to get that information.
	Because if you hire a private investigator, the more information you have, the better job he can do.
	One thing you could do is link through ART to my website, and there's an article I wrote called Tracking the Global Criminal, and it tells how to find the assets, whether legitimate or illegitimate, of somebody that's taken their assets offshore.
	I literally wrote the technology on how to do this, and it's on my website.
	But what if it's an offshore trust like you're talking about that may be to hide money from the IRS or something like that?
	Well, again, they would have at some time traveled to that country.
	They may have made phone calls to that country.
	So if you find a phone bill with a phone call to the 809 area code, this is the clue.
	But you've got to figure out what country it is.
	And the only way to do that is to find either in their papers An old airline ticket, an old passport, an old phone bill.
	I had one case, and this is really funny.
	A woman came to me and said, my husband hit a million dollars offshore.
	I want to make him toast.
	I want to find this.
	I know he did it.
	I just don't know where it is.
	And I said, when he goes out of town, you go through the house.
	Go from the attic to the basement with a fine-tooth comb and look for everything.
	And sure enough, she called me three days later and she said, I got it, I got it.
	I said, all right, what do you got?
	And there's a picture of him standing in front of a bank in the Netherland Antilles with his hands up in the air like making a touchdown grinning.
	You know that term, a picture is worth a thousand words?
	I do.
	All right, now, once located, boy, that guy was an idiot.
	There's more horses asses out there than horses.
	But once you've got the guy, all right, so his money's there, then how does she get her hands on it?
	Well, when this picture was shown to the judge and jury, and he's already perjured himself on the witness stand saying he doesn't have it, the judge gives him the opportunity to give it back or go to jail.
	You may remember our most learned attorney, F. Lee Bailey, who salted away a bunch of money for a client, and he told the judge to park it.
	The judge showed him why they call jail the pokey.
	That's right.
	He's spent quite a bit of time in there, actually, over that.
	More than 30 days in the Tallahassee County Jail, and that is not a nice place.
	It's not club-fed.
	Not club-fed.
	I once talked to F. Lee.
	He's quite a character.
	East of the Rockies, you're on air with Ed Pencow.
	Hi.
	Good morning, Art and Mr. Pencow.
	This is Dan Clank from Spring Valley, Illinois, listening to you on WTM 1100.
	Yes, sir.
	Okay, I was wondering what are the methods that you would suggest to find someone in a country like Mexico that disappeared maybe like seven years ago or so?
	Well, let's ask it the reverse way and then your way.
	Is Mexico a good place to disappear to?
	Well, there's a very large American community in Mexico.
	There are several places around Guadalajara That literally are little San Diego's, or little Albuquerque's.
	Sure.
	And they have a very thriving American community of people that live comfortably off their social security.
	I know, I get letters from them all the time.
	Yeah, and you know... So, my caller's question is, if somebody's disappeared down there, I can see how you can use trace methods in this country, but how do you do it in Mexico?
	Or is it easier?
	Well, no, it's more difficult, and first off, you've got to figure out where they went.
	You can't just pull out the crystal ball and say, let me see, where did they go?
	But, before they went, they probably told some neighbor somewhere, when I bug out, I'm going to go to where the sun always shines and the margaritas run all day long.
	I actually, I do know where, the last I knew, this was seven years ago when he left, but he said he was going to Mexico City, because he had a job down there.
	Right.
	And my sister stayed with him for a little while, but when she came back, that's when we stopped hearing from him.
	Okay, well, there are some very good private investigators in Mexico City, and if you introduced them to Alexander Hamilton long enough, they would find him.
	Boy, is that a fact.
	That's where I was going.
	I know Mexico pretty well.
	I love Mexico.
	I go down there a lot.
	And you're absolutely right.
	Alexander just moves mountains down there.
	In fact, hardly does a mountain ever move down there without... Well, I was down there during Christmas, and I had to get across Mexico City.
	And there were these huge parades, and nothing was moving.
	And I had a police sergeant that was standing out there directing traffic, and I came up, showed him what I wanted, and I introduced him to Alexander.
	He pulled out his pistol, shot three shots in the air, and cleared a path for me.
	Good man!
	You know, there's a lot of cars, by the way, that are down in Mexico, too, right now.
	New colors, sometimes.
	Sometimes they don't even bother.
	we'll be right back Oh yeah, and I have met my destiny in quite a singular way
	The mystery book on the shelf, the song was repeating itself
	Waterloo, I was defeated you won the war Waterloo, I promise to love you forevermore
	Waterloo, couldn't escape without Waterloo Waterloo, knowing I'd face defeat again
	Waterloo, I promise to love you forevermore and
	Ed, welcome back.
	It's a pleasure, glad to be back.
	A lot of fun.
	Listen, I meant to ask you a half hour ago about Y2K, so let me do it now.
	We are either facing this gigantic computer crash and depression, or we're facing something that's going to be a paper tiger and be nothing.
	Or something in between?
	What's your best guess?
	I think it's going to be somewhere in between.
	There's going to be some places that will experience some real problems, but I think the majority of our real important services are going to come through this okay.
	But just in case I have a new home on five acres with my own propane tank, my own well, I'm going to be prepared.
	So in other words, You obviously put the money where your thought pattern was.
	Listen, my daddy told me that an ounce of prevention was worth a fifth of cure.
	I would recommend to everybody that they get some of the preserved foods that you're advertising.
	They just have 30 days worth of stuff, just in case.
	Alright, well I've got a million questions, but I've also got a million phone lines here.
	First time caller line, you're on the air with Ed Pencow.
	Hi.
	Good morning Art, and good morning Ed.
	It's a real pleasure.
	I've been listening for four months, and this is the first time I got through.
	Well, I'm glad you made it.
	Where are you?
	Tucson, Arizona, listening on KNST.
	Yes, sir.
	Okay, my wife and I are both disabled.
	We're both on Social Security.
	Today is check day, and as usual, We're already deciding which utility bills we're going to defer until March.
	And Belize sounds like heaven.
	And I wanted to ask Ed a couple more questions about this sort of thing.
	What amenities are available in places like this?
	Are there things like health care and television and this sort of thing?
	Yeah, in other words, how much sacrifice do you make in going to Belize?
	Could you live reasonably comfortably by our standards?
	You would live very much by our standards.
	First off, a satellite dish solves all the television problems.
	You get all 110 channels.
	The hospitals, it's really interesting.
	Medical care in these countries is very, very inexpensive because these countries run huge medical schools and many of our American doctors Don't go to Harvard or John Hopkins, they go to Belize U or Honduras U and get their medical degrees and come back here.
	So, these countries have very good medical facilities on all but the most technical things, and it's either free or, you know... And so for somebody like this man, and for somebody like this man and his wife, making, you mind saying sir, about what, a month?
	The two of us together get about $1,200.
	About $1,200.
	He could go to Belize on $1,200 a month and live reasonably?
	You could.
	You could live there, live comfortably.
	Depending on their type of disability, they may have some problems.
	They'd have to look at it and anticipate it.
	But one of the things I would tell them to do is to go to one of the offshore USENET bases and find somebody that's already there.
	Get themselves an internet buddy to help give them some ideas.
	There you go.
	There's a lot of these Usenet groups that cater to this that would be happy to help.
	Plus, there's a magazine called International Living.
	It's a newsletter magazine and it's the best resource for information on many of these countries.
	Go to their website, pull a couple of free articles, and Think seriously about networking with them.
	It's a great resource.
	How's that caller?
	Sounds good, and we're looking forward to reading Ed's book.
	All right.
	Excellent.
	Sounds like you're selling a lot of books tonight, Ed.
	I want to copy myself.
	There we go.
	Hey, you'll get an autograph set.
	I'm looking forward to it.
	I need your website address, Art, and I'm sure some of them do, too.
	All right.
	It's www.artbell.com.
	Not real hard.
	That's A-R-T-B-E-L-L, all in lowercase, dot com.
	And as I said to everybody, if you go to my website and we have millions and millions of visitors, Ed, and just scroll down to Ed's name and click on the link, you'll be on his website.
	Boom, like that.
	Now, here's an interesting email question.
	This person says, look, you can get away with a lot of this stuff right now, but there's legislation pending right now to create a new national ID card.
	And of course they are working on that, as we all know.
	Now, are they going to remove all of these little cute loopholes that we can jump through if we know what we're doing with a national ID card, Ed?
	Well, eventually, yes.
	But the way to circumvent all that is to go live in another country.
	And you can travel back here.
	Once you leave the United States, you fall off the chart of most computers and most government surveillance.
	What about taxes?
	Let's say you go to Belize, and you say, screw all this, I'm going to Belize.
	What are the taxes like there?
	Well, their taxes are almost nothing, because they live off tourism.
	Plus, as an American citizen, you can move to Belize, And as long as it's your primary residence, you live there more than half a year, you get a $70,000 per person income tax rebate or deduction.
	Really?
	Oh, yes.
	$70,000?
	If you're a primary residence outside the United States and follow the guidelines as prescribed by the law, and there's some you've got to do, but they're not insurmountable.
	Yeah, but suppose you want to go to Belize and stay and not pay any taxes at all.
	Well, can you?
	Go do it!
	And you become a Belizean?
	A Belizean, yes.
	The Attorney General of Belize is a good friend of mine, and I promise you he will welcome you with open arms.
	Wild Card Line, you're on the air with Ed Pankow.
	Hello.
	All right.
	Yes.
	Okay.
	I wasn't sure I'd been listening for a while.
	Yes, you're going to have to speak up good and loud.
	Where are you calling from, sir?
	This is David from Western Virginia.
	Okay.
	And two questions.
	One, how much is your book at?
	Well, my book, there's several of them.
	My book, check it out, is $14.95.
	Hide It All and Disappear, or Hide Your Assets and Disappear, as they've now named it, I think $22.95, but on Amazon they've got it marked down for $5 already.
	Yeah, you wanted to name it originally Hide It All and Disappear, huh?
	Right.
	That was my original name for it, but my There you are, caller.
	East of the Rockies.
	You're on the air with Ed Pankow.
	uh... one one other thing i want to ask was through all your investigations that if you heard of a
	report called the comprehensive and annual financial report
	no i don't think so thanks a lot right there
	use of the rockies ronnie with a bank outline Yes, sir.
	sir good morning and uh... how are you doing this is fine where you
	i am uh... in cleveland ohio rock and roll all finger listening to you on the w t a m
	eleven hundred is a lot of the rock and roll hall of fame
	yes sir uh... i'm one of several that are called in today uh... as a matter of fact you're right listening to this uh...
	same station yes anyway my uh... first of all i want to say i really
	appreciate your program for the same reason that i enjoyed gene roddenberry and rod
	sterling's that you don't
	uh... you don't insult my intelligence
	uh... something to think about thank you uh... and ed you sound like you're a uh...
	I don't have a question.
	I have a comment, something that happened to me.
	My wallet was stolen years ago and I was amazed at how easy it was for me to regain all my identifications, starting with birth certificate, driver's license, social security, etc.
	Now I know that it's possible and people have done it.
	They go back through the library and get the newspaper clippings from someone who had passed away at birth.
	No, you just go to the graveyard.
	Right.
	And you can start a whole identity from someone approximately the same age as you and start a whole new identity that way.
	Preferably the same sex too.
	Yeah, well that would help.
	Unless you really want to change yours.
	Right, if you really want to try something different.
	But anyway, I'm just wondering.
	I know that this is another way of doing it rather than everybody moving to Belize.
	Well, there's a lot of people that do just that.
	There's a lot of books you can buy from Paladin Press and others that teach you how to get a new ID.
	One of the time and true methods is to basically go to a graveyard at night.
	People are dying to get in there.
	And you find somebody that died, preferably someone that died before they were 16, because they never got a birth certificate or a social security number.
	So they conveniently put the date of death right there on the stone.
	And they'll have date of birth and date of death, and they just take over that identity.
	Wow.
	Wow.
	You know, I guess my mind just never went in these directions, so some of this is really blowing my mind.
	Go to a graveyard and actually take up the identity of somebody who was here and now is gone.
	Wow.
	All right, West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Ed Pancal and Art Bell.
	Hi.
	Thanks for taking my call, Art.
	Sure.
	You know, for those of us who are in the system, the difficulty with cultivating a new identity is the social security number.
	Can you offer any tips on ways to get around that for someone who is not interested in living in the country and would want to stay in the United States?
	How easy is it to trace down the social security number by that number alone and what are some ways around that other than assuming a deceased person's identity?
	The thing is, your social security number is going to be traceable through everything you do that ever gets reported to a credit bureau.
	If you buy a car, if you get an insurance policy, if you have a credit card, that all gets reported.
	The only way around that is to do what Ted Kaczynski does and just limit, to the point he did, your transactions that get reported to a credit bureau.
	The only other thing around that is to create a full new identity.
	And it's not illegal to have another identity.
	It's just illegal to use it for improper purposes.
	So, you know, it's something that you've got to decide what you want.
	Excuse me, let me stop you.
	It is not illegal to have another identity.
	It's just illegal to use it for nefarious purpose?
	Right.
	All these movie stars, that's not their real name.
	They go and file an assumed name and have a whole new identity.
	Hasn't it been declared a felony, though, as far as assuming another person's social security number?
	Well, if you assume someone else's social security number, then you are going into the violation of the law.
	But as far as having a new identity, there's nothing wrong with that.
	One final question.
	Are there any discrete ways to monitor if your phone is being tapped?
	Very good question.
	Not really.
	A private citizen really doesn't have the technology to determine, particularly if a government agency is doing it.
	All these devices that supposedly light up your phone when When the FBI is bugging you.
	Now that's a bunch of baloney.
	It's all baloney.
	Now if you pick up an extension phone, that'll work.
	It'll light up and say the extension is picked up.
	Exactly.
	But a good government tap, there's no way in hell.
	People say, oh I hear clicks and static on my line.
	Not a bunch of baloney.
	That's it.
	That's just a squirrel running down the cables.
	But, you know, if a government agency taps a phone, they do it at the central station, and there is nothing to find.
	It's only the amateurs that go to Radio Shack and get the recorder with the voice activation and the two alligator clips.
	Those are the only kind you'll ever find.
	Yeah, that's exactly right.
	First time caller on the line, you're on the air with Ed Penkow.
	Hi.
	Hi.
	I just have a question for Ed.
	Sure, where are you?
	i have a brother i think that women in the west coast
	the west coast circuit uh... well i uh...
	uh... when i first came to this country i uh... apply for security
	and uh...
	uh... normally they would come as not valid for employment because of or
	wasn't really legal However, I did apply and they asked me the question, in the questionnaire they asked me, are you allowed to work?
	And I said, yes, sure.
	I basically lied.
	Are you allowed to work?
	Yeah, because I wasn't allowed to work.
	And they gave me a social security that was valid for employment.
	Right.
	And I was wondering, how does that happen?
	Do you know any of the mechanics of social security?
	Well, there's no social security number given that's valid for employment or not.
	There's a code in the social security number, and it goes like this.
	The first three digits of your social security number tell the state it was issued.
	So, each state has a number of codes and it tells the state.
	That's the first three digits.
	Really?
	The middle two digits of your social security are coded by state and it's coded to show the year the social security number is issued.
	Really?
	So you can tell that my social security number was issued in this state in this year.
	Right.
	And for those of us that grew up before color television, we got our social security number when we got our first job or joined the military.
	That's great.
	Today, people get their social security number at birth, so you can pretty well figure out someone's age from their social security number.
	It's like stamping on a baby's butt.
	Yeah.
	Well, in one of my books, The Investigator's Guidebook, which you'll find on, you know, the web, I put the entire social security chart and the code for it.
	Really?
	Oh yeah.
	And it tells everybody's social security number, when they were issued and where.
	What about the last four numbers?
	The last four numbers are random numbers just to, you know, give each number individuality.
	So, there's no employment social security number.
	Now, there is foreign student social security numbers.
	There's a certain series of numbers that are given to foreign students coming into the United States to go to school.
	All right, maybe one fast one here.
	Wild Card Line, you're on the air with Ed Pangao.
	Hi.
	Hello, good morning.
	Good morning.
	Where are you?
	This is Greg.
	Up in Minneapolis?
	Minneapolis, all right.
	STP.
	Yes, sir.
	I'll be there.
	I'm doing a seminar next month, Greg.
	All right.
	You can plug your seminar.
	When?
	Oh, let's see.
	It's in February 24th, 25th, somewhere right in that weekend.
	There you go.
	Caller?
	Yes.
	You got a question?
	Yes.
	Fire away.
	My sister and I are looking for a lost brother.
	Right.
	We possibly believe he's deceased.
	Uh-huh.
	It might be John Doe in a Popper's grave.
	Oh boy.
	Match a missing person?
	That's the first thing we were told, is to file a missing person's report.
	Well, file a missing person's report, and if his fingerprints are on file, you can ask the local police department to run the prints, and they might find him, either if he's deceased or anything's ever showed up.
	Yeah, but wouldn't they have done that on the other end?
	In other words, when the person died as a John Doe, they'd have run the prints, wouldn't they?
	Well, they might have, but they didn't have another set of prints to run them against, so they wouldn't know what's happening.
	Oh, I see.
	So if he had never... He's gotta have a base to run them against.
	I see.
	So if you can come up with something with his fingerprints on it, Caller, there's a great idea for you.
	Or if he was in the military, just tell him, you know, he did have his prints, etc.
	Well, he did do time in jail, so I'm sure they got his prints.
	Well, they got his prints.
	Then you got it, then.
	Okay, but what about a bag of bones, maybe, in the desert?
	Well, then that they're not going to find.
	There's just no way.
	Yeah, we have a lot of lumps out here like that.
	You can see them as you drive around, little lumps.
	Well, he was down southwest.
	Outside of Las Vegas.
	Lumps in the desert.
	Alright, thank you very much, Caller.
	Listen, Ed, I've got one more hour, and this is so totally, utterly fascinating.
	You are welcome to it.
	I know you have to be in court later today, but if you're if you're good for another hour i am not going to get for
	another hour on the i got the adrenaline going and that you know i can uh... i
	sleep through my deposition for a couple of pop-up you know it's funny you
	should mention that i was at the deposition
	uh... not long ago and one of the attorneys did sleep through part of the deposition
	really the he'd really good he's the rockies earlier with ed pandell i
	hello hello oh yeah where are you
	i'm in chicago chicago yeah WLS.
	Of course.
	I have a question.
	I have a collecting agency coming after me for something that I did.
	I rented a vehicle.
	It was a U-Haul for a friend of mine.
	And by accident, we hit a viaduct.
	Oh, this is really interesting.
	Oh, we're coming on the top of the hour, and I like your story already, so can you hold on?
	Oh, sure.
	Alright, good.
	Hold on through the top of the hour.
	We will be right back with Ed Pankow.
	This is really interesting.
	This book is really interesting.
	hide your assets and disappear and that social security
	the the
	From the Kingdom of Nye, this is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.
	From east of the Rockies, call Art at 1-800-825-5033.
	West of the Rockies, including Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico, at 1-800-618-8255.
	is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell. From east of the Rockies, call Art at 1-800-825-5033.
	West of the Rockies, including Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico at 1-800-618-8255.
	First time callers may reach Art at Area Code 702-727-1225.
	His book is just coming out.
	You can get it.
	Facts Art at area code 702-727-8499. Please limit your faxes to one or two pages. This
	is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell. Now again, here's Art.
	Once again, here I am at Ben Cowley's, my guest. His book is just coming out. You can
	get it. It's called Hide Your Assets and Disappear.
	Now in Belize way.
	Belize really is just one place where you can go.
	There are others.
	Central America, South America.
	We'll ask about all of that as Ed comes back in just a moment.
	Well, all right.
	Finally, back to Ed Pankow.
	Ed, welcome back.
	Thank you, thank you.
	You really have stirred it up.
	A million people have a million questions.
	Ben Franklin put it in a nutshell, says one, when he said those who are willing to give up freedom for security deserve neither.
	True story.
	Yeah, true story.
	And we're not just giving it up individually, are we?
	We're doing it nationally.
	Well, we are.
	Big articles in the newspaper this week.
	The FBI wants literally unlimited power to wiretap On anyone who's, quote, suspected of having any involvement in terrorism.
	I mean, any one of us can be suspected of anything.
	In whose opinion?
	In other words, a wiretap is always traditionally required, you know, a judge to say, yeah, it's justified.
	Do you mean that if in the FBI's opinion, It's justified they would then be able to simply do it on their own?
	Exactly.
	Either that or there'd be some special judges that just rubber stamp the stuff.
	Holy smokes.
	That has some real concerns.
	In fact, they're going to have some hearings on this.
	Would you typically be called or want to be called to testify about something like that?
	Oh, they don't want to hear from me.
	They don't want to hear from you?
	I doubt sincerely if they would call me.
	All right.
	Back now to our East of the Rockies caller, and we were in the middle of a pretty interesting story.
	What was it again, caller?
	Yes.
	This is Dick in Chicago.
	Yes, sir.
	Yes.
	Well, a couple years ago, I had rented a moving truck for a friend of mine that was moving.
	He needed a credit card.
	He didn't have one.
	Right.
	We used mine, and for some reason, to make the story shorter, we ended up hitting a viaduct and creating some damage to the vehicle, like around $750.
	And they felt I was responsible, but there's a bunch of reasons why I can't get into that right now, why I felt that I was not responsible for it.
	How many years ago was that?
	How long ago?
	I think it was almost three years ago.
	So I canceled the credit card after that because I didn't want them to charge me for this.
	And since then I've been getting letters from collecting agencies and avoiding them.
	I just kind of wanted to know how long would that go on for, that open case?
	Well, legally they can go after you for seven years, but first off, is it on your credit report?
	Have you ordered a copy of your credit report?
	No, I haven't ordered one.
	Order a copy of your credit report and see if they put it on there.
	There's a lot of laws.
	All you've got to do is tell the collection agency Don't call me again.
	I don't want to hear from you and by law they have to stop.
	Oh really?
	If they don't, record the call and send them a letter saying, you know, I am going to come after you under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
	Yeah, they offered to like lower it too on me.
	They called me over the phone and they offered to lower it down to like 500 something.
	Yeah.
	Well, there are very strong laws and guidelines that tell you what you can do and can't do.
	There's a very good book called Life After Debt, and that book also can give you some good ideas, particularly on credit.
	Well, one thing you can do is, first off, find if it's on your credit report.
	If it's not, then just don't worry about it.
	If they do put it on there, then you write to the credit bureau and say, this is not a legitimate bill.
	It's not mine.
	I want it off.
	I demand it be taken off under the FCRA.
	They have to properly investigate it, and they can only keep it on if legitimately it's there.
	So they don't have any other proof or anything then?
	That's right.
	Well, other than my signature on the...
	Well, the thing is, you did accept responsibility by doing this.
	You should not do things for other people on your credit card because you do then accept the responsibility.
	I asked the woman at the counter, though, to get full coverage because I didn't want to be responsible for this.
	Well, if you got full coverage, that should have paid it.
	No, but she didn't fill it out.
	So it turned out that she didn't even give it to me.
	Well, I ended up not getting charged for it, but then I asked for it, though.
	But, you know, you share in the responsibility for that as far as the law is concerned, so there's not a lot you can do about that.
	All right.
	Thank you very much, caller.
	Very interesting.
	The most interesting credit card story I know was some lady who called my show and asked me, hey Art, if there was a giant You know, something out of Armageddon, the size of Texas coming toward Earth, and it was going to destroy Earth, and we had like six months or a year or something left.
	What would the credit card companies do?
	Would they let everybody run the credit up, or what?
	And I said, wow, what a good question!
	I have no idea, and so she called, I think it was MasterCard, or Visa, one of the big ones, and she got somebody finally in management, Who actually answered her question.
	And they said, oh absolutely, we would allow everybody to go to their credit limit based on, we've actually discussed this, based on the premise that if it hits, we're out of business anyway, we're all out of business, but if it misses, we're rich!
	That's right!
	And I thought, right, exactly what they would do!
	All right, anyway, that's my little credit card story.
	Here's a question.
	Ed, is there any way, according to Boz in New Mexico, for an average Joe to check and see if a neighbor has a criminal record?
	Now, that is an interesting question, actually.
	Well, a lot of people are curious about their neighbors.
	Can they do that, and how?
	Yeah, several things.
	Number one, Criminal records are a public record, not at your police department, but at the county criminal clerk's office.
	You can either go to the county courthouse or call the county clerk and ask, does this person have a criminal history?
	You need their name and date of birth.
	Oh, really?
	And some places do it over the phone, some you have to go in there, but it is a public record everywhere in the United States.
	Wow.
	So, what you need to do is know the county they reside in or possibly a county they got arrested in.
	Many states offer a full criminal history search over their state website.
	Really?
	In my state, Texas, for a $3 fee, you can run a criminal history search for any felony on anybody in the state of Texas.
	You're kidding!
	I always thought this information... I used to be a police dispatcher for a 911 system, and I had access to NCIC and so forth.
	Right.
	But I never knew that it was up on the net.
	Well, in the last few years they've put it there because first off, it's a source of money for the state, and the second thing is, many states... well, the government mandates that the information be made available and made public.
	So they found that they can kill two birds with one stone, that A, they can meet the mandate, and B, they can make money on it by offering it, you know, online.
	Oh, that's absolutely remarkable.
	Kind of chilling, actually, in a way.
	Well, the thing is, and this is one thing people need to realize, is that everything's for sale.
	It's all a matter of price.
	Yeah, I guess that really is the bottom line, not just in Mexico either.
	Well, for the Rockies, you're on the air with Ed Pankow.
	Hi.
	Hi.
	Hello.
	Oh, hi.
	Yes, you are.
	What a pleasant surprise.
	Well, thank you.
	Where are you?
	I'm in Los Angeles.
	Los Angeles, OK.
	Yes, Hollywood, I thought.
	Yes, OK.
	And I wanted to ask Ed, since you guys were just talking about this, I wanted to ask Ed if he makes a distinction between corporate people and law people, who are persons who are not Really?
	corporate and apropos of this
	in terms of the criminal records that people have
	are they arrest records or are they convictions
	all of the information is publicly available both the arrest and the
	conviction really
	all or rap are recorded
	in the county clerk's office and you can read the arrest
	the indictment uh... any sentence
	happened to it it's it's.
	It's all a public record.
	Now, online, many of the databases only provide convictions.
	But, see, the information that goes to the FBI computer in the sky, which is the NCIC, the National Crime Information Center, that information is garnished from police departments and county courts.
	Now, if you're arrested or stopped by the police for something, and you're not put in jail, Uh, it may not make the county computer.
	It'll just be that, you know, you got picked up and released the next morning.
	But if you're arrested, if there's a charge made and the charge is filed with the district attorney as a criminal charge is supposed to be, that then creates a file in the county clerk's office and that becomes a public record because our taxpayers pay for it.
	If taxpayers pay for it, it's a public record.
	Okay, my question then is, do they then expunge the record once If the charges are dropped?
	No, the record of the actual arrest is there forever.
	They can expunge it if you pay your congressman or lawyer, whatever, but the actual microfiche record, the additional electronic signature, it never gets erased.
	It's always there.
	Okay, well thank you very much.
	My dad served two terms as Attorney General of Texas and then two terms as Governor of Texas and finally was a I'm glad to see you.
	What part of Texas are you from?
	I'm in Houston.
	I'm from Wichita Falls.
	It's nice to hear you guys carry on about this.
	I hope you'll make a distinction between corporate government and between God-created human beings.
	Who are not subject to the corporate... Well, it's not that kind of world.
	I guess I wish it was that way too, but it really isn't.
	Information is free-flowing and the dollar really does buy whatever you want.
	Ed mentioned that he thought we were headed for a depression.
	Somebody in Charleston, South Carolina, Steve, wants you to elaborate.
	Why do you think we're headed for a depression?
	Well, I think that we're...
	That a lot of the stock market stuff that's all going now is artificial hype.
	That we are approaching the same frenzy that we had in 1929.
	That's another way of saying irrational exuberance.
	Well, that's number one.
	Number two, we can look at the public record and see there's more bankruptcies now than ever in history, meaning more people have less money.
	Number three, the credit card debt is higher now than any time in history.
	So the average Joe is spending more than he's making.
	Companies are downsizing.
	There's a lot of signs that the bubble is filling with air.
	And like any other bubble, it reaches a certain point and then pops.
	And, you know, it may not be tomorrow, but that day is certainly on the tracks and it's headed this way.
	Mr. Greenspan said the other day that he didn't think a whole lot of the President's idea of putting Social Security money in the stock market.
	That would be a disaster.
	I thought the same thing.
	I thought, boy, you might as well, you know, Vegas is over the hill for me.
	You might as well send somebody from Washington and on one roll of the dice, you know, go to one of these casinos and just at least you've got near 50-50 chance.
	That's exactly right.
	Roll the old Social Security money.
	First time caller on the line, you're on the air with Ed.
	Hi.
	Hey Art.
	Yeah, yes.
	Hey, outstanding.
	Well, I've been listening to you for a long time and I just decided to call.
	Good.
	Alright, man, I'll tell you, the Jolly Rogers you wore on the program last week was great.
	When I was on Millennium, you mean?
	Yeah, the Millennium Show.
	I fly the Jolly Roger outside my house.
	Well, I haven't heard anyone else say, other than the skull and crossbones, it is the Jolly Rogers.
	It is the Jolly Rogers.
	It equals poison, stay away from contaminated stuff.
	Great stuff, man.
	I wear the same damn thing.
	Anyway, do you have a question?
	Anyway, back at the ranch.
	Yes.
	Social Security stuff.
	Now, that is an identification number, and it was never... I'm calling from Fairbanks, Alaska.
	I just want to briefly say that you have quoted that we are staying warmer than usual.
	No, I know it's cold up there.
	How cold is it now?
	Well, out in Ellison Air Force Base, which is the third longest runway in the world, we're looking at 101 below at windfaring temperatures.
	That will turn your skin to stone in about 30 seconds.
	It will crystallize your epidermis.
	That's right.
	Social Security.
	Social Security number.
	Now, it was never intended for starters to be an identification number.
	It says it right there.
	It says it on it.
	What do you mean?
	It says it on there.
	Not to be used for identification or something like that.
	Well, there are people here who can't get a hunting fishing license.
	Without it?
	Without giving their, you know, and there are people giving up their hunting and fishing rights without submitting their social security number.
	Okay, well that's the obvious question.
	Then where is all this headed, Ed, with regard to social security?
	It's obviously being used as a identification number.
	Well, it really is.
	And what happened is the state and the government have jumped on the bandwagon and they found that they can use this to enforce all the other laws.
	If they can identify you by name and social security number, then A, they know where your paycheck is coming from.
	I'll tell you a little secret I know about in Nevada, and maybe you can confirm this.
	Not too many people know this, but they issue you a driver's license number here in Nevada.
	And if you know the secret code, your driver's license number is convertible to your social security number.
	Oh yeah.
	13 states actually use your social security number as your driver's license.
	Right, but in Nevada, they said, we're doing away with that.
	But they replaced it with a system that actually converts mathematically, if you've got the formula, to your social security number.
	It's evil.
	Totally evil.
	Oh, you know, they shouldn't be doing this, but it gets done every day.
	Yeah, they're doing it.
	Wild Card Line, you're on the air with Ed Pankow and Art Bell.
	Hi.
	Hi.
	I'm calling from Maine, and I'm afraid that my radio station WVOM isn't carrying the show right now.
	They go off around 4 o'clock in the morning.
	Well, they have morning show obligations.
	Yeah, that's right.
	But anyway, I have a rather pedestrian question.
	It is about debt, which is one of the reasons I get to listen to your show, Art, is because I wake up at 3 in the morning in fear.
	But anyway, I have these student loans.
	And because of parameters surrounding custody and things like that, I can't really leave the state to look for the job in my field.
	I did go through undergraduate and graduate school, but I'm really living bill to bill.
	I do work.
	I'm not on welfare.
	I've got two children.
	But I've got these student loans that are hounding me, and I just don't know how I'm ever going to pay them off.
	Do you have any ideas about what I can do?
	Are these going to follow me to my grave?
	Well, first off, they won't follow you to your grave.
	They can only keep it on your credit report for seven years.
	But you can go back to the agency that originally issued the student loan.
	Not the collection agency they've hired to hound you, but go to the original agency Explain the circumstances and ask them for a waiver or an exemption.
	And it can be done.
	But you've got to get to the right office, the right agency.
	Explain the circumstances.
	Another thing you can do if worst comes to worst is file a personal bankruptcy because of the problem and wipe out the debt.
	Well, the creditors say that bankruptcy won't cover student loans.
	Creditors lie.
	Really?
	Some of the very largest credit card companies have been fined hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars for lying to people like this.
	Okay, thank you.
	Alright, thank you.
	What a valuable piece of information.
	So they just outright lie about that?
	In other words, if you mention the possibility of going into bankruptcy, they say, well, go right ahead, that won't protect you from us?
	That's what they say, Ed?
	They say that.
	In fact, Many of the credit card companies have been fined because they continued to pursue collection efforts after someone had gone in bankruptcy and wiped out the debt.
	Remarkable.
	All right, hold it right there.
	We'll be right back.
	From the high deserts, I'm Art Bell, and this is Coast to Coast AM.
	From the kingdom of Nye, with Art Bell.
	It's incredible.
	Somebody just sent me a link.
	I suppose you could find it in the search engine yourself.
	I'm not going to give it out.
	But it says, Arthur, here's a link to the Belize website where you can buy a passport.
	You can buy a passport.
	Hey, Belize Passport.
	I wonder if our people look at Belize Passports with some degree of suspicion.
	I think we'll ask about that when we come back.
	and then tell us my guess that he will be right back and welcome back
	Hello.
	Hi.
	Glad to be back.
	All right.
	A lot of people want to talk to you.
	One question from Larry in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
	Is it in fact legal to have more than one social security number, and if so, how do you get another one?
	The only people that really have more than one are someone that somehow loses theirs or gets fouled up.
	A, if you have two social security numbers, you're not going to get credited for your earning points and everything, so you're going to lose money.
	Number two, if you do it with the intent to defraud, again, then you're crossing over into the black area of the law.
	But if you just wanted to have two, without intent to defraud... Well, then, the question is going to be, why?
	The government does not want you to have two, and they say, no, you're entitled to one, that's what you're entitled to.
	And by the book, that's what you're entitled to.
	I see.
	All right.
	First time caller on the line, you're on the air with Ed Pencow.
	Where are you calling from, please?
	Hi, this is Tim, and I'm calling from St.
	Louis, Missouri.
	Hello, Tim!
	Hi, I've got a question about... I'm a I was adopted when I was seven years old.
	I was wondering if it would be possible to reclaim my identity using my birth name.
	Oh, a lot of people with that problem.
	Well, what you need to do is to go back to the original county where you were born and get your original birth certificate.
	Either it's going to be in the probate or assumed name files of the county court.
	And if it is, it may be open, which then you can get it.
	Or if it's sealed, you have to go back to the judge that sealed it and said, I'm an adult now and I need to know my real birth parents and my real birth identity so I can check my medical history.
	Right.
	And they will do that.
	Okay, well I have most of that information because I was seven years old when this happened.
	Right.
	So I know where it is and I know that sort of thing.
	I've gotten birth certificates from the state where I was born in the past.
	In my adopted name.
	Would anything exist from my birth name?
	Right, so what you just want to do is go back and retake your birth name?
	Well, I was thinking this would be a way to avoid any question of fraud or anything if I went to establish a new birth number.
	Yeah, if you just go to the courthouse and file an assumed name certificate for the new name, then poof, you legally have right to use that name.
	Oh, okay.
	Alright?
	Okay, thank you very much for the call, and take care.
	A lot of people want to learn things that I guess a lot of people shouldn't find out.
	I mean, a lot of people want to know about their past, and when they find out, they're kind of sorry they asked.
	Have you run into that, Ed, doing jobs?
	Once in a great while.
	Most people are very happy to, and it gives them a real sense of accomplishment.
	I did a media event like this with a friend of mine, and a woman called in.
	She was a twin.
	She'd been looking for her twin brother for 17 years.
	They were separated at two years old, and she couldn't find him, and we found him in 15 minutes.
	15 minutes.
	Now, I warn you, you better be careful about this.
	Is it possible to email you from your website, or do you wish to give out an email address?
	Oh no, as I say, my email address is EJPANKAU at AOL.com.
	You better do that slower and clearer.
	Yeah, it's EJPANKAU, which is P-A-N-K-A-U.
	Alright, E-J-P-A-N-K-A-U.
	Right, at AOL.com.
	That's easy.
	Alright.
	And, as I say, I get probably 50 to 60 emails a day.
	I can see I'm well over that already.
	That was yesterday.
	Yes.
	But I'm more than happy.
	I really enjoy helping people, and if I can point them in the right direction or, you know, whatever, I'm more than happy to do so.
	Okay.
	Wild Card Line, you're on the air with Ed Pantel.
	Hi.
	Hello.
	Hello.
	Hi.
	How are you?
	Fine.
	Where are you?
	I'm in Hawaii.
	Thanks for taking the call.
	What part of Hawaii?
	The Big Island.
	Oh, way down on the Big Island, all right.
	Way down on the Big Island.
	Really intrigued with tonight's show.
	Thank you, Ed, for the interesting conversation.
	My pleasure.
	Two questions, kind sir.
	All right.
	You had suggested a scenario of where the bubble in the economy could possibly burst, and I'm looking that even if my money is in offshore banks, that's not going to do any good there.
	What are you invested in these days?
	Well, here's possibilities.
	Number one, real estate, particularly real estate in good, solid areas and places, is always going to be a good investment.
	It's funny, a lot of people are selling their real estate in Honduras right now because of the hurricane.
	Well, the hurricane wasn't really near as bad and near as wide as people thought, so the smart people are now buying property in Honduras for 50 cents on the dollar.
	So, real estate is a good investment.
	And, you know, other things, the tangible things, they are always going to have certain value.
	A lot of people say, well, I'm going to buy guns.
	Guns are going to be even more valuable.
	But it's something you've got to look at and decide yourself.
	But if money really loses its value in currency, you know, then you go back to the basic, what are the things that have barter value?
	Which is, you know, food, guns, this, that, a home, everything else.
	Do you really think it's going to get down to pop?
	I don't think it's going to get that bad.
	I really don't.
	But I think that we are going to suffer a real credit crunch and we're going to lose a lot of that inflated value that we now have.
	Do you ever run guns?
	I'll let that serve as your answer.
	Ease to the Rockies.
	You're on the air with Ed Penko.
	Hi.
	Good morning, Art.
	Good morning, Ed.
	It's been an interesting show.
	I've enjoyed it.
	And Ed, good luck to you in answering those emails after the Art Bell Show.
	Really.
	That's going to be interesting.
	I have a couple of questions.
	First one being personal regarding my social security number and listening to your explanations of how you break up the numbers and get the code information out of the number.
	My second set of numbers, the two middle numbers, It's interesting.
	I got my Social Security card in 1989.
	The number on the second set of numbers is in the 90s.
	Why would that be?
	Well, each state has its own code.
	What you've got to do is go to the code book and look in the state it was issued and see that, say, number 92 was issued in, and you'll see 1989.
	All right, well that explains it.
	You've got to have the code book and it's like pulling teeth.
	I got it and put it in, you know, one of my manuals, the Investigator's Guidebook, but it's not something that you're going to find just anywhere.
	Okay, the next question, in lieu of the popularity of the recent movie, Enemy of the State, and
	with all the interesting, intriguing NSA technology that may or may not exist, what kind of Big
	Brother scenarios have you personally encountered in all your ventures?
	And I'll hang up to listen.
	Well, basically, Big Brother isn't the government.
	Big Brother is the credit bureaus.
	The credit bureaus have far more information on us today than the government ever thought of and probably will for the foreseeable future.
	It is in their financial interest to collect more data and massage it and sell it more ways.
	The government is busy enough collecting just what they collect and doing just what they do, but they don't have the incentive to do it that the credit bureaus do.
	It's like 20 years ago the FBI had all the technology and private investigators had very little.
	Today we blow the doors off them.
	My opinion is that the private industry, and particularly the credit and the information gathering agencies that make a profit on selling this, they're the ones that really have got the horsepower.
	How do you feel about that change?
	I mean, as you point out, we've got the horsepower now, the information horsepower.
	Is that a good thing?
	Yes and no again.
	You go back to that question of security and privacy.
	If you want security, yes, it's a good thing.
	If you want privacy, you're in deep yogurt.
	Indeed.
	West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Ed Pencow.
	Hi.
	Hello.
	Hello.
	How's it going?
	It's going.
	Okay.
	Good to talk to you.
	Where are you, sir?
	San Francisco.
	Alright.
	My question mainly references back to someone who was talking about student loans and in
	terms of credit bureaus.
	What I've come to find out is mainly it's not the credit agencies that you have to worry
	about so much as it is the government and garnishing your wages later on in terms of
	delinquencies and that kind of thing.
	It's not so much the credit agencies that you have to worry about, it's just the federal government taking Well, there I'd have to disagree with you because even the government, they don't go garnish your stuff.
	They hire the credit bureaus to go do it for them.
	If you look at these things, the government really doesn't chase people anymore.
	They contract out to the credit bureaus and they go do it for them, but they have the weight of the law behind them.
	Okay, second question.
	It's not valid.
	What they do is they give you a tax ID number and anybody that runs that can tell immediately it's not a social security number.
	number and that kind of thing.
	So how valid is that?
	It's not valid.
	It's kind of a scam maybe?
	What they do is they give you a tax ID number and anybody that runs that can tell immediately
	it's not a social security number.
	So basically you are throwing money out the door plus by doing that you make yourself
	You might as well get out the red paint and draw a bullseye right on the top of your head.
	Okay.
	All right.
	Thank you very much.
	Thanks a lot.
	All right.
	First-time caller line, you're on the air with Ed Pencow.
	Hi.
	Hi.
	This is Dottie.
	Dottie, where are you?
	Salem, Oregon.
	Okay.
	All right.
	First-time caller.
	I listen to you a lot.
	I have a question about my sister has a problem with a school loan that she got several years ago, and the creditors are after her.
	And they said that she has to pay it back because it's a federal government school loan, I think.
	It's a government loan.
	Well, the thing is, if it's a federal government loan, that really doesn't make any difference from any other kind of loan.
	It's a debt.
	And number one, you pay those things when and if you can.
	The first thing you do is pay for your groceries and take care of your kids.
	They can't put you in jail for this.
	This is not 16th century England.
	If worst comes to worst, they can always restructure that debt.
	You can file bankruptcy and do a restructure.
	Wipe it out if you have no other choice.
	Whatever.
	These credit bureaus, particularly in these collection agencies, use the guise of the federal government to try to collect debts and say, well, it's the government.
	That kind of debt is really no different than any other kind of debt.
	It's just like a credit card debt.
	Okay.
	Now, it's an obligation.
	You are legally, you know, supposed to pay it, but what are they going to do?
	They're not going to put you in jail, and they're just psychologically trying to pressure her to pay that before they pay groceries, and that's a no-no.
	Okay.
	All right.
	Thank you very much.
	Here's one for you, Ed.
	A famous case.
	Remember D.B.
	Cooper?
	Yes.
	Any thoughts on... What do you think?
	Did he make it?
	Did he disappear?
	He parachuted right out of an airplane, is what I recall.
	Right.
	With a whole bunch of money.
	Do you think that he successfully disappeared, or do you think that he disappeared from Earth entirely?
	I have heard rumors.
	Oh, really?
	And I suspect that he is down in one of those nice little Latin American countries living very well.
	Yeah, I thought the same thing.
	Wild Card Line, you're on the air with Ed Pankow.
	Hi.
	Hi, Ed.
	This is Larry in Fort Lauderdale.
	How are you doing?
	Pretty good, Larry.
	I have a comment and a question.
	Reference to those two center numbers in the Social Security.
	Don't look for them to be sequential.
	I know that they run on and on.
	They run odd and even.
	You've got to have the code book.
	Each state has its own codes and they're not sequential.
	Right, they run odd and even and it can throw you off.
	You've got to have the book.
	Pardon me?
	You've got to have the code book to know what they are.
	The question was this, now that we're in the age of the internet, can the internet mail be traced?
	For instance, someone that's trying to disappear and they come up on the internet, can PIs, private investigators, get into These ISPs and get information as easy as you can from the phone company, are they pretty tight on that?
	Well, they can be traced.
	Private investigators can't just wander into them.
	But there was a strange individual that was sending our good president email bombs.
	They sent him the encyclopedia every morning in his email.
	And the Secret Service went to the information provider and said, bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia.
	And the next day they pulled him through his keyhole.
	So they can get it.
	But what about at the private level?
	Would that be more difficult?
	Enough money buys just about anything.
	You can't say it can't be done.
	I would tell you it's difficult, but if you know somebody who knows somebody, it's like the movie The Godfather.
	Someday you will come to me for a favor.
	Thank you very much.
	That really is the way the world works, isn't it?
	oh yeah he's the rockies ronnie or that band go high
	hello hello hello Ed, sometimes we get ourselves in trouble here with debt and so forth.
	I recently purchased a truck and at the time I was having no trouble with the overtime.
	The money was great and all that.
	I have a question for Ed.
	Ed, sometimes we get ourselves in trouble here with debt and so forth.
	I recently purchased a truck and at the time I was having no trouble with the overtime.
	The money was great and all that.
	Now I can't afford to make those payments.
	I'm wondering what the finance company will do if I quit making those payments and they
	take over the truck so to speak and they sell that truck.
	Will I have to pay the difference if they don't get what they need out of it?
	They will claim you do, and they've got two choices.
	They can either sue you for it or put it on as a bad debt on your credit to drag around for seven years.
	What I would do is, if I were you, would be to try and sell it privately and see if you can break even on it, because you'd get a lot better price for it than they will.
	Right.
	Okay.
	Well, I appreciate it.
	My pleasure.
	Okay.
	In other words, beat them to the punch.
	West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Ed Pencow.
	Not a lot of time.
	Hi.
	Is this West of the Rockies?
	Yes, sir.
	Yeah, I'm calling from San Diego.
	San Diego.
	Well, you're definitely West of the Rockies.
	Yes, Ed.
	When you go to apply at the California Department of Motor Vehicles for a driver's license, they take a thumbprint.
	Now, if I went in there to get another driver's license under another name, would the same thumbprint be automatically cross-referenced?
	Or are they just passively hanging around in a database for future reference?
	Well, if I understand you right, first off, they don't They don't run that print through the FBI.
	They get the print so they can have some identity on you.
	Number two, one fingerprint does not a fingerprint analysis make.
	They need ten prints to do it right.
	First off, California is the toughest state in the country to get a driver's license in because of the Rebecca Shaffer problems and everything.
	You're going to have a difficult time doing that, particularly in California.
	If you were going to get different driver's licenses, you get one in one state and one in another.
	Nevada is very nice this time of year.
	I know where Yuma, Arizona is too.
	That's true.
	You mean Nevada is a good state in which to do something like that?
	I've heard rumors.
	You've heard rumors?
	Okay.
	Alright, thank you very much.
	Ed, you have done such a stupendous job tonight.
	I guess, first of all, your book, the book that is just about to come out, the one you can get by going to my website and then going over to Amazon.com.
	Hide your assets and despair!
	That's one way to get it, if you've got a computer, but otherwise, for the people who are going to be going to the store, When should they expect your book to hit the shelves?
	February 17th.
	It should hit the bookstores all over.
	Not just to plug my own book, but I've got several thousand back orders.
	I'm told that it's not going to be in the bookstores long.
	If somebody wanted it in a bookstore, I'd go to them now and say, I want it now to be sure they get one when it comes in.
	Even my other book, check it out.
	I know that really does happen, and the publishers inevitably are not prepared for it, and so then there's a long, dry period.
	It's a tough thing to beat.
	So anyway, February 17th, and you would go in and request it at a store now.
	For everybody else with a computer, do it that way.
	To contact you either through your website or your email address one more time slowly is?
	It's E-J-P-A-N-K-A-U at A-O-L dot com.
	Right.
	And a phone number if anybody for any reason wants to call.
	Oh?
	713-713-224-3777.
	713-713-224-3777.
	3-7-7-7.
	3777. So that's 713-224-3777.
	Right?
	Right.
	What a tremendous guest you've been.
	We're going to have to have you back on again.
	There's a whole world of stuff we can ask about.
	Ed?
	This was tremendous.
	This was a lot of fun.
	I'd love to do it again.
	All right.
	Take care, Ed.
	Good night.
	Thank you.
	That really was tremendous, wasn't it?
	That's Ed Pankow, folks, from Houston.
	And that's how to contact him.
	And that's about all the time we've got tonight.
	Tomorrow night, Robert Ghostwolf, Richard C. Hoagland, I think an archaeologist, and who knows who all else, it'll be about the Miami Circle.

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