Others’ Assets Pay Off for Fiscal Sleuth : Detective Helps Clients Find Hidden Offshore Accounts

The $310 preliminary asset search did not turn up too many assets--it even missed the sperm bank equities--but its accuracy in other respects was unnerving.

The search was undertaken by Armand M. Grant, a Canoga Park detective who claims to specialize in finding offshore bank accounts and other hidden assets. As a test, The Times asked him to investigate this reporter, figuring that the latter’s meager assets would pose only a nominal challenge for an experienced financial sleuth.

Grant, 52, apparently is that. He has been a detective for 26 years and owns Teltec Investigations, which does a variety of detection jobs. Teltec, however, is one of just a few firms specializing in financial work: finding hidden assets for those who have been fleeced, investigating clients’ potential business partners for honesty and helping clients “shelter” money offshore.

A Shadowy World

“We go to them occasionally when we run into a blank wall,” said William Jordan, vice president for U. S. operations at Argen, an international financial detective agency with an office in Westlake Village. He added, “Teltec has a very good reputation.”

The world of private detectives is a shadowy one, much given to self-promotion and, on occasion, subterfuge.

“I tell people the law requires them to pay taxes,” he said by way of example. “Now, I don’t prepare their taxes.”

Grant may specialize in finding offshore assets, but in this reporter’s case he missed a bank account in Chatsworth. He also missed the 300 shares of Daxor--a New York sperm- and self-donated blood-bank--purchased by this reporter for $5 each last year.

The search missed other piddling sums, including Individual Retirement Accounts at Manufacturer’s Hanover in New York and Fidelity Investments in Boston, and a brokerage account at Waterhouse Securities in Los Angeles.

But Grant said his $310 search, which he performed free, only consists of a relatively cursory probe that would find no stocks, IRAs or assets outside Los Angeles County. Accounts containing less than $500 are also skipped, Grant said.

Thus, the equities did not show. The probe did turn up an account at the Los Angeles Times Federal Credit Union but did not learn how much is on deposit. Credit unions are tougher and cost extra, Grant said.

But the detective uncovered some facts with chilling accuracy.

He rattled off the reporter’s income for five consecutive quarters up until June 30. He also got the reporter’s Social Security number, learned that he recently switched from MCI to US Sprint, and unnerved him further by reading off a few of his recent phone calls.

For instance, he knew that the reporter called the UCLA Ticket Office (the Paul Tay l or Dance Company was in town), and the Wall Street Journal (where a close friend edits copy).

He also found the reporter’s credit-card issuer, and the New Jersey bank that gave him an automobile loan. He had the year, make and license plates of the reporter’s car, but those are easily obtained from the state Department of Motor Vehicles.

He correctly determined that the reporter owns no California property, but found some Northern California land owned by the subject’s uncle. He also unearthed holdings in San Bernardino County owned by people with the same unusual surname, although it is not clear if they are related.

A jovial, bearded man with a solid build and a taste for French cuffs, Grant is by his own account a college dropout who was later discharged from the Marines with asthma. He became a detective by accident after working various odd jobs, and now owns an agency with 13 investigators and $2.2 million in 1986 revenue. In all, 45 people work there.

Grant, who had a pistol handle sticking out of the open briefcase in his office, insisted he does nothing illegal.

Like many private investigators, modesty is not his strong suit. Grant drives a red Porsche 928 and lives with his wife, Judith, in a spanking new, 3,300-square-foot Malibu home with a swimming pool, five baths and sweeping ocean views. It is assessed at $721,140, according to tax records.

Grant claims to represent a variety of clients, including banks, insurance companies and a number of Hollywood celebrities. He says professional ethics prohibit his naming any, except for the highly publicized case of Lee Marvin.

A. David Kagon, Marvin’s lawyer in the famous 1979 palimony suit, hired Grant to investigate Michelle Triola Marvin, and said the detective “got very useful information for us.” Kagon said he has used Grant’s services for 10 years.

Harold Lipset, a San Francisco detective and former president of the World Assn. of Detectives, said other private investigators specialize in financial investigation, “but I’ve never found anybody as good as I believe Grant is.”

Grant said his investigation of this reporter was conducted by his son, Michael, who also works at Teltec, and that most of what Grant does personally is searching for assets stashed in secret accounts from Switzerland to the Caribbean.

Such investigations cost far more than $310. Grant said he charges $5,000 per account in places like the Cayman Islands or the Bahamas, where bank secrecy laws make it even harder for third parties to obtain account information than in the United States.

He adds that fees are set case by case, depending on the hours of work involved and other factors. Complex investigations can cost $25,000, he said.

But you can still learn a lot about somebody for less. For $1,500, Grant said his firm will find any assets or accounts in the subject’s name, including New York or American stock exchange stocks.

“There’s nothing to it,” he said.

How he accomplishes this is another matter. Grant insists he never does anything illegal, does not bother with computerized credit services such as TRW, and that banks, employers and so forth do not even know a search has been made.

“I just know the right people,” he said.

Admits ‘Gray Areas’

He does admit, though, that there are “gray areas” that he and all private investigators exploit. Other investigators said that, short of subterfuge, which many detectives use to gain information, sources are indispensable.

Grant also works the other side of the street by helping clients hide money overseas. He charges a straight 10% for this service, or $100,000 on a $1-million deal. You can stash your own money, but by paying Grant, he says, clients get security and secrecy: “With me, you go in through the back door.” In helping a client hide, say, $1 million from potential creditors, Grant claims he first determines whether the money was legitimately gained, adding that many upstanding types want to stash money in secret offshore accounts: wealthy men about to be divorced, for example, or a physician who might face an enormous judgment.

Federal law bars moving $10,000 or more in or out of the United States without reporting it to the Customs Service, and Grant insisted he tells his clients to comply. Whether they do or not is their business, he said.

He noted that there are no outbound customs-declaration procedures when flying from the United States to tax havens such as the Cayman Islands. There is Customs upon landing in the islands, but Grant said he enables clients to circumvent those procedures.

No Trail of Records

When he arranges matters, Grant contended, there are no flight records or other documents left behind to indicate what has transpired. Even banking hours are not a problem. He is such a regular at certain Cayman Islands financial institutions, he says, that they open when he needs them to. They’re glad to get the business.

The idea, according to Grant, is to make a client “judgment-proof,” even when a detective like Grant is working on the case.

Teltec investigations sometimes do go awry. Grant revealed a case in which a client was searching for his missing children. A Teltec investigator thought he found them in Chile and, without verifying, told the client, who flew down and discovered the children were not his.

The client sued and Grant said he paid him $50,000 to settle.

Teltec and Grant have been subject to stranger suits. One former client, a Beverly Hills dentist named Robert Abeloff, claimed in a lawsuit that he paid Grant $9,000 to get him a U.S. passport and driver’s license with a more recent date of birth.

But Abeloff, who is either 51 or 61, according to conflicting California motor vehicle records, contends in court papers that Grant neither produced the documents nor returned the money.

Says He Refused

“It’s absolutely and totally a fabrication,” Grant said. He said Abeloff asked him to get the bogus documents, but that he refused.

In another suit, a man identified in court papers as R. C. Stanley contended that Grant told him Mrs. Stanley had been “kidnapped, brainwashed and imprisoned by a religious cult,” and that it would take “big money” to free her. In fact, Stanley said in court papers, his wife ran off with her lover.

Grant denied the charges. He says Stanley paid his firm $10,000 to find his wife, that he found her, and that his client then regretted spending so much to locate her.

Grant said people sue him because “I’m a deep pocket. I happen to be a very wealthy man.”

Indeed, he has other business interests besides Teltec. He said he owns one-third of Southern California Attorney Service, a process-serving business based in North Hollywood with sales of $7 million; half of Messenger Express, a messenger service based in Culver City with sales of $4.5 million, and half of U.S. Photocopy in North Hollywood, with sales of $750,000.

He also said he owns a third of a Los Angeles start-up company called SCAS Computer Services, which aims to do billing for lawyers.

But there is one thing Grant will not say: whether he has any of his own assets stashed offshore.