and investigate the key players and collect
documents. We frequently work with our
Mexico City office on things like that. We also
work with outside vendors and accounting
firms and investigative firms like Deloitte
in Mexico City. They help us do the forensic
scrubbing down of documents and things of
that nature. It is frequently an initial round
of interviews, and then you try to figure out
what the story is. Then there are always
follow-ups and different trails, that you end
up having to go down, because while you
uncover one, you end up uncovering other
possible improprieties that are going [on]
down there as you’re reviewing documents or
communicating with witnesses.
Q: Have you ever felt culturally lost or
even a little threatened when you’re
conducting these investigations in these
faraway places?
A: When you’re in some of these very rural
areas you are kind of looking over your
shoulder to make sure everything’s OK.
Because a lot of times, we are the enemy
down there—or at least we’re considered
that. Lucky for me, I have not had any run-ins. There definitely have been times I’ve
walked out of my hotel and said, “I’m going
to go walk around this town and check it
out,” and walk a block, and the bell-hop at
the hotel would run after me and say, “No,
no, no, you don’t want to walk around, you
should eat at the hotel.” And I’ll say, “OK,
I’ll follow your lead.” While I like my job, I’m
not going to risk my life for it.
Q: I heard you were charged with
kidnapping a witness.
A: It was bogus. We were investigating a
lawsuit down in Central America relating
to massive fraud. And at one point, one of
the investigators was able to find a witness
that was willing and able to talk to us about
the fraud scheme—he was heavily involved
in it. So he was flown to Dallas, and I met
with him, along with a couple other Spanish
speakers from some of the other law firms
involved, for the co-defendants. We met with
him for three or four days and got a lot of
great information that was going to unravel
this whole thing. On one of the last days,
he just disappeared. Our investigators were
able to locate him—he apparently jumped
on a bus and took a bus up to New York
and a flight from New York back to Central
America. And when he got back down to
Central America, he made allegations and
filed criminal papers against several lawyers
and investigators, including myself, alleging
that we had kidnapped him and coerced
him into giving a statement. I think I was
accused of having a bag filled with money.
What ended up happening is I had to go to
the hotel where the witness was staying in
Dallas and had to get affidavits from the
front desk and the housekeeping people
that would prove that he was free to go
wherever he wanted, and that he was not
being kidnapped, and in fact was having a
pretty good time at the hotel. That was an
interesting assignment: trying to explain to
the housekeeper why I needed an affidavit
saying that I didn’t kidnap one of their guests.
