What can lawfully be located domestically, what Arizona law changes, and how to recognise the international asset-search scam.
Arizona specifics that change the answer
Two features of Arizona law materially affect what is worth pursuing here, and a creditor who does not know them can waste a great deal of money.
The first is the homestead exemption, which in Arizona is substantial — it was increased significantly by ballot measure in recent years and is adjusted over time. A judgment debtor’s equity in a primary residence is protected up to that amount, which means a house with visible equity may be entirely out of reach. Establishing equity net of encumbrance and exemption is the difference between a recovery strategy and an expensive disappointment.
The second is community property. Arizona is a community property state, which affects both what a spouse may own and what a creditor may reach, depending on the nature of the debt and when it arose. Community debt and separate debt reach different property, and the analysis is not intuitive.
Wage garnishment limits in Arizona were also tightened by the same ballot measure, which changes the arithmetic on collecting from an employed debtor. None of this is legal advice — it is the frame we scope within, and the reason we ask your counsel what theory the collection will run on before we decide what to search.
International: what is real and what is a scam
International asset work is where this industry does its worst damage, so here is the honest picture.
What is genuinely available varies enormously by jurisdiction. Some countries have open corporate registries, searchable land records and public beneficial ownership information. Others have almost nothing accessible to a private party, and no amount of money spent with an investigator changes that. Real international work is corporate registry research, land and court records where they are public, cross-border corporate linkage, sanctions and enforcement records, media and open-source research, and coordination with vetted local counsel and investigators.
What is not real: the “offshore bank account search” product. Nobody lawfully sells you a list of a subject’s foreign bank accounts. Where such information circulates, it was almost always obtained by pretexting, bribery or theft — which is a federal problem for the buyer as much as the seller, and it is inadmissible on top of being unlawful.
The lawful route to foreign records that are not public runs through legal process — letters rogatory, the Hague Evidence Convention, and in criminal matters mutual legal assistance. That is slow and it is your counsel’s instrument, not ours. What we do is build the case for using it and identify precisely where to point it, which is usually what makes it worth the delay.
What Honeybadger Solutions provides
Honeybadger Solutions is an Arizona-licensed security guard and private investigations agency — Guard 1759798, PI 1759795 — with investigations, digital forensics and cyber work delivered nationwide. This article is background on the problem. For what we actually provide, see Domestic and International Asset, or book a confidential consultation.