Let’s say you wanted to disappear completely for five years, so completely that even the Feds couldn’t find you. Leave behind friends, job and family-could you do it? If so, how?
Let’s avoid any hijack about whether you could leave your family behind-in this scenario you and your family have already agreed that it was necessary.
Sure. Hitch hike or walk to Florida and live on the streets.
And the Feds wouldn’t be able to find you if they put a little effort into it?
My prints/DNA are not on file anywhere. I wouldn’t be carrying any ID. I’m not stupid (and no, don’t ask for a cite). I’m not going to use a credit card and I’m sleeping under a bridge.
Who are these superhuman Feds?
If tens of thousands of illegal immigrants can do it, anyone could.
Get rid of cell phones or any other form of electronic communication.
Steer clear of any problems with the law.
Work jobs that pay under the table or don’t include much more that room and board.
It probably helps a lot if no one is looking for you before you go into hiding.
Call Best Quality Vacuum and order a new dust filter for a Hoover MaxExtract Pressure Pro, Model 60
Do I need to go like today? Or can I wait a few weeks or months?
If I have to go today it makes it much harder, I have some money in the bank, enough to probably live 6-8 months if I really tried and went somewhere, like New Mexico, that was cheap. If I had a few months I could get 70k or so which would make it much easier to live. I’d also pay my taxes so there wouldn’t be as much of a reason to come look for me. I live close enough to the train where I could walk to work if need be so I’d sell off my motorcycle and car, another 15k or so.
I’ve never tried, but I’m sure there’s some way of getting a new social security number, maybe a birth certificate and drivers license. It might be kind of difficult to slip away at first, but after a few days I’d be good. I can sleep in the bus until I get where I’m going. Pay cash for everything. Staying away from my email and phone would be easy enough. I have a pay as you go phone now so getting another one wouldn’t be too hard.
Is there a reason I want to go? Is it because I’ve done something kinda bad, or am I just sick of the crap and want to go?
You’ve got 24 hours from now, and all you know is that someone want’s you dead. Family, friend, Fed or foe-you don’t know.
Live cash-only, leave your existing electronics behind (especially cell phone and computers), and don’t log into any online accounts you hold now. That’s about it, how else would they find you?
As long as the 24 hours includes time to get to my safe deposit box, I could at least make a good start. Most of my assets are tied up (house, 401(k)) but I do have some liquid assets that would help a lot as long as I can get to them. Only one other person knows I have these assets, and they are easy enough to dispose of as to be nearly untraceable (feds or folks with similar resources may be an exception).
I know there are places where a US citizen can walk across the border to Mexico, would that process leave traces? Do they record everyone who goes that way?
Roddy
Patterns of behavior, distributing your picture, facial recognition software, fingerprints, hobbies etc.
That makes it more interesting. I have about 8k in cash in the bank. I could probably get a cash advance on my CC for another 2k. I have a friend who buys stuff, and is interested in a lot of the things I have, but that could give away that I’m leaving even if I could score another grand or so. I don’t think I’d do that.
Now my problem is figuring out where to go and how I want to get there. I think I would drive halfway cross the country, Oklahoma or something like that. Ditch the car in an airport parking lot and get a taxi into the city and find a bus. By the time my car was found it would be a week or more I would guess.
After that I’d probably bounce around bus terminals for at least a few days, going this way and that way. I don’t think they’d ever be able to figure out where I ended up by following the buses.
I do think the hard part would be finding a job to be able to support myself in the mean time. I wouldn’t know how to go about getting a job under the table.
On the plus side, you can learn from the mistakes of others.
On the minus side, that article was written back in 2009-survalience has certainly gotten better in the meantime,
You know how people disappear? They just move to a new city and never communicate with their old associates. They pay for everything in cash and don’t drive. Getting pulled over while driving is the main way a random citizen comes in contact with the cops, then they run your plates and your license, and they find out you’re wanted for 37 felonies in 16 states.
Seriously, fingerprints? Fingerprints can identify you, but it’s not like they have fingerprinting roadblocks where they round up everyone and fingerprint them looking for fugitives. Yeah, if you get picked up by the cops for some random misdemeanor they’ll run your prints. Otherwise how do fingerprints help?
And they certainly don’t have cameras set up on sidewalks, trying to match faces that pass by to fugitives.
Patterns of behavior? What, like you always eat at a particular Italian restaurant on Thursdays and always order the manicotti with a glass of red and always leave a $6 tip in the form of three two dollar bills? And after you’re a fugitive you have to keep doing it?
Yes, if the cops take a look at me and try to figure out if I’m really that guy who jumped bail in Miami four years ago, I’m probably sunk. But what leads the cops in Seattle to do that to a random guy walking down the street?
The way they catch you is that they’re watching your Mom, and your wife, and your kid, and when you show up for your mom’s funeral they arrest you. If you can just stop contacting your family and associates, don’t drive, and pay for things in cash, then you avoid 99% of the ways cops catch fugitives.
Meh. No way I’d leave this life behind just because some asshole wants me dead. I’ll arm myself and take lots of precautions until the situation is dealt with, but I’m not going anywhere. [/fighting the hypothetical]
Yes, I could disappear, I think. We have enough cash lying around that I could abscond with it and live for a while, while I arranged things. I’d stay in the states, go somewhere I’ve never been, re-create myself. This would be unimaginably cruel to my husband and family, whose lives would be turned upside down looking for and worrying about me. I’d basically rather die than do that to them.
Yes, I would get my alternative set of identification (passport, DL’s, credit cards tied to a completely separate address unrelated to my true identity) that I previously put together for just the sort of occasion, along with about $20k of cash. Walk out the door and Omar would never be seen again.
Again? It was hard enough the first two times…
Homer, Alaska.
It’s certainly possible but it would be one hell of a sucky life. Paying for things in cash in Canada is easy enough if you’re buying food but even shitholes for rent want references and credit checks. The homeless life is not appealing anywhere but in a cold country it’s especially horrible. I guess it’s not as cold in Vancouver, where homeless people get murdered a lot, so that’s not great either.
Leaving the country would mean creating a paper trail.
Pretty much this. Whitey Bulger hid in plain sight for 16 years like this, and he was on the “most wanted” list. Unless you are somehow incredibly physically distinctive there’s no reason to live in some third world hellhole just to evade the feds.