Sometimes protecting your assets may mean you need to totally disappear.  If you follow these instructions you can totally disappear without a trace.  If you do not follow these instructions someone may be able to find you.  Do not think that privacy laws in onshore jurisdictions will protect you.  They will not.  For a Professional who is in the business of locating people, finding you through a magazine subscription or utility bill is child's play.  These instructions are for those who are serious about disappearing for good.  Give yourself at least 3-6 months to disappear.  Make a plan using the information in this article and stick to it.  Be methodical and do not take short-cuts. Remember these rules:

1. Cash is your friend. Start collecting it and stockpiling it somewhere nobody will look. No big cash withdrawals. Start using cash as much as possible. Take half of each withdrawal and hide it. A great hiding place is better than any safe, although a combination of the two is best.

2. In your mind separate your new untraceable self from your old identity. When contacting friends and family from your old life, use a pre-paid cell phone that you throw out every few months. This cell phone must be bought with cash.

3. Offshore privacy jurisdictions like Panama, with their offshore bank secrecy and bearer share corporations are a great asset.

Establishing Anonymous Communications

Anonymous Phone

Go to a phone shop and buy a pre-paid cell phone with cash. You may want to buy 2 or 3 cell phones and avoid having to repeat this procedure for some time. Buy plenty of airtime cards. Make sure the prepaid cell phone you need can make international calls to countries like Panama. Research this before leaving. (Do your research on a public computer at a library or internet cafe. Never on your personal computer.)

Anonymous Credit/Debit Card

Some department stores and some gas stations provide anonymous credit cards you can buy with cash. Typically they are gift cards with a mastercard or visa logo. Go and buy one with your cash. Some places now require they mail it somewhere. You may need to rent a cheap apartment with cash to facilitate this.

Computer Security

There is none that can be totally trusted. I recommend you buy a flash drive and make it bootable. This is technically challenging but if you get it working it is fantastic. You can carry with you all your private files in it. All the temporary and swap files that any forensic program can extract are all contained on the flash drive. Alternatively, do absolutely everything on public computers like a public library or Internet cafe. Buy a flash drive and keep all your work on that drive.

Anonymous Internet 

Choose a privacy provider like FindNot that does NOT keep logs for long. Learn how to chain proxies. Anything critical should be done through a service like findnot and at least one proxy. Connect to the privacy service first and then the proxy.

Anonymous Fax

Using findnot and an anonymous public proxy sign up to j2.com. Use your anonymous credit card to pay for it.

Anonymous Payments

When you are unable to use your gift credit cards, ask the vendor if they accept money orders. If they do simply go down to a postal outlet and buy a postal money order with cash and send it. Another alternative is a walmart money order.

Anonymous Email

Hushmail is probably the best and most secure email. Buy the service on a secure ip address (using findnot and an open proxy chained together). An easy way to do this is to connect to findnot using their VPN option, then connect to an open proxy using socks 4 or 5. You will need to do some reading to teach yourself how to do this. There is plenty of information available via google.

Making your assets disappear

The best jurisdiction today for complete anonymity is Panama. Buy a Panama bank account and a bearer share corporation. You will need to provide your real identity documents, but bank secrecy in Panama is trustable. Employees that break your privacy face jail time. DO NOT WIRE THE MONEY DIRECTLY TO PANAMA. Buy an offshore bank account in another jurisdiction, then wire your money to that jurisdiction and then wire the money to Panama. Use a trusted name to buy your offshore corporation and bank account like OffshoreLegal.org Name your corporation with a name that can also sound like a person. The advantage is that not all service will accept only a company name if they realize you are giving them company information. For example, name your corporation, Jono Willis LLC. Use a name that does not relate to you in any way. Now when you buy your services such as gas or hydro or phone, give them your company name, “Jono Willis”

Flying to your new home Country

Panama has a residency program that is quite friendly, but DO NOT fly directly there. Instead fly to another privacy jurisdiction. From the airport, using cash, buy a ticket to Panama, and fly there.

If you really want to be anonymous you need to acquire a second citizenship and second passport (through OffshoreLegal.org). Fly to the first jurisdiction using your normal passport. Then fly to Panama using your second passport.

Staying Anonymous

Contacting family and friends

In Panama your can also buy pre-paid cell phone using cash. For an added layer of security use a pre-paid phone card also bought with cash. Dispose of both the phone and the phone card every few months.

Obviously not everyone needs this level of security and privacy. You can modify these instructions to suite your situation. For most people just moving their assets to Panama with a bearer share corporation will suffice.

Buy services in the new country

If you want to remain anonymous, you should put absolutely nothing in your name. Use your corporate name to buy everything, including utilities. As previously mentioned, choose a company name that can also pass as a name of a person. That way the person processing your application will not ask you for your name. If you hire a driver or maid (which are relatively cheap in Panama) they may let you use their name as an alternative.

Do not forward any subscriptions, like a magazine subscription. It is a dead giveaway and all your effort will be for not.

Here are some obvious DOs and DON'Ts (but it is amazing how many people screw up on these):

1. Don't buy anything with your old credit cards for your new place.

2. Don't access any of your old accounts, subscriptions or whatever. If you must, do it with a prepaid cell phone bought with cash and a prepaid long distance card bought with cash.

3. Don't use your frequent flyer account when flying to your new place.

4. Don't use anything from your old life PERIOD.

5. You are a new person, in a new place. Act like one. Don't try to access anything from your old life. If you have to, think it though long and hard, how to do it without leaving a trail.

The following instructions will protect you from almost anyone after your assets. They are not intended to and will not likely protect your from criminal activities. For example, if you are a criminal, another country may use the MLAT treaty to break all your secrecy. Panama will protect you only if what you did is not a crime in Panama. For example, tax evasion is not a crime in Panama, so if you evaded taxes, Panama will not co-operate with an MLAT request for information on you, under those circumstances.