Rich Kids on Instagram Are Revealing Their Parents' Shadiness to Investigators
Instagram posts by rich kids have led to more incriminating evidence for prosecutors about their parents' fraud schemes, The Guardian reports. Leading cybersecurity firms told the site they have been using social media evidence to nail fraud and assets in up to 75 percent of their cases.
Managing director of cybersecurity and investigations at Kroll Andrew Beckett explained firms have been monitoring billionaires', oligarchs', and super rich investors' (unnamed) children's Instagram accounts because oftentimes they geo-tag their extravagant posts, allowing authorities to investigate where exactly their parents are spending their money.
Another cybersecurity expert explained to The Guardian his firm recently was able to seize a "newly acquired private jet" by a fraudster because his son posted a picture of him and his father in front of the jet to Instagram. Similarly, K2 Intelligence in London solved a recovery asset case when a man who claimed to have no significant valuables let his children post pictures on their $25 million yacht in the Bahamas.
Even if a possibly incriminating photo is not geotagged, director of global judgment enforcement at Burford Capital Daniel Hall explained experts are able to use the metadata of the Instagram to find out where it was posted or use a Facebook like for the same reason. He explained: "You can start building up a profile of that individual: where they are; what their interests are; who are they regularly in touch with?"
According to GQ, 50 Cent got in trouble for the exact same reason after he posted the below photo of himself with $100 bills spelling out "BROKE" just a few months after he declared bankruptcy. He was supposedly forced to explain the circumstances of the photo (he said the bills were fake) in court.
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