Sometimes I forget how I got into the how to disappear business. Recently, I did an interview with AIR MAIL Magazine, and the journalist, Mark Ellwood, asked about the origin story. It begins in a bookstore in NJ. I saw a guy buying books about travel and offshore living, and it prompted a conversation about what he planned to do. I laid out how I would locate him through his credit card transactions and flight records.
Read How to Disappear Completely in AIR MAIL
Before our conversation, he had never heard of a skip tracer. If you don’t know, it’s someone who locates people. I was somewhat deadly; I was also a social engineer and could dip into companies and extract private information. He hired me to help him disappear completely.
Back then, in the mid-2000s, it was more about manipulating footprints, deviating from known data on personal accounts, and creating disinformation to make it look like you vanished to A, not B. The process itself was simpler than it is today. Surveillance, and now AI, have made the act of vanishing more challenging. Actually, we’ve contributed to that challenge too, with our dependence on mobile phones and the idea of scrolling. We create the patterns that will eventually lead to our whereabouts.
The days of picking up books from a bookstore and getting on a plane to disappear are somewhat over. Sure, finding, planning, and executing are easier than ever. The predator is invisible, backed by billion-dollar companies and intrusive governments. The information gathered by these two can give access to the face-to-face predator planning to harm you. On top of that, your own behavior can betray you.
What is the how to disappear solution? It begins with knowing that disappearing is only one small piece of the plan, and it is not about footprints anymore. It is about you and how you go about your disappearance. Are your behavior or patterns recognizable in your actions online? Have you searched yourself and asked AI what your patterns are, how a predator would hunt you, and what about you would be your downfall? What you learn will surprise and help you.
About Frank M. Ahearn
I am Frank M. Ahearn, a privacy expert, The Blackmail Fixer, and author of the New York Times bestseller How to Disappear. I began my career in 1984 as a skip tracer, finding people who did not want to be found. Eventually, I reversed the work and began helping people disappear.
Today, my work involves disappearing, extreme privacy, identity separation, and taking over blackmail cases. I work directly with my clients, not through a staff or a team.
Books by Frank M. Ahearn
How to Disappear: Erase Your Digital Footprint, Leave False Trails, and Vanish Without a Trace — My original book on disappearing, controlling information, and becoming difficult to locate.
How to Disappear: AI War Edition — Disappearing in a world where AI can study our habits, behavior, and patterns.
How to Disappear Journal — Seventy questions to make you think about disappearing before you act.
How to Disappear: A Pocket Guide to Thinking, Planning, and Staying Gone — Understanding the decisions, behavior, and mistakes that can lead to being found.
More About My Work
How to Disappear — How I entered the disappearance business and what disappearing means today.
I Was a Skip Tracer — My history finding people, social engineering, and extracting private information.
Disappear Privacy — My work helping people protect their privacy, separate identities, and become difficult to locate.
If you need help with an extreme privacy problem, want to disappear, or need to protect your identity, contact me directly. I am Frank M. Ahearn, a privacy expert with decades of experience finding people and helping them become difficult to find. I handle all cases personally and discreetly.
FA@FrankAhearn.com
The Little Black Book of Skip Tracing Is Coming Back!
My book about the underground information business, skip tracing, social engineering, and pretexting is returning in a revised Second Edition. These are my firsthand stories of finding people, obtaining private information, and the questionable things I did along the way. Some legal, some not. No bullshit.
Pre-order The Little Black Book of Skip Tracing by Frank M. Ahearn on Amazon.