By Frank M. Ahearn
The Little Black Book of Skip Tracing is coming back in a new second edition. I am going through the original manuscript, cleaning up the writing and revisiting my years in the underground information business.
Back in my kick-ass days of skip tracing, I sold everything from unpublished telephone numbers to criminal records. Lawyers, private investigators, and insurance companies were among my clients. Criminal records were a good moneymaker, and I sold them for anywhere from $125 to $250 per name.
One of my sources was Sal, a New Jersey cop who looked more like a mobster than a police officer. Silk suits, Italian/New Jersey accent, the whole works. I liked Sal, and we made boatloads of money.
Then there was Gene, a retired cop who was a pain in the ass. One day, he supplied a criminal report claiming a subject had no record. My client faxed over a list of arrests. When I confronted Gene, his response was simple: shit happens.
Not a good look for me.
I also had another problem. Some of the people requesting information were bent-nose guys from New York City. I began wondering what would happen if the wrong person discovered I had pulled their private information.
It was time to stop relying on sources.
One afternoon, I went to Penn Station in Manhattan, where there was a bank of payphones. I decided to try something I had never done before: pretext the NYPD.
I posed as a detective and contacted a police station in the Bronx. I had no idea whether the pretext would work.
A few minutes later, I had the criminal information I requested.
Holy shit! It worked.
The days of using sources were over.
That is one of the stories in The Little Black Book of Skip Tracing. There are plenty more about the underground information business, pretexting, social engineering, and the people I encountered along the way.
Some of what I did was legal. Some of it wasn’t. I am not going to rewrite my history to make myself look like a choirboy.
The Little Black Book of Skip Tracing — Second Edition, 2026.
Coming back.
About Frank M. Ahearn
Frank M. Ahearn is a privacy expert, former skip tracer, and author of the New York Times bestseller How to Disappear. He began skip tracing in 1984, working in the underground information business, locating people, and using social engineering to obtain private information. Today, he uses his knowledge of how people are found to help others protect their privacy, prevent exposure, and take control of their lives. He is also known as The Blackmail Fixer.