The perils of flaunting your wealth on social media

It's a lesson you're not likely to forget: If you're trying to convince the world you're broke, then don't post pictures of yourself posing with your private jet. 

With the release this week of the Panama Papers, the world is taking a harder look at where the rich and powerful find their money and the industry that hides it for them. 

Tracking wealth is something Daniel Hall knows quite well.  He's a corporate investigator, and the Director of Global Judgment Enforcement at Burford Capital in London, England.

His company is hired by corporations, often facing large multi-jurisdictional disputes. 

"My job is turn to legal paper into cold hard cash," Hall tells Day 6 host Brent Bambury. 

When people are owed money for a variety of reasons, they call Hall. Simply put, he finds out where people or companies are hide it and figures out a way to get it back. 

He says his new best tool is social media. 

"Most of what we do is evidence gathering. We start with the more traditional circumstances like newspaper clippings and corporate databases but given the explosive growth of social media, it's becoming a rich sea of information", Hall says.  

Though it wasn't one of Hall's cases, he uses 50 Cent's recent Instagram post to illustrate what he calls the jackpot moment. 

"It's pretty easy to see because he's sitting there with bricks of cash," he says. 

The rapper filed for bankruptcy last year, claiming he's 28 million dollars in debt but this week he posted pictures of himself flaunting thousands in cash.  Judge Ann Nevins called him out but 50 Cent insists it was all a joke and the money is fake. 

Social media its becoming a rich sea of information.- Daniel Hall on finding hidden wealth from Instagram posts

Hall says he's seen similar examples involving cars and yachts and in one case, he was chasing people convicted of fraud at, what he calls, a very high level and the jackpot moment presented itself. 

"We came across an Instagram post [of someone] posing in front of a brand new private jet with, amongst other things, their initials on the side of the plane," Hall says. "Sometimes it's very flagrant."

YOUNG HEIRS GIVE AWAY THE GOODS

If you're looking at trends, it tends to be the older generations that are perhaps less prolific social media users and the younger generations the ones that are," Hall says. He says often, it's the children of people being investigated for fraud who post conspicuous pictures online— which suggests their parents aren't telling the truth about how much money they really have.

He sees a time when social media training is no longer exclusive to celebrities and professional athletes. 

"I can foresee a scenario in which it's given out to family members, business associates and employees of someone who thinks they could be involved in a dispute," he says but nothing is ironclad. 

"Once you start finding a business associate's connections, all you need is to find a client on a yacht in the Bahamas taking a snap of himself and all the social media training you've got is out the window."

Because social media is part of the public record, the information gleaned from Twitter, Instagram or Facebook accounts could stand up in court. 

HUGE OVERLAP WITH PANAMA PAPERS

Halls says most of the work he does is going up against offshore companies where they have found assets linked to them. 

"The challenge I often face in my job is to stacking up the legal claims to say some offshore company is actually owned by Mr. X or Mrs X or whoever I'm chasing. So it's lovely to see the hiders get exposed once in a while," Hall says.