Fleeing the country

sfoster said:

Fleeing the country.
It seems to happen a lot in stories.

In breaking bad, at one point a character had a ton of money and was thinking about moving to new zealand.

In my story, a character is considering fleeing to sidney.

This whole citizenship process is confusing and doesn't seem very feasible.
Permanent visas don't seem to be much of an option either.

Does anyone know how something like that works?

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Yes, what country are they aiming to flee to and from where? What passport do they hold, how much money do they have?

gorillaonabike said:

Yes, what country are they aiming to flee to and from where? What passport do they hold, how much money do they have?

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From the united states to australia.

The destination country is not set in stone, it could be europe if australia is particularly complicated. Somewhere with a nice first world civilization and good economy.

Passports, lets say none.
Money I will ballpark at 100 million usd

From what I understand it's going to be less hard to get the person to Australia than it is to get $100 million cash into another country undetected.

At least with a person (with an american passport) you could theoretically arrive on a tourist visa and 'disappear.' Border officers look for signs of 'intent to stay' so the person would have to have all the markings of someone going just for vacation: not too many personal possessions, return ticket, that sort of thing.
No passport at all? I can't imagine that being even remotely possible. Not unless they arrive via life raft and somehow sneak past their coast guard.

But cash money? They really care about that. Good luck sneaking that over any border going anywhere.

There are plenty of ways to assume a new identity, most of them illegal, but that's the "easy" part. And with a 100 million bank roll your protagonist can afford the best.

The money can be deposited in multiple accounts and "managed" by lawyers (again, your protagonist can afford the best); that way lawyer/client privilege applies. However, even if "they" can't touch your protagonist they can still seize the money if it falls under any of the broad RICO or similar laws.

Apparently not that hard. My flatmates ex boyfriend turned out to have a lot of criminal charges. Last we heard 60 police officers were for him, but there are pictures of him on social media arriving in Europe.

But if you think the citizenship thing makes it a potential plot hole, you can write that out. Make it so the character was born in Australia, moving to the US when he was young. A parent is australian. Show him getting illegal forms of identification. Etc.

As suggested, if the character is fleeing with money, that's probably the hardest thing to get into a new country.

Being a visitor and then staying illegally is one way, but it doesn't sound very luxurious.

Alright so they'll have to get a passport.
Then travel to australia.

Maybe go to some type of fund raiser and make a huge donation. Get the attention of the right people.. and then find a way to have a permanent visa through them.

Is that a realistic plan?
Any other ideas?

Lets assume I can smuggle the money somehow.
Most of it isn't paper money, it's rare coins. Some are worth 10 million each.

sfoster said:

Lets assume I can smuggle the money somehow.
Most of it isn't paper money, it's rare coins. Some are worth 10 million each.

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There's always the old fashioned prison way: straight up the bum. But yes, the fundraiser thing would be believable to me as a viewer.

sfoster said:

Being a visitor and then staying illegally is one way, but it doesn't sound very luxurious.

Alright so they'll have to get a passport.
Then travel to australia.

Maybe go to some type of fund raiser and make a huge donation. Get the attention of the right people.. and then find a way to have a permanent visa through them.

Is that a realistic plan?
Any other ideas?

Lets assume I can smuggle the money somehow.
Most of it isn't paper money, it's rare coins. Some are worth 10 million each.

Click to expand...

People worth a 100 million have offshore accounts to hide / transfer wealth.
The world of offshore IBC's (international business corporations) hasn't seen a lot of exposure in films, but I think it could work very well.

Most companies that assist in setting up these offshore companies are located in inconspicous office buildings without any signage, featuring generic office workers while catering to an extremely wealthy clientele. These companies sometimes also assist in applying for Visa's and such. The contrast between the boring lives and the paper-pushing accountants and low-level lawyers and their clients could be an interesting addition.

There's also some interesting restrictions that you can put on the money through these constructions.
In a much-used construction by the offshore community for example, the wealthy guy invests 10$ million in a company he sets up in a tax haven, officially this company invests in real estate. In most tax havens, companies are not required to name their owners, so nobody knows that he owns it.

Next, the company buys a house in Australia (say, as an investment), and rents it to the wealthy guy at a bizarro low price. Next, the company can pay his CEO (again, the same guy, but undisclosed, ofcourse) a good sum of money for making such a good investment.

This way you restrict the direct access to 100Million cash, and give your character, despite being extremely rich, the option to run out of cash in the short term, which could increase tension.

very interesting stuff in this thread.
thanks to everyone that has contributed and will contribute in the future

As long as your character is white and has money I'm sure Australia will be happy to have them.