Do you have to disappear? Frank Ahearn, Master of Skip Tracing, can help to disappear at the right price – New York Daily News

Frank Ahearn used to hunt on the Lam, pursued the goals of British tabloids and smoke unsavory characters who had left the network.

Nowadays, when people come to Ahearn, do not look for someone, they want to disappear – and they are ready to pay.

The Upper West Sider receives 12,000 to 20,000 US dollars to help customers leave the house and not to become understandable for debt collectors, stalkers or other persons who are looking for them.

“People go for two reasons – either money or violence,” said Ahearn, 48, who wrote a book by “how to disappear” his craft, published this autumn.

He helped a company to reward whistleblower from the government into the Caribbean and to avoid possible retaliation from the people he has thrown away. He helped escape abuse.

Ahearn perfected the disappeared plot after spending 26 years as a skip tracer – a bounty hunter who detects people who have deliberately disappeared. Started by debt collectors or customers with resentment tracers and use public databases and credit reports to find addresses and telephone numbers for a goal.

“If you are looking for someone, you don't look for him, you are looking for what he has left behind,” he said.

The true trick of trade is what Ahearn calls a “preload” or lies to obtain information. He called banks and telephone companies that pretended to be the person he was looking for.

He also had Blarney family members and old neighbors to give up details about the new life of a goal.

A sneaky method with which he verified the new address of a person was to camouflage himself as a manor, who tried to return a damaged package. This trick worked at Monica Lewinsky when a tabloid was put on to track down.

Ahearn said he found 99% of the people he chased, but the business became tough over the years because stricter data protection laws lodged banks and telephone companies into a crime.

Ahearn – He says that he helped the mob to track down people who owed money, was also burned out from the bad karma.

“I just couldn't do it anymore,” he said. “I knew that this work was a limited run in life.”

With a ponytail, two faded tattoos on the left arm and against sunglasses, Ahearn comes from easy to withdraw and talkative, but he has a tough past.

He grew up in Inwood and later in the Bronx, whereby his father led illegal gambling cavities.

At the age of 18, Ahearn had played in a drug rehab for a year. When he got out, he started a job with a private investigative company that did hidden work in retail stores to prevent employee thefts.

This led to opportunities to skip the company.

Ahearn began to make people disappear two years ago when he happened to have a conversation in a book business in New Jersey with the corporate whistleblower.

Interest exploded after Ahearn wrote about his tactics for escapecartist.com, a website that offers tips on accounting offshore.

He did a full -time business about a year ago.

Part of the job teaches customers how to set up Shell company and use prepaid phones. He owes them to how they can outsmart private investigators and skip tracer.

The business is booming, but he plans to call it a career soon.

“I do what I do to make money. It was a goal to end the skipping of tracing,” he said. “I only see myself for a year or something.”

jfanelli@nydailynews.com

Originally published: December 5, 2010 at 4:00 a.m. EST