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Canoe Man John Darwin yesterday pleaded guilty to faking his death for financial gain. But how simple is it

to disappear? Owen Amos tracks down an American expert who says it's easy - if you know how FRANK Ahearn's life changed in an American bookstore. He was a skip tracer - someone who looks for other people - when he saw a man buy a book on off-shore banking.

"That meant he was looking for discretion,"

says Frank. "Yet he paid with a credit card."

Afterwards, Frank saw the man in a coffee shop.

"I told him: I bet you're going to buy a place in Costa Rica and bank in Belize'. The guy just looked at me, shocked. I told him, after using his credit card, anyone could discover where he had been and what he had bought - even if he was heading to Costa Rica."

It was then the hunter started helping the hunted.

Frank became a privacy expert. Or, as his website, www.disappear.info, states: "Most people know me as the guy who teaches people how to disappear."

So what about John Darwin, who emerged, five years after being certified dead, in a London police station? "What he did is a little more extreme than what I do," says Frank.

"What he did was totally amazing. He got a passport, for example. In this day and age, trying to get a false passport is so hard to do. Here is a man who committed the near-perfect crime. If he wasn't going to jail, I'd hire him. But then he turns up in London five years later, claiming amnesia. I mean, come on.

It was equally as stupid as his crime was brilliant."

So how do people disappear? Frank, from Los Angeles, teaches three steps: misinformation, disinformation and reformation. "When you're looking for someone, you're actually looking for the information they've left behind," says Frank.

Misinformation, according to his website, is: "Taking information companies have on you and destroying it beyond recognition." Frank gives utility companies as an example. "They might have your number, address, your mom's number - you have to go and change that. That information allows people to get information on you, and find you. If they have your employer as, say Tom Dooley, then change it to - I don't know - Joe Blow. Companies sell data, this means they won't be selling the right information."

Frank has dozens of other misinformation tips.

Have post sent to a PO box - preferably in a separate town - rather than your home address. Have nonitemised phone billing. Avoid credit cards. If hiring a car, give them a fake phone number. All these leads are what skip tracers follow.

The second step, disinformation, is: "Creating false leads for the predator to follow." Skip tracers will study spending patterns and phone calls, to identify a geographical area. Frank will take a client's debit card and send it to contacts across the country, who each spend a small amount. The same contacts will also phone the client's family. "If a skip tracer accesses the bank account, or the phone records, they won't know where to look," says Frank. "Good luck on that bogus hunt."

Reformation takes it one step further. Frank suggests using pre-paid phones, one each for incoming and outgoing calls, and changing them regularly.

"When you're done, clear the history and leave the phone on a park bench," he says.

Despite that, clients needn't move too far geographically.

One client, being stalked by an ex-husband recently released from prison, simply moved to another state.

My credit card bill has just arrived, so I ask Frank whether I could disappear, but stay in England (I'd miss football and cricket).

"Sure you could," says Frank. "You could move to Liverpool, London, Dublin - anywhere. You could still do your job. If you became a freelance writer, self-employed, you could keep your privacy. Your financial affairs would go through your company. The problem is if, say, you're a bus driver. Your wages, and so on, go through their company, who need more information on you. It's definitely possible, though - so long as there's not a warrant for your arrest."

So how many people does Frank help? How many people want to disappear?

"I probably help five, six, or seven people a year - it's hard work," says Frank. "But, of every 100 people who contact me, perhaps ten are genuine. The rest are crazy. I get a lot of emails - disappearing seems to be more of an attraction these days. But only a few are capable of it."

Those six or seven people range from women being stalked, celebrities, millionaires moving off-shore, or "people who hang with bad guys". Poorer people are easier, Frank says, because they have less to hide.

He is, though, adamant he won't break the law - or help others do it. "We have to vet our clients, because I won't break the law," he says. "You never know who's wanted for a crime. I mean, you should never buy someone else's identity, because whose are you buying? They could be a paedophile, they could be anyone."

So, we've decided I could disappear - but could he?

"Sure," he says. "I could be gone in a day. To wind up in Paris - that's my ultimate plan. That's the end game." And, after our conversation, I bet he wouldn't be found. Unless he turned up in a Paris police station claiming amnesia.

THREE FAMOUS DISAPPEARING ACTS

Jesse James Hollywood

Hollywood's story was made famous in the hit 2006 film, Alpha Dog. A drug dealer in middleclass California, he ordered the murder of a rival's brother in 2000 after an argument over money.

After the murder - committed by an associate, who is now on death row - Hollywood fled the US and, despite a high-publicity campaign, he was not found. Five years later, he was tracked down in rural Brazil and arrested by Interpol agents in March 2005. He had bought a fake Canadian passport and lived under a Canadian alias, with a wife and child.

He is awaiting trial and could face death row if found guilty.

Richard Bingham, Seventh Earl of Lucan "Lord Lucan" has been missing since 1974, when his children's nanny, Sandra Rivett, was found murdered in London. An inquest recorded unlawful killing, naming Lord Lucan as the murderer.

Since he disappeared, a number of Lord Lucan sightings have been reported. One man claimed Lucan had been hiding in a zoo and had been mauled by a tiger. In 2003, the Sunday Telegraph serialised a book which claimed Lucan had emigrated to India, and lived under the alias Barry Halpin. The claim was immediately debunked. In 2007, the New Zealand Herald reported claims Lucan was living in a Land Rover with a possum, a cat and a goat. The man denies he is Lucan.

Ronnie Biggs

Biggs was jailed for the Great Train Robbery in 1963. He escaped from Wandsworth Prison in 1965, using a rope ladder to scale a wall, and fled to Paris, where he bought a new identity and had plastic surgery.

In 1970, he moved to Australia, but eventually fled to Brazil. He was tracked down by British police in 1974, but could not be extradited. In 2001, he voluntarily returned to the UK, was immediately imprisoned and remains in jail.

9:48am Friday 14th March 2008

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