How to Fake Your Death and Start a New Life

I am writing this with the presumption that somebody will be looking for you in your new life, whether it is family members, the law, finance companies or your crazy girlfriend. If it is the case that nobody will be looking for you, then just leave. You don't need to cover your tracks, because nobody will try to follow them.

But in the much more complex case that you want to be untraceable, or somebody is trying to find you, hopefully this guide will be of some help. I also recommend for everyone to watch the documentary 'Erasing David', where one man attempts to hide from Cerberus, a company of private investigators, for one month. It highlights just how much personal information is available to somebody who is looking for it. There are a few things to note before you attempt to disappear:

• You MUST be ready to sever all ties with your old life. Family, friends, job, that girl you met at a bar once, pretty much everything you own, even your personality has to change. Some of these are much harder to leave behind than you might think.
• If you are wanted by the law, the whole process will be much, much harder. They have resources. There are people who make their living finding missing people, and you can bet your ass they will be after you.
• Disappearing properly takes time. You can't do it overnight. If you rush it, you make mistakes, and if you make mistakes you get found. It is also a complicated procedure that requires patience, money and some technical skills. It won't be easy.
• After disappearing your life will never be the same. From the day you start you will be almost cripplingly paranoid. You will never trust another person. You will never be able to sleep with both eyes closed. You must be ready to leave everything at a moment's notice.

Select a cover story, new name and location.

The first thing you will need is a plan. Where will you go? Who will you be when you get there? Your new life can have absolutely no ties to your old life. That means randomly picking a new place to live, not choosing your favourite holiday destination, or the town your mother grew up. The one thing you do need to make sure is that nobody from your old life will accidentally stumble into you. That means you need to go a long way, and nowhere of importance to anyone you knew.

You will also need a cover story. Remember, your previous life no longer exists to you. That means you need to think up a new one for yourself. Choose something realistic, and untraceable. Don't say you were a child prodigy, and don't copy the life of someone who is real. Make sure none of the things you say would have left a record, such as your job. Be as vague as possible whilst still being consistent.

Next, you will need a new name to go with your identity. Choose something common, like John, but something believable too, so not John Doe. Do not change your name officially with the registrar. Not only will this raise suspicion you are about to disappear, it will be traceable. Anyone looking will find records of your name change and will know your new name, making it useless.

Acquire funds

You will also need cash. Once you disappear you can't use your credit cards. You can't take out a loan. You probably can't get a job for some time, so you will need a lot of cash. As much as you can get. In fact the more you can get, the easier and longer you can disappear for. But you can't just go to your bank and withdraw all of your money.

One effective method that ties in quite well with later sections is to fake a gambling addiction. Go to a casino every night and spend a little bit of money. As little as possible whilst still playing the casino. Always play with cash, don't just start a tab as some casinos allow. Each time you play, take out what you need for the casino (as little as possible) plus a chunk extra, which you will take home with you and add to your growing cash supplies.

Make sure it is not an unrealistically large extra. Don't play $30 in the casino and withdraw $10,000, as that is unbelievable. Keep doing this for as long as possible until you have as much cash as you can get. Make sure you register as a member of the casino, so there is a record of you attending the casino many times. Try out a few casinos as well, and take out a membership in each.

Create your new identity

This is the hardest of all the sections. You need to create the person you will become. Choose a new appearance and personality and practise being that person, but obviously not in front of anyone else. Learn your cover story by heart.

Start with a new g-mail address. You can create one of these without needing a reference email or phone number, so it can be anonymous, and under your new name.

From here, just start networking. Start a facebook page, link up some more hotmail accounts, take out a phone contract, anything you can think of that leaves a digital signature related to this new persona.

Eventually, if you are good enough (there are some illegal steps in here which I cannot cover) you will have enough of a person to acquire a birth certificate. After that you are unstoppable. Get a bank account, a passport and a driving license. But do all this online through an anonymous browser such as Tor Network, to ensure your IP address cannot be tracked to your location, and that there is no history of you doing this.

Change your name and appearance

So, you have a flawless cover story, a new identity, a plan and a lot of cash. At this point, you are ready to disappear. From now on, you go by your new name, new appearance and new personality. You don't use your credit cards, your car or anything you used to own. You don't even know who you were before this, you didn't exist.

Create a false lead

One of the most important parts in this whole process is creating a false lead. If you can make pursuers look in the wrong direction, you can escape a lot more effectively. Probably the most effective way of doing this is to fake your death through suicide. But this won't be easy, and you can't leave a body.

Write a suicide note addressed to your partner, parents or someone else of significance, which blames your suicide on bankruptcy or guilt for something you say you did, such as you killed someone and can't live with yourself any more. Be sure it is something believable. If you are claiming bankruptcy make sure you don't have thousands of pounds in your account.

Either way, in the weeks leading up to this suicide you need to be acting increasingly depressed, detached and despondent. Then, fake your death. One suggestion is to drive to a coastal region with cliffs, leave your car parked next to the edge with the note in it, and after making sure there are no witnesses, walk or cycle throughout the night, aiming to get as far away as you can. Evidence will suggest you jumped and your body was washed out to sea. This is even more convincing if done at sunset and there is a pretty view from the cliffs of the sun going down. Very poetic, very believable.

Travel as far as you can that night, ending at a train station. Take the train to a half way location under another false name. This is another randomly selected location, nowhere near where you used to live or where you plan to live in your new life. You will stay here for only a few days. Book into a cheap hotel under yet another false name, and make sure it isn't one that asks for I.D. as some now do. Pay with cash.

Disappear

Now you are ready to be gone for good. Travel to your new location. Stay at a hotel and move each week until you sort a permanent address. Stick to your new cover story and identity, and most importantly, remember the old you is dead, and you never knew that person. You can't talk about you, and you can't be you. If you ever see anyone you used to know, or hear your old name mentioned, you move immediately. Change your name once again, find a new life and start again. This will be a tough life, but congratulations, you have now disappeared.

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