Next steps in extortion case - ideas?

Sat Jun 28 17:48:01 UTC 2014

Am 28.06.2014 15:05, schrieb Justin M. Streiner:
> Have you contacted your local police, or the German equivalent (the
> BKA?) of the United States' FBI?
 > [...]
> My personal opinion is that having a PI go to the individual's house
> would not accomplish more than 'tipping your hand' to that person -
> letting them know that you've committed resources to tracking them down.

I haven't contacted any law enforcement agency yet, because I'm not yet 
certain which one(s), where, and whether it's a good move at this point. 
According to my experience, German police is too slow, even if it's just 
passing on the case to the next "higher" agency. Somehow I think it 
would be most effective to have several investigations, that I start by 
myself, in parallel. E.g. in Russia -> collect the data of the person 
who's paying for the domain/hosting, so I guess I need a lawyer in 
Russia to contact sledcom.ru (the Russian equivalent of the FBI, I 
think), who in turn hopefully will make the Russian hosting provider 
provide that data. At the same time, a lawyer in the US to do the same 
for the phone number. In parallel, the same for the US hosting providers 
that were used in the past by that individual.

But, before I can do all that, won't I need sufficient proof? What I 
have at this point is a phone number, but I cannot be sure that the 
connected name and addresses, which I found solely based on web 
research, is accurate, and even if they were, that's no evidence for 
anything. This is why I came up with the PI idea, which I didn't explain 
properly enough. I didn't mean the PI to knock at some doors and say 
"Hello there, Markus from Germany sends me, are you <name>?" - hehe. :) 
I meant that the PI should perform surveillance and observe who's 
arriving and leaving, and if a person matches the picture I provided or 
maybe ethnicity/age, walk up to him and ask for the way to the bus stop 
or something, in order to check whether his voice matches. If it does, 
and if the PI can document this in a way that can be used in court, I 
have an address and a name I can use to pass to lawyers/law enforcement.

When I write all this I always have in mind that law enforcement 
research is slow. Talking about Germany now, don't know about the US. 
Especially in a case like this where no life is in danger or where 
there's no other immediate threat. This is why I'm thinking: I better 
do/initiate as much research as I can by myself. Once I've collected 
everything I can from all kinds of sources I'll throw the whole bunch of 
documents to a lawyer/LE in the US.

Doesn't make sense? Wrong thinking?

Thanks!
Markus