THE NATIONAL ASSET Management Agency is seeking to hire private detectives in a bid to ensure that its debtors are not keeping some assets hidden from their view.

The ‘bad bank’ has issued a public advertisement seeking to put together a “panel for the provision of credit verification services”, who will be tasked with ensuring that some of the State’s most indebted people cannot hide wealth beyond NAMA’s view.

Those detectives will be hired “to assist NAMA verify the accuracy and completeness of disclosures made by NAMA debators.”

The move is the agency’s latest attempt to ensure that developers – some of whom owe the company hundreds of millions – do not hold assets elsewhere of which NAMA is unaware.

NAMA has already asked its main debtors to file sworn statements outlining their assets and liabilities – meaning any evidence that these affidavits are false could result in the agency seeking major sanctions in the courts.

The investigators are likely to be focus on assets or ventures in other countries, or any assets which may have been transferred into the names of debtors’ spouses or family members.

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