Six years ago, I spotted a guy in his late forties in a bookstore in New Jersey. He was buying books about offshore banking and a travel guide to Costa Rica. He paid with a credit card. Afterwards, when he sat down in the bookshop café, I decided to talk to him. “I bet you want to buy a condo in Costa Rica and bank your money in Belize,” I said. “But if you’re running from someone, you’d better avoid paying for those books with your credit card.” We talked for a while. Before I left, I gave him my business card. He was the first person I helped to disappear.

Since then, I’ve helped more than 30 people vanish – people who had problems with ex-spouses, with business partners or with criminals. Normally, it takes me between one month and three to make the necessary preparations. Depending on the case, I charge between $10,000 and $30,000, but I work free of charge for women who are being stalked.

People who hire me are usually afraid for their lives. The guy in the bookstore was a whistleblower who had worked as an accountant in a mid-sized company with government contracts. He had testified against his employer in a fraud case. Somehow, information about him had leaked and former colleagues had threatened him. He could have gone to the police, but he didn’t trust them any more.

Before I started helping people disappear, I had worked as a “skip tracer” for more than 20 years. Skip tracers are private investigators who specialise in finding people, and I was good at my job. Over the years, I located more than 50,000 people. Helping a person to disappear required reverse engineering: I asked myself how I would have found a person, and tried to smear the leads.

There are three key steps to disappearing. First, destroy old information about yourself. Call your video store or electricity company and replace your old, correct phone number with a new, invented one. Introduce spelling mistakes into your utility bills. Create a PO Box for your mail. Don’t use your credit cards and the like.

Then, create bogus information to fool private investigators who might be looking for you. Go to one city and apply for an apartment. Rent a car in another one.

The next, final step is the most important one. Move from point A to point B. Create a dummy company to pay your bills. Only use prepaid mobile phones and change them every month. It is nearly impossible to find out where you are unless you make a mistake.

This is the general rule, but some cases are trickier than others. No problem if you are self-employed, but let’s say you’re a bus driver or a teacher. Then your wages will go on your name. I once had to move a lawyer who was threatened by a former client. Lawyers need a licence. She became a legal consultant.

I still go to bookstores sometimes and observe people reading about offshore banking. I’m not looking for clients, I just do it for fun. It’s usually men in their forties or fifties who dream about leaving all their responsibilities behind. There is something romantic about the idea of starting a new life and walking away into the sunset, but for most people it’s just a daydream.

I get a lot of calls from people who want to disappear, but only one in 10 is a serious client. Some are in trouble with law enforcement or want to avoid taxes. Others want to get a new identity, a new passport or fake their own death. I don’t do illegal jobs like that, and I don’t want to get involved in money laundering.

Usually, I don’t hear back from my clients. It would be too dangerous. But my first one, the guy in the bookstore, occasionally writes me e-mails. He lives somewhere in South America and always uses different e-mail accounts. He learnt his lessons.