54 THE WIDE WORLD OF FRAUD The Thief As frauds go, Homer Forster's was plain vanilla--a straight theft. Homer had invested his clients' nest eggs in variable annuities. In December 1993, he forged redemption requests to the annuity com- panies, directing them to liquidate the investments and send the pro- ceeds to his business, the Center for Financial Planning. With $1.6 million of his clients' money in hand, Homer and his girlfriend fled the United States with phony passports that they had acquired in the weeks leading up to the theft. I got the case while I was an enforce- ment branch chief at the SEC. We sent Homer's name and physical description to the U.S. Cus- toms Service quickly, but Homer and his girlfriend slipped across the border with the phony passports. They fled to Luxembourg, where they collected the money that they had stolen and wired ahead. They