Whereas cash is virtually untraceable, cheques provide investigating authorities with perhapes the most complete set of opportunities for finding out who paid what to whom, when - and by asking around, perhapes also why.

Both the face and the back of any cleared cheque is stored for posterity on microfilm, giving away the following information to those who may care to look: name and location of issuing bank, account number on which cheque was drawn, issuing date, amount, to whom the cheque was made out to, and a nice copy of the signature of the account owner.

The back of the cheque will likewise show the signature of whoever cashed or deposited the cheque plus, if applicable, the signature of the original recipient who later endorsed it and, lastly either number of the ID (passport, driving license) used to cash the cheque or the number of the account to which the cheque was deposited.

Now isn't that nice - if you write a cheque on an account later established to be owned by you, not only may any remaining funds in the account be seized, liened or attached but microfilm copies of all cheques ever drawn on the