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 account may be easily procured and investigated.

That is why, if you do not want anyone to know where you live, you should never use a cheque to pay your rent - not even once. If the account is ever discovered to be connected to you then the police, tax authorities or private investigator will have a direct lead to your landlord and, through him, to your physical whereabouts.

Reversely, anyone receiving a cheque from you may opt to make a photocopy of it before depositing it and will in this fashion retain information about your bank account. If you use a cheque to make the first few instalments on, say, rent or a loan that you later fail to keep up, the clever creditor or landlord will be in a position to furnish a court with all the information that is necessary to freeze ot seize your account and everything in it. If you pay your maildrop by cheque, you have totally blown your cover.

To further elaborate on the problems this may cause you, suppose you are in another country and pay something by a cheque drawn on an account which, unbeknown to you, has been frozen in your absence. As a foreigner, you will most likely have to show your passport for the cheque to be accepted and your passport number will be noted on the back. When the cheque later turns out to be bad, the person on the receiving end of the bad cheque will be in a position to give local authorities your passport number - which may result in your being apprehended at the airport the next time you either enter or leave the country (the latter provided that computer checks are made of passport numbers on departing that country).

Now, you may not wish to live without cheques although it is perfectly possible and much safer. But take all relevant precautions. You should fully realise that whenever you write a cheque, you implicitly give anyone in a position toinvestigate either your own account or that belonging to the recipient of the cheque, a veritable carte blanche to persue the connection between you and him very thoroughly. The worst part of it is that it may not even be you yourself who needs to make a mistake - someone else may make the mistake for you, opening a Pandora's box of grief for you. Let us say that you paid a solicitor for services rendered - by cheque. Unfortunately, the solicitor turns out to be crooked and in cahoots with parts of the underworld. Investigators poring over his financial records and bank accounts notice that you made a payment to their suspect. This, in turn, may lead to your phone being tapped and your mail intercepted and examined to see if you too are connected to the underworld. Have you anything to hide?

On the other hand, you may still use cheques to move money from A to B without a record of use to anyone being created by this. One example is that you move money into a secret, offshore bank account a lot easier than going there in person by sending cheques to your bank - as long as you use Cashiers Cheques that you have obtained without disclosing your identity or presenting any ID whatsoever.

Travelers cheques would also be useful if you were eventually paying them into an offshore account of your own: check out whether you have to sign them in front of the cashier at the point of purchase. Failing that, the good old fashioned postal order; find out the latest maximum value of the highest order, bought without ID and acceptable paid into your offshore bank account. Check it out.