The Swiss bank account remains the classic offshore device. Switzerland has a long history of respecting individual financial privacy, and its legal and financial systems are renowned for their stability. “No one can just go snooping around and ask a bank for information and expect it to comply,” says private banker Robert Vrijhof, of Weber Hartmann Vrijhof & Partners in Zurich.

“The cheapest way of protecting yourself as a U.S. citizen is to have an offshore account,” adds Thomas Fischer, head of international client relations at Jyske Bank Private Banking in Copenhagen. While Denmark does not have the stringent banking secrecy laws in place that Switzerland and other countries can boast, investors can gain a degree of asset protection simply by placing their wealth in such a jurisdiction outside the United States. “We wouldn’t even respond if a [U.S.] lawyer wrote to us asking to freeze an account,” Fischer admits. “It would have to go through the Danish legal system. It would be a very lengthy and expensive process for an American lawyer to get a Danish lawyer to get an injunction.”