How We Do Seraches
How We Locate Information?
As part of the first team to trace SWIFT transactions from post financial analysis, I have helped teach dozens of federal investigative agencies as well as well as select members of my team, the techniques employeed in money tracking. I helped develop the art of locating key data points used to track and verify funds availability form transaction processors.
With the development of blockchain technology, I realized that financial institutions were going to adopt this technology for clearing and settlement purposes. My firm is one of the few sources that use the in-depth scanning techniques needed to locate blockchain transactions, used by an ever-growing number of financial institutions in an ever-changing environment.
How do we locate assets?
All electronic money transactions (everything that is not cash) are processed through SWIFT, ACH, or credit card networks. This includes deposits, checks, debit card transactions, online bill pay, wires, and pretty much every financial transaction used today. As long as it is not a strict cash deposit or withdrawal, it is processed through one of these networks. These networks pass data to third party transactional companies that process the back-end data that provide provisional information and then confirm with SWIFT confirmations from the account providing institution. By using third party software that process the back-end information used by financial institutions, we find electronic footprints that show active accounts being used by the search subject, unless the subject has an opt out agreement on file, as is their right under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley act.
With the advent of blockchain, about 50% of banks no longer use third party processors for their financial transactions. This limits the number of accounts that can be located using the old method. I and several others developed a database of ledger transactions beginning in 2014. Therefore, we are one of the few firms that can provide theses traces.
If a firm does not have access to the original ledger information that we began building in 2014, it is impossible for them to locate accounts at institutions using blockchain.
