What can law enforcement and government agencies do to uncover the identities of individuals circumventing sanctions with crypto? Sanctions are a key tool for governments to protect their interests and enforce international norms of behavior. Sanctions are often financial in nature, including capital restraints, asset freezes and trade restrictions, but can also include travel bans…
From the Future Case in the “Bottom Drawer” to Decision Intelligence In the archives of the US Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) history, the image of a seasoned criminal investigator stashing away a file in the metaphorical “bottom drawer” is iconic. While rooted in practicality, this practice is symbolic of a bygone era when…
For law enforcement agencies looking to extract crucial insights from their data to accelerate investigations and threat detection, the first steps are to access, cleanse, and transform the data. Once accomplished, entity resolution (ER) emerges as the final stage before conducting analytics using a data fusion or decision intelligence platform. ER is pivotal in consolidating…
During my tenure as the Assistant Director of Tax and Financial Investigations at the Mexican Tax Attorney’s Federal Office, I saw the growth of organized crime firsthand. We often think of serious or drug-related crimes when we think of organized crime, but money laundering and corruption are the financial engines that fuel organized groups, cartels,…
For many of us, ChatGPT has quickly become our go-to tool for writing that tricky email or planning a dream vacation. Unfortunately, the dark side of this new technology is that criminals are also enthusiastically embracing AI bots – but for illicit purposes. One indication of criminals’ interest can be seen in a report by NordVPN, which…
Accessing abundant data, including metadata, plays a crucial role in accelerating law enforcement investigations and allowing authorities to quickly adapt to emerging situations and threats. However, the value of the insights gained is dependent on the data being properly cleansed, enriched, fused and analyzed. Applying different transformations through ETL (Extract-Transform-Load), ELT (Extract-Load-Transform), and Federated Search…
In 2023, approximately 120 zettabytes* of data are expected to be generated worldwide. A single zettabyte is 10^21 – which is a 1 followed by 21 zeros (a trillion gigabytes). That’s a lot of data, and the volume increases exponentially each year. It’s safe to say, at these sizes, not all data sets can be…
Tax Fraud is Winning the Race Tax fraud is a growing problem, with ever more sophisticated tactics employed by perpetrators. Traditional analytics tools and BI solutions are struggling to keep up, leaving tax authorities grappling with the staggering costs of tax evasion and fraud. In the EU, it amounts to a mind-boggling €824 billion annually,…
Money laundering is a common theme among many crypto crimes. Criminal actors exploit the anonymity of the blockchain to launder profits from both off-chain and on-chain crimes to obfuscate the sources of illicit funds and convert them into cash, which can then be moved into the legitimate banking system. Cryptocurrency is used by criminals to launder funds from…
Accurate data is crucial for effective analytics, as it can impact government and enterprise organizations in terms of time, money, reputation, customers, and even safety. Just like a fuel filter removes impurities before reaching a car engine, transformation functions are necessary for analytics to ensure high-quality data for decision-making. The adage ‘Garbage In, Garbage Out’…
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