Posted on January 27, 2019 in Criminal Law
I) WEBSITES THAT CAN HELP YOUR ASSET SEARCHES
This is my 12th post at https://www.assetsearchblog.com about what private investigators can and can not legally do when conducting asset searches. One thing most private investigators do during asset searches is look for publicly available information a.k.a. Open Source Intelligence (“OSINT”). Websites that can help private investigators collect OSINT, are listed at https://osintframework.com . It has links to websites like Spydialer which identifies phone numbers & FotoForensics the digital photo forensics tool. Additional OSINT tools are featured at the blog article https://www.learnallthethings.net/blog/2018/3/27/osint-researchers.
II) HOW OSINT CHANGED THE COURSE OF A MONEY LAUNDERING INVESTIGATION
Law enforcement officials also use OSINT. This is demonstrated by prosecutors in Poland who were searching for assets allegedly laundered by a shell company. The prosecutors researched the shell company by using CorporationWiki’s website, which harvests OSINT. This research revealed the shell company had addresses in London, the U.K. & in Delaware, U.S.A. Based on the Delaware address, the prosecutors drafted their letter rogatory which was eventually filed with the Court in Delaware. The letter rogatory basically asked the Court for permission to subpoena witnesses in Delaware who knew about the shell company.
III) WHERE OSINT COMES FROM
CorporationWiki reportedly gathers OSINT from data brokers &/or from data mining on the Internet. Computer browsers and mobile devices allow data brokers to track us by our clickstream. The Federal Trade Commission’s video at YouTube “Sharing Information: A Day in Your Life” explained that our: location, interests, prescriptions & medical histories may all be “shared or sold.” Furthermore, there are a large number of companies that sell data mining applications. Just one of them is Sintelix. Its video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdlmWNVsyp8 says “with the harvester feature you can extract text from websites, social media sites, chats and e-mails.”
Copyright 2019 Fred L. Abrams
