PREAMBLE
The journey to the recovery of hidden, lost or stolen assets is arduous, often crossing multiple jurisdictions and involving complex financial schemes, designed to obscure the paper trail. At the heart of any successful asset recovery case lies a critical phase: “the meticulous process of securing evidence and tracing the illicit funds”. This phase is foundational, as it produces the evidence required to link assets to criminal activities. The ultimate goal is to establish a clear “nexus” or “paper trail,” proving that specific assets are the proceeds or instrumentalities of corruption. This task is complicated by sophisticated methods used to launder funds, including offshore centers, corporate vehicles, and layered financial transactions.
The Foundational Plan: A Strategic Approach
The approach often depends on the nature of the case. In corruption cases, private investigators typically follow the money trail from the corrupt act, leading to various outlets of disbursement. In money laundering cases, they begin by analyzing suspicious financial transactions and work backward to link them to the predicate offense. An excerpt from an article by the chief private investigator-general of KREENO Consortium, captures this succinctly:
“Given the document-intensive nature of these cases, practitioners are advised to set priorities. They might focus on specific types of documents, key accounts, or a particular time frame to manage the volume of information effectively. A crucial consideration is that corrupt officials rarely hold assets in their own names. The investigation must, therefore, extend to relatives, close associates, intermediaries (“straw men”), and a web of corporate vehicles like shell companies, trusts, and foundations to identify the true beneficial owner.”… Dr Ohio O. Ojeagbase of KREENO CONSORTIUM
Building the Subject Profile
The first practical step to building a subject profile, is creating a comprehensive profile of the subject, covering every possible information concerning the subject. This involves gathering all basic identifying information on the targets, including
• Full names, aliases, and copies of official identification (passports, birth certificates).
• Details of family members, spouses, and close associates.
• Contact information, including phone numbers and email addresses.
• Recent photographs and, if possible, fingerprints.
• Data from public records and other government agencies.
This profile forms the bedrock of the investigation, helping to identify connections and potential leads.
The Investigator’s Toolkit: Techniques for Obtaining Evidence
This article details a wide array of investigative techniques, underscoring that practitioners must always operate within their legal authority to ensure evidence is admissible. Techniques range from non-intrusive to coercive, and covert methods should generally be employed before overt ones, to avoid alerting the target. Key techniques include:
• A Foundational Step – in any investigation, this involves leveraging public sources and government agencies, where critical intelligence can be gathered from Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs) for money laundering leads, Immigration and Customs for tracking movement of cash and persons, Tax and Land Registries for uncovering hidden income and assets, and Corporate Registry’s to pierce the veil of anonymous corporate vehicles, among other sources.
• Coercive Measures with Judicial Authorization: The execution of a Search and Seizure Warrant provides a prime opportunity to gather crucial evidence, demanding meticulous planning and specificity regarding items like financial documents and the proceeds of crime. Complementing these efforts, “Orders for Disclosure or Production of Documents”, compel third parties such as banks and law firms to surrender records available to them on the targets, using requests that are precisely crafted to be comprehensive, yet narrowly tailored to avoid legal challenges and data overload. Further expanding the investigative toolkit, “Account Monitoring Orders” authorize the real-time surveillance of bank transactions, a critical technique for establishing patterns of activity and uncovering new accounts or co-conspirators.
“As a global scourge, the misappropriation of public funds by corrupt officials drains billions from the economies of developing nations, with Nigeria being a prime example.”– Dr. Ohio O. Ojeagbase, FICA, (KREENO Consortium)
Deciphering the Paper Trail: Key Documents and Their Secrets
Once obtained, documents must be analyzed to reconstruct the money trail. This article highlights several critical document types: Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs) provides a foundational narrative on suspicious activity, while Account-Opening and KYC Records offer a roadmap to the account’s controllers and the justification for their funds. The subsequent forensic analysis then focuses on Bank Account Statements to trace the origin and destination of funds, with Wire Transfer Documentation requiring meticulous examination of systems like SWIFT to uncover the parties and pathways in cross-border movements, all while scrutinizing Accounting Records for discrepancies and fictitious invoices that reveal a deliberately constructed, false audit trail.
Organizing and Analyzing the Data
Once vast amounts of data are collected, effective organization and analysis become paramount. This process involves creating a comprehensive Financial Profile to consolidate a target’s assets, liabilities, income, and expenses into a single, clear overview. To decipher complex schemes, Flow Charts are essential for visually mapping the movement of funds between accounts and entities. Furthermore, conducting a NetWorth Analysis by comparing a target’s known legitimate income against their total assets can reveal critical discrepancies and highlight unexplained wealth. Ultimately, the analysis phase hinges on comparing and reconciling all this information to identify hidden links, gaps, and patterns that expose the underlying money laundering scheme.
The International Dimension
Asset recovery is inherently cross-border. Evidence and assets are often located in foreign jurisdictions and tax havens. This article stresses that international collaboration is essential and clients need to pay for such services if they ever expect sound results by the professionals. Close collaboration with foreign counterparts is often the key to successfully tracing and securing assets hidden abroad, especially those hidden under blind trusts ad shell organizations in tax havens.
Conclusion
This article provides a masterclass in the art and science of financial investigation. It moves from the theoretical to the intensely practical, offering a structured methodology for “following the money.” From the initial planning and subject profiling to the execution of search warrants and the intricate analysis of SWIFT messages, and it equips practitioners with the knowledge to dismantle the complex facades erected by corrupt officials.
Whether you require comprehensive case management, specialized training for your team, or expert consultation to overcome a specific investigative hurdle, KREENO CONSORTIUM provides the tailored support necessary to dismantle financial facades and secure tangible results. For those committed to converting insight into action and theory into recovery, we strongly recommend patronizing the expert services of KREENO CONSORTIUM or WhatsApp Only on +234 902 148 8737 to get further expert opinion.
