IDENTITY MANIPULATION: FINANCIAL CRIMINALS CHANGE HORSES IN MIDSTREAM WHILE OPERATING ABROAD CONFUSE COMPLIANCE

If you have ever wondered how a certain Iranian fraudster, who cheated his government out of billions in oil revenue, managed to physically transport a large portion of his illicit wealth from East Asia to the tax havens of the Caribbean, without incident. He employed a technique transnational criminals favor; changing his identity at least once during the trip. Inasmuch as he held a Citizenship by Investment (CBI) passport, showing him with a slightly different spelling of his name, how would customs officials really know who he was, and he also had a diplomatic passport bought for cash under the table from a corrupt official, to protect his bags and baggage from search, he was able to easily transit multiple countries in the developing world, where facial recognition software has not yet enjoyed wide acceptance. He has artfully foiled identification measures once again. I did essentially the same thing, back in the day.

Money launderers and other financial criminals routinely engage in identity changes en route, not only to allow them unimpeded transit, say from an INTERPOL Red Notice, but also to make tracking and tracing their steps impossible to both law enforcement and compliance officers engaging in due diligence investigations. Travel patterns, and suspicious activities, are therefore unknown to those who need to know, if you didn't think that bank compliance officers don't glance at a new client's stamps evidencing arrival by customs officers while photocopying his passport, as part of risk assessment, you aren't paying attention.

In a nutshell, that's the problem. Your prospective bank client's regular travel into the tax havens of the world, and to high-risk countries may not be apparent, so look outside what he's telling you when making that all-important risk assessment during due diligence. Use platforms that will dig into your target, below the waterline, which means social media of third parties, which he has no control over, and is unaware of, data about his clients where he show up, information about some of his early operations, where he wasn't so careful, and even minor errors in judgment he made which your program can connect to him, and his operation.

In short, use programs that will seek out anything that might be useful in generating relevant information, or even information that will lead to relevant information about your target. That means you must adopt platforms that employ emerging technology to unmask your target; automated systems, working with artificial intelligence, which access resources you would never think of checking on your own, or which are not available, to out the target and expose him as a potential high-risk, or worse. Outfox the fox, ladies and gentlemen.

(P.S. that fraudster is now serving a 20-year sentence in an Iranian prison).