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Computer Intelligence Industry

The United States military originally developed computerized On-line Database Retrieval Systems during the 1950s. By 1983, dramatic developments in the banking industry, combined with certain political changes, brought about a sharp increase in the private use and commercial availability of database information. Over the past 20 years, on-line databases have expanded more than 500%, and that pace continues to accelerate on the international side.

It is our belief that the domestic surge of computerized on-line database products is now coming to an end. The regulatory agencies, privacy community and their political agents have all come together to search for a means to stop the growth of on-line database access. We believe this will result in terrible problems for the banking, and investment community as fraud, embezzlement, and theft pervades these industries.

On the international side, ICI also has a wealth of ground sources on a regional basis. These assets have unique access to proprietary databases that can be searched for difficult to find data. For example, ICI often is used to locate hidden assets, discover covert business relationships, and trace missing funds that have been embezzled. Our international sources, both electronic and human are unparalleled in the private intelligence community.

ICI also can trace exfiltrated assets from companies or organizations by former employers seeking to convert hard assets or intellectual property assets. This is done through contacts in the banking, financial, credit, and corporate on-line community, as well as other resources.

Many attorneys use databases to search out case law, precedent, and judicial rulings in order to fashion their legal strategy, leaving substantive support for their case to other sources.

It is now easy to use database searches to find needed material facts, check credentials of expert witnesses, obtain biographical background, trace assets, and retrieve earlier court and media records at a reasonable cost.

ICI, with its familiarity with electronic sources and understanding of what litigators and legal strategists need, knows how to find and report the facts required.

In short, lawyers manage the law and the client - - ICI manages the facts and how to find them.

During the past 24 years, ICI has been engaged by attorneys throughout the United States to handle some of the most complex and difficult federal criminal and international investigations.

During this time, ICI began to integrate the firm's investigative expertise and the emerging computerized on-line database investigations industry in an effort to reduce litigation costs for its clients.

For example, before 1989, antitrust defense counsel in one case spent over a million dollars attempting to locate and interview hundreds of potential witnesses that were long time former employees of a company. The task required over 10,000 investigative hours worldwide because the searches had to be individually done by hand.

Today, location of the same group of people can be done in less than six weeks, using less than 1,200 person-hours, all at a fraction of the cost. Ninety percent of the work is done on-line, dramatically cutting the cost of travel, hotels and other investigative costs.

In corporate background and screening investigations, companies struggled to vet the backgrounds of employees in a timely fashion and the information obtained was very limited. That was only nine short years ago.

Today, searches can be done in less than a week in most cases and the costs are dramatically less, given the amount of information that can be obtained. ICI has customized programs, depending on the level of security involved, type of employee, and perspective risk posed by the candidate to the corporation.

In the past, when conducting due diligence investigations companies lost huge sums of money because mergers and acquisitions were done without proper checking. The risk of disclosure of an in depth due diligence investigation, the inability to obtain current information, or the difficulty of conducting searches because of other considerations, all contributed to inadequate advice to management.

Acquisitions went forward without regard to considering the background of the principal figures involved, and soon displeasure mounted because of poor performance or other personal problems that were either unknown or ignored at the time of the purchase.

Today, ICI can do a complete scan on an individual, corporation, or organization. Special searches can be custom structured to concentrate on banking, financial, credit, litigation, administrative regulation, past employment, corporate affiliations, executive associations, family background, and many other behavioral traits.

From 1989 to the present ICI has researched, developed and perfected several proprietary products and processes that are unique to the on-line database investigations industry. It has used these tools, combined with human assets, to provide corporations and law firms some of the finest intelligence products available to the private sector.

While most firms may have access to the contents of the same toolbox, ICI has developed its own "sniffing software" which contains artificial intelligence agents that conduct relational studies and correlates this information with data obtained from other sources. A complete, source annotated report is presented with the downloaded optical images direct from the on-line source.

As an outside provider of investigative services, ICI removes the client from direct involvement with sensitive inquiries. That is one reason ICI's client list includes many of America's largest and most prestigious law firms which have their own in-house electronic database capability. Among the advantages it offers, ICI

  • Conducts all inquiries, electronic and otherwise, on its own authority. The law firm client, and its ultimate client, is not identified with the investigation.

  • Keeps abreast of new database sources used in various legal specialties. ICI constantly uses these sources and knows their capabilities from experience.

  • Expands to meet unusually complex or particularly urgent assignments, thus eliminating the need for the law firm client to strain its own staff resources.

  • Combines electronic searches with on-site investigations, when necessary. Performs at substantially lower overall cost for large investigations than does the law firm's in-house electronic library.
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Investigative Consultants, Inc.

2020 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Suite 813
Washington DC 20006

Phone: (202) 237-1500
Fax: (202) 237-8642
E-mail: DBerlin@icioffshore.com

 
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