5.3 Sources of information & public records

Where Fraud Examiners Find Information

A fraud examination succeeds or fails on the quality of the information gathered. Sources fall broadly into two groups: internal sources — records the organization controls — and external sources — public records, commercial databases, and open online information. A skilled examiner exhausts internal sources first, because they are inexpensive and directly relevant, and then turns outward to corroborate findings, locate assets, and identify relationships.

Internal Sources

Within the victim organization, the examiner can draw on accounting records (general ledger, journals, invoices, canceled checks, purchase orders), personnel and payroll files, email and other electronic communications, security and physical-access logs, phone records, expense reports, and prior audit reports. Internal data often supplies both the predication for the case and the core documentary evidence of a scheme, such as duplicate payments to a shell vendor or backdated approvals. People are also an internal source: employees, supervisors, and the original complainant can point the examiner to records and explain how a process is supposed to work, which makes deviations easier to spot. Because internal records are under the organization's control, the examiner should move quickly to preserve them before they can be altered or destroyed, and should confirm the organization's right to access an employee's work computer or email under its own policies.

Public Records

Public records are documents created by or filed with a government body that are, by law, open to inspection. They are a cornerstone of asset searches, background work, and net-worth analysis. Major categories include:

UCC (Uniform Commercial Code) filings are especially valuable: filed with the secretary of state, they identify a subject's lenders and the property used as collateral, helping trace assets and uncover hidden business interests. Corporate records reveal ownership, officers, and registered agents — useful for exposing shell companies and undisclosed conflicts of interest. Court and property records support net-worth and lifestyle analysis by showing what a subject owns, owes, and has been sued over.

Online and Social Media Sources

The internet and social media have become powerful investigative tools. Search engines, company websites, news archives, professional-networking sites, and social-networking profiles can reveal relationships, lifestyle, locations, business affiliations, and even admissions. Social-media posts frequently expose the unexplained wealth or associations that support a fraud theory. Information the subject has posted publicly is generally fair game, but the examiner must not use deception, fake friend requests, or pretexting to gain access to private, restricted content.

Commercial Databases

Fee-based aggregators used for due diligence and skip-tracing compile public records, business data, and identity information into searchable services. They speed up locating people and assets and cross-referencing relationships across jurisdictions, and they can surface links — shared addresses, phone numbers, or business registrations — that would take days to find one record at a time. Because these databases can contain errors or stale data, and because a match is only a lead, information found in them should be verified against primary source records before it is relied upon in a report or in court.

The Legality of Collection

The manner in which information is gathered is as important as the information itself. Evidence obtained illegally may be excluded, and unlawful collection can expose the examiner to civil and even criminal liability. Key principles:

• Use open sources. Rely on public records and information the subject has exposed to public view.
• Avoid illegal searches. Do not access private premises, computers, or accounts without proper authority or consent. Government actors are constrained by the Fourth Amendment, but private examiners can still commit trespass, violate privacy statutes, or breach computer-fraud laws.
• Beware of pretexting. Obtaining financial or telephone records through false pretenses is illegal in many jurisdictions; for example, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act restricts pretexting for financial information.
• Respect privacy laws. Statutes governing consumer reports (such as the Fair Credit Reporting Act), stored electronic communications, and data protection limit what may be collected and how.
• Coordinate with counsel. When the legality of a technique is uncertain, involve legal counsel before collecting rather than after, because a single improper collection can taint related evidence and derail the case.

The touchstone is the subject's reasonable expectation of privacy: an examiner may generally gather what has been exposed to public view but must not invade areas where the subject retains a legitimate expectation of privacy without lawful authority. Lawful, well-documented collection keeps the resulting evidence admissible and protects the examiner from liability — the same discipline that governs chain of custody and documentation applies to how information is obtained in the first place.