Case Study: European Government Agency

Videris increases effectiveness in numerous use cases across sectors, including fraud investigations, enhanced due diligence, vetting and more.

This case study looks at Agency B, a European government agency whose adoption of Videris has transformed their ability to understand and report on subjects of interest.

The Challenge

Agency B was already using open-source intelligence (OSINT) to understand key risks. Its OSINT investigators often needed to turn around detailed reports on subjects of interest at speed for use cases such as:

• Special interest persons or entities (SIPs/SIEs), meaning that they may have been involved in serious organised or financial crimes — as well as their relatives and close associates (RCAs).
• Individuals that appear on sanctions lists.
• Appearance on politically exposed persons (PEPs) lists. This may mean that they hold prominent high-profile political or public sector roles, or are closely associated with someone who does.
• Individuals or businesses that operate across multiple sectors and jurisdictions, or who have unnecessarily complex or opaque ownership structures.
• Individuals or businesses are associated with high volumes of adverse and negative media.
• Direct or indirect associations with proscribed terrorist groups and terrorist financing.

Balancing Speed and Quality

In these use cases, speed is of the essence to investigate certain clients’ identities and gather information on their reputation and history. However, it was very challenging for Agency B’s investigators to collect all data, analyse it and provide a detailed, accurate report within short timescales using only manual methods.

The Solution

Agency B identified Videris as a solution to their vetting challenges because it provided a single interface through which investigators could collect, analyse and visualise all of the data they were already using faster and more effectively. In particular, Videris offered several key pieces of functionality:

Unique Social Media Features

Videris’s integrations with major social media providers lets investigators collect and compare publicly available social media data from multiple sources in a single, secure interface.

This helps Agency B to overcome two common problems when using social media in investigations. Firstly, Videris allows investigators to search across multiple publicly available social media platforms at once, eliminating the need to switch between tabs. Secondly, advanced analytical tools allow them to sort through large volumes of data to quickly understand the subject’s profile and identify risk.

Secure Dark Web Access

Instead of accessing the dark web via a separate platform such as Tor, Agency B’s investigators can now do so in a single, secure environment alongside other sources. This enables them to guarantee security when searching for involvement in illicit activity, without wasting valuable time switching between interfaces.

Network Visualisation

When trying to understand a subject’s connections and risk profile, Agency B can now use Videris’s network visualisation capabilities. Videris automatically maps data – such as social media friends, where this data is publicly available, or corporate networks – in a chart format. Instead of having to read pages of text, investigators can view data in the most intuitive way, making analysis faster and more effective.

Case Study Outcomes

With Videris, Agency B’s investigators have increased their output on fast-turnaround work by 200%. This gives them greater certainty that they have provided the most complete and accurate picture of a situation and allows them to make more effective recommendations for further action.