AUTHOR

Roger Darvall-Stevens
Roger Darvall-Stevens
Head of Fraud and Forensic Services

Background

RSM Australia’s Fraud & Forensic Services team was engaged by a US based investment capital company to conduct a forensic due diligence / corporate intelligence engagement on specified entities / individuals of a construction company in Australia after our client identified that the owner of the relevant project’s construction company had a family member who was criminally charged with fraudulent activity in the property development sector.

Our tailored approach included:

  • Briefings held with key stakeholders.
  • Obtained key information of the details of individuals / entities.
  • Through Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) and social intelligence (SOCINT), accessed relevant publicly available databases and publicly available information, including:
    • Australian Securities Investments Commission (ASIC) data.
    • Australian Financial Security Authority bankruptcy (AFSA) data.
    • Land title data.
    • Personal Property Securities Register (PPSR) credit data.
    • Australian Criminal and Civil Court Record data.
    • Publicly recorded litigation data.
    • Directorship disqualification records.
    • Australian sanctions and enforcement watchlist data.
    • Google, social media, and other publicly available data as applicable.
  • Reviewed and collated documentary evidence to make factual findings.

Challenges, Issues and Risks

  • Significant volume of data / information analysed with information going back as far as 10 years.
  • Presenting voluminous findings and relationships identified in an easy-to-digest reporting format for client delivery.
  • Foreign owned (American) client resulting in due diligence / corporate intelligence considerations beyond standard Australian records and liaising with a client in a different time zone to Australia.

Outcomes

RSM delivered a report of our findings, including a colour-coded and annotated visual map of identified relationships / findings relevant to the subject of the due diligence / corporate intelligence engagement.

Our report identified “red flags” that the client was previously unaware of, and this allowed the client to make an informed commercial decision. 

Received positive client feedback of “Appreciate your teams work on all of this for us”.

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