Asset Tracing
Bates Group’s dedicated team of former senior legal and compliance officers, Certified Fraud Examiners (CFEs), and Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) not only has decades of experience conducting internal reviews but extensive hands-on experience undertaking Asset Tracing and Anti-Money Laundering Investigations.
Making full use of proprietary tools and reports developed by our top-tier IT and programming teams, using recognized software platforms such as SAS and Python, we have demonstrated time and again our ability to quickly trace assets and help uncover attempts to launder money or commit fraud. We use accompanying visualization tools, including PowerBI and Visio, to clearly present asset flows to regulators, juries, law enforcement, or other audiences. Simplifying complex asset tracing into easy-to-understand visuals is often a key contributing factor in the favorable resolution of these matters.
Deep Data
In a well-publicized bankruptcy involving a broker-dealer, we managed millions of data points across competing databases. With our IT team and in-house programmers, we efficiently searched each database and succeeded in tracing the movement of the firm’s assets under management (customer funds) in the weeks prior to bankruptcy. In turn, this enabled our team to identify and illustrate when assets had been used inappropriately.
No Parking Allowed
In another matter, the compliance department of a major broker dealer retained us to investigate allegations that an individual financial advisor was “parking” stock purchases in customer accounts, only to cancel these trades and move them to his personal account when the stocks went up. By analyzing internal trade correction records, error reports, trade confirmation slips, time and sales reports, and email correspondence, we quickly identified and documented each unauthorized transaction, allowing our client to promptly resolve this investigation.
Internal Investigations
We have assisted several brokerages and banks in instances where advisors breached their financial duties to customers. Our investigations involve tracing potentially misappropriated assets, evaluating suitability of investment decisions, and calculating lost returns to ensure customers were fully restored to their prior positions. Bates’ experience with financial transactions and investigations have allowed us to uncover layers of schemes that were not originally identified, to allow full restitution of misappropriated assets.
AML Policies & Procedures
Bates is also available to assist you in creating and auditing your AML policies and procedures and meeting your annual AML certification requirements, and our Internal Investigations team can quickly assist you in investigating suspicious activity.