Investors in Madoff Securities and FTX were both warned, but by different sets of people.
If it turns out to be true that without customer knowledge FTX took billions of dollars of customer account money to invest in a risky
The Ethical Investigator, published by Charles Griffin Intelligence LLC, focuses on investigative services related to business intelligence, litigation support, asset searches, and due diligence. The blog discusses practical approaches to uncovering financial and personal information relevant to legal and business contexts, such as verifying backgrounds, identifying undisclosed assets, and assessing risks in investments or partnerships. It emphasizes ethical investigation methods and the limitations of public and online data sources. Topics include issue spotting in investigations, challenges in criminal record searches, and the importance of thorough fact-finding to reduce risk in legal and financial decisions.
Investors in Madoff Securities and FTX were both warned, but by different sets of people.
If it turns out to be true that without customer knowledge FTX took billions of dollar of customer account money to invest in a risky…
Listen to me explain why putting people at ease is the best way to elicit information from them. I don’t have a badge or a subpoena, so the key is to be nice to them and be interested in what…
You want to invest $3 million into a real estate project. Time is tight because it’s closing in 12 days. The developer (51 years old) seems to have a decent track record and takes credit for billions of dollars of…
One indispensable part of due diligence is to check for regulatory sanctions. Was a company found by the SEC or FINRA to have misappropriated investor money? Put them in unsuitable investments? Lied on a filing to induce people to invest…
When not at work, I like to do many things, and one of my favorites is to watch New York Mets baseball. Since moving to New York I’ve grown to love the team and I make common cause with the…
Where do you start in deciding which investigator to hire for a sensitive job?

It should be a business of trust, just as it is when choosing someone to come up with an estate plan,…
Specializing in financial investigations as we do, I am always fascinated when new financial frauds come to light, and I always want to know how the person got caught.
In the case of the recent Yale School of Medicine fraud…
I’ve done a lot of interviews about people over the years, but you can always get better.
A fascinating conversation last week with an angel investor about what he looks for in a candidate to run a new company gave…