What D’ Ya Got Part 3

May You Have a Prosperous and Healthy New Year

In this first blog post of 2023, I continue a theme from the end of last year. In my last two posts of 2022, I asserted, what d’ ya got is all that matters when you deliver research. Clients do not care what you did behind the scenes to get there, but it does matter what names they asked you to research. Let’s start the new year looking more at, what d’ ya got, means, and more importantly, how what ya got can often be crucial without you realizing. In other words, you often don’t truly know what ya got until everything falls into place.

I spent the last six weeks of 2022 primarily on a big case. Lots of people and companies to research. What d’ ya got was being asked of me over and over and over. And one of the biggest, really the biggest, gots we got; well, it did not come by accident, but we did kind of stumble into it.

What d’ ya got comes in three flavors:

·        The Obvious

·        The Arcane

·        The Accidental

The Obvious

Have you ever seen the demonstration where you figure out how many rocks can fill a beaker; where you start with the big rocks but can fill in with smaller rocks and finally gravel. With background research, you need to start with big rocks. First, you must do the basic blocking and tackling. Do you have identifying information?  Is a business registered?  Does the LinkedIn match up with other known information?  Next, you want to find the obvious things, any major lawsuits, articles in newspapers, and for sure, what happens when you google the name. The big rocks. You can fill in from here.

The Arcane

What is a UCC. PEP. There are things we look for as researchers that may not mean anything to the client. Except when we do find them, it may have significant impact on the due diligence. UCC stands for uniform commercial code, which still does not tell you what it means, but a “UCC filing”, to cut through all the first year law material, is like a mortgage but for tangible goods rather than real estate. Researchers look for UCC filings for a few reasons including showing existing loans and finding undisclosed business relationships. PEP stands for politically exposed person and is very important to know if you have international dealings. The point is, as researchers, we look for relevant things even if sometimes we don’t know whether they may be relevant. The smaller rocks.

The Accidental

I’m not sure accidental is the right word, but I could not find a better one. I’ve had ambiguous. I’ve had obscure. There’s information that’ reported, the gravel, the filler, items that do not appear to fit it, but you feel it’s worth reporting. Sometimes what you fill in with, it turns out to be everything, even if you think what you’re reporting is of no use. . Let me get back to my big case, and it will make more sense.

What a Coincidence

In this big case, the allegations were of kickbacks and hidden relationships between vendors and an employee. We were finding a lot of information, good results, the big rocks and the arcane on the subjects. Yet, although it was almost an accident, it was not, and we cracked this case wide open.

One of the key companies we examined was connected to a person currently awaiting sentencing on a federal criminal charge. So, we could review various documents on PACER. One document was a memorandum by the person’s lawyer, arguing for a lesser sentence. In this memorandum, the person related a story from when they were growing up. A striking story. In our case, we heard that in an interview our subject had relayed a remarkably similar story from his youth. Could the two people be related. As it turns out. Yes.

As the person digging up public records, I neither did the interview that drew out the family history story, nor was I the one to make the hypothesis, later proven via various records, that the two people were siblings. But nothing would have happened if I did not think to pull that sentencing document, and tell my client, essentially, this is something you may want to look at. And in a case where we were trying to prove unknown ties, providing these people were secretly siblings, well that was a big deal to my client, tying the subject to the vendor.

As background researchers, we need to figure out what to look at, but we also have to figure out what our client may want to look at, without us having any idea of its meaning. It can be a very fine line. You cannot load your research results with gobs of random facts, hoping that something will stand out to your client. You need to draw out things that could make a difference. You just never know what a name, an address, a company, will mean.

That’s why I and other open-source researchers, load their findings with gravel. Details. Dates. Filler. If there was an important real estate transaction, I always put in who were the other parties. If there’s a company, I always report all the officers, directors, registered agents, organizers, etc., listed in the Secretary of State records. For a website, what is the company listed on the terms of service or privacy page. Clear examples of things that may pop for someone else. You must include things that may not make sense to you on the chance they will make sense to your client. Make sense?

When you are asked, what d’ ya got. Don’t be shy. What you got can be vital information no matter how obscure you think it is.