Corporate Investigation Services
When You Need Genuine Evidence, Call MVD!
MVD International provides a wide range of services covering all facets of investigation, including covert undercover operation together with high-tech surveillance equipment.
MVD International also handles the most complex of criminal and pre-trial investigations and conducts protracted investigative matters for solicitors and senior counsel.
Among the Investigation Services offered by MVD International are:
- Asset Tracing
Locate property, missing funds and other corporate belongings.
- Background Screening
Screen existing and potential employees using our award-winning screening solution to weed out bad apples.
- Fraud
Protect your organization from accounting abuses, liability cases and false claims.
- Litigation & Defense Support
From gathering evidence and locating witnesses to arranging expert testimony, MVD International is your one-stop service provider.
- Due Diligence
Using our own SDDP (Shhhhh! Due Diligence Project) model, we help companies form the right partnerships that help them grow.
- Intellectual Property Infringement
Protect your intangible assets such as trademarks, copyrights and patents.
- Undercover Investigations
Let our expert undercover operatives reveal the secret world and dirty tricks by giving you up-to-date information at any one time.
- Counter Measures
Prevent hostile intelligence gathering and equip your team with knowledge to carry out counter measure activities.
- Consultancy Services
We handle security audits, emergency planning, crisis management and disaster recovery program.
What is Corporate Investigation and what is involved in doing a Corporate Investigation.
Corporate Frauds and Scam’s are the highest problems faced in the corporate world. Some of the other issues faced by corporate world is directors frauds, money laundering, stolen goods, parallel imports, Fake goods or imitation goods continue to be a prominent issue faced by corporate industries worldwide. Our team of Investigators and detective are trained to capture the loop holes and short coming of the current regulation and security measures in place which is damaging and putting a high risk on the business investment. Some of our corporate investigation services are as below:
- Asset Tracing Investigations
- Business Background Investigation
- Business Directorship Screening
- Counter Surveillance for Bugs & Camera Sweeps services
- Corporate Background Screening
- Corporate & Business Intelligence
- Corporate Due Diligence Investigations
- Corporate Record Research Investigations
- Corporate Surveillance Services
- Corporate Security Penetration Services
- Corporate Fraud Investigations
- Corporate Theft Investigation
- Employee Theft investigation
- Employment Screening services
- Intellectual Property Right Investigation
- In House Security Investigation Services
- In House Litigation Support investigations
- Risk & Fraud Consulting
- Wage & Fraud investigation
- Undercover Investigation Operation
Corporate Fraud Investigation
Corporate Fraud is a very wide subject of investigation. MVD International is a leader in conceiving effective fact-finding strategies, deploying expert investigative resources and applying traditional and forensic analysis in order to uncover fraud, identify perpetrators and bring closure through legal channels.
The appearance of corporate fraud, fraudulent activity, or allegations of fraud warrant immediate attention and the preservation of potential evidence for use in any future inquiry. Firms know that these situations can worsen if not addressed immediately. Whether the allegations resulted from direct observation, an anonymous employee tip or information provided by a client, contractor or third party, company policy will often necessitate undertaking an internal fraud investigation to discover facts.
Wherever corporate or financial fraud is suspected, regardless of jurisdiction, companies hire us investigate the circumstances surrounding questionable activity. Using effective fact-finding strategies in our fraud investigations that may include interviews of employees, identification of non-employee witnesses, the location, retrieval and analysis of critical documents and data, and an effective risk mitigation strategy, we investigate representative fraudulent activity such as:
• Wiring of funds without proper authorizations
• Inventory loss
• Fraudulent vendor invoices
• Employee misconduct
• Product diversion
• Theft of product and inventory
• Mismanagement and theft of intellectual property
• Stolen goods
• Fake & Imitation goods
• Fake transactions
• Parallel imports
• Trade Mark Infringements
• Financial misrepresentation
• Inside Trading
• Kickbacks
• Tax violations
• Many more unsolicited activities
Many of these frauds are not constrained by geographic boundaries and involve increasingly crafty cyber space, often requiring the global resources of an established firm such as MVD International. We have the bandwidth and the expertise to undertake these fraud investigations whether at a headquarters office or across the globe in a distant distribution facility.
Corporate Due Diligent
Due diligence is an investigation of a business or person prior to signing a contract, or an act with a certain standard of care. Its to Uncover critical information in advance of investments, partnership opportunities, dispute negotiations or employment offers. It can be a legal obligation, but the term will more commonly apply to voluntary investigations. A common example of due diligence in various industries is the process through which a potential acquirer evaluates a target company or its assets for an acquisition. The theory behind due diligence holds that performing this type of investigation contributes significantly to informed decision making by enhancing the amount and quality of information available to decision makers and by ensuring that this information is systematically used to deliberate in a reflexive manner on the decision at hand and all its costs, benefits, and risks.
Corporate Due Diligent can also be conducted when Corporate Fraud takes place to investigate and find the perpetrators who have engaged himself or others in an activity where the company suffer losses either financially or it reputation due to the action.
Business Venture Verifications
MVD International helps Business Ventures and Joint Venture entities verify the legality and authenticate the existence of the business. As BV or JV’s are an association of two or more small business concerns to engage in and carry out a single, specific business venture for joint profit, for which purpose they combine their efforts, property, money, skill, or knowledge, but not on a continuing or permanent basis for conducting business generally. For VA contracts, a joint venture must be in the form of a separate legal entity.
MVD International would help clients to verify information’s such as directorship or the Ventures, the financial standings, legal litigations situations, law and order and general health of the entities getting into the venture.
Business Loan Verification
Certain loan applicants are required to submit documents such as paystubs, income tax forms, or other tax records that verify the income stated in their loan request. We collect these documents after the posting of a loan request and carry out verification. We also verify the income of these applicants by electronically checking their income data through a third party provider. If an applicant fails to provide satisfactory information in response to an income verification request, or if we cannot electronically verify the income of select applicants, we would visit either the current employer, the authorities or request more information and documentation from the borrower.
Undercover operations
To go “undercover” is to avoid detection by the entity one is observing, and especially to disguise one’s own identity or use an assumed identity for the purposes of gaining the trust of an individual or organization to learn or confirm confidential information or to gain the trust of targeted individuals in order to gather information or evidence. Traditionally, it is a technique employed by law enforcement agencies or private investigators, and a person who works in such a role is commonly referred to as an undercover agent.
The many contexts and types of undercover tactics and the different roles that informers and police agents may play prevent any sweeping conclusions. However, given the unique characteristics of undercover work such as secrecy, prevention, temptation, immersion in criminal worlds, and entrapment, the tactic should generally be one of last resort, used only for serious offenses and subjected to intense oversight at all stages. There must be proportionality between the seriousness of a problem and the risks associated with the means. Sometimes the risks or costs of taking action will be greater than not taking action.
MVD’s Undercover Investigators offer expertise in identifying the source of workplace problems, including:
• Theft
• Industrial espionage
• Sexual harassment
• Kickback schemes
• Substance abuse
• Workplace violations
• Fraud
• Mystery shopping (retail industry)
• Compliance issues
• Supervision issues
• Work productivity
• Safety issues
Trap purchase
Evidence of trap purchases can be critical in proving trade mark infringement, misleading and deceptive conduct and passing off. In gathering this evidence, brand owners should follow certain procedures if the evidence is to given the weight it deserves in the Court.
- Trap evidence, particularly those involving verbal exchanges with retail staff, need to be collected in a non-leading, impartial manner and notified promptly to the opposing party. Failing to provide the opposing party with an opportunity to investigate the circumstances of the purchase may significantly affect the probative value of the evidence:
- If the purchase is made by a friendly customer, then be aware that the name of that customer and relevant document may be required to be openly disclosed to the opposing party:
- Make it clear to the person arranging the trap purchase that you do not consent to any use of your trade mark during the trap purchase. Trap purchases work are often more effective if there are other instances of infringing conduct that have not been arranged by lawyers.
Trap evidence obtained in the retail environment involving verbal exchanges with salespeople is often crucial in cases of trade mark infringement, misleading or deceptive conduct and passing off. In gathering this evidence, brand owners may need to follow certain procedures if the evidence is to be given the weight it deserves by the Court. A brand owner often obtains trap evidence to assist its case. Accordingly, Courts examine trap evidence carefully to ensure it has been collected with absolute fairness. However, it is difficult for the Court to be satisfied about fairness if the Court only has the brand owner’s version of the encounter. If the opposing party has notice of the brand owner’s intention to rely on the trap evidence shortly after that evidence has been gathered. Brand owners should seek advice on how to collect trap evidence in each case. In the case of a mere trap purchase in which verbal exchanges are irrelevant, it is less likely that the brand owner will need to adopt this course of action. However, trap evidence of verbal exchanges will usually have the best chance of being given significant weight by the Courts if it is collected fairly and notified promptly to the opposing party.
Insurance Investigation
Insurance fraud costs the industry billions of dollars every year. It’s a good thing people knows how important it is to actively fight fraudulent activity. We consistently provide value-added service by developing national programs to aggressively detect and deter fraud. Our Investigative Services team is composed of trained professionals, each holding an advanced educational degree and/or industry-related certification. Our team works closely with our other Claim colleagues to identify and investigate suspected fraudulent claims. An Insurance Fraud Investigation is an investigation conducted to determine whether or not insurance fraud has occurred. Insurance fraud investigation is one of our key competencies. We work closely with many of the major Life and Health insurance providers, Attorneys / Lawyers, Loss Adjusters, Investigation Agencies, self insured and self funded employers to assist in identifying those committing fraudulent insurance acts.
Our strength is conducting Medical Fraud in the healthcare industry. That’s why MVD International has developed one of the most sophisticated medical fraud investigative programs in the industry. Our highly trained professionals are dedicated to examining medical fraud cases using their investigative knowledge and expertise in forensics. Through continuous development and testing of new and innovative fraud identification methods, we work to detect fraud and abuse schemes and prevent them from happening to you and your employees. MVD International is continuously developing and acquiring innovative technological systems and investigative techniques to ensure we remain the leader of our industry. Our investigator are trained to be very discreet in carrying out their investigations.
Our insurance investigation services are mentioned below:
- Claims Investigations
- Insurance Fraud investigations
- Accident Claims Investigations
- Life Insurance Claim Investigation
- Property Claim Investigations
- Travel Insurance Claim Investigations
- Insurance Surveillance Services
- Third Party Claims/ Medi-Claims/Personal accident investigations
- Theft Claim Investigations
- Tracing Witnesses and obtaining Statement
- Recovery of the stolen vehicle
- Legal and Insurance Support Services
- Fire Investigation
- Medical Fraud
- False Medical Claims
- Medical Over-claims
Technical Surveillance Counter Measure ( TSCM )
TSCM (technical surveillance counter-measures) is the original United States Federal government abbreviation denoting the process of bug-sweeping or electronic counter surveillance.
* Note : Article with reference to other websites and wikipedia.
What is corporate fraud?
Fraud occurring within an organisation is known as corporate fraud. This involves deliberate dishonesty to deceive the public, investors or lending companies, usually resulting in financial gain to the criminals or organisation.
Some of the Corporate Frauds can be categorized into:
- Asset stripping
- Fraudulent trading
- Share ramping
- Publishing false information
Investment fraud
Investment frauds target individuals. The fraudsters use convincing arguments to make people part with their savings. These types of fraudsters usually want you to invest your money in a company or an opportunity which seems to be offering very high rates of return.
- Share scams (boiler room fraud)
- Other investment fraud
- Land deals fraud
- Online fraud
Don’t forget the number one rule in investments: if it looks too good to be true – it probably is!
If you are concerned that fraud might be happening in the organisation where you work or you are a victim of fraud, do call us for more info and consultation. We are here to help you.
Click on the below link to look at some of the Case Studies and type of Frauds that has taken place around the world.
What is Industrial espionage?
Industrial espionage, economic espionage or corporate espionage is a form of espionage conducted for commercial purposes instead of purely national security. Economic espionage is conducted or orchestrated by governments and is international in scope, while industrial or corporate espionage is more often national and occurs between companies or corporations.
DEFINITION OF ‘INDUSTRIAL ESPIONAGE’
The theft of trade secrets by the removal, copying or recording of confidential or valuable information in a company for use by a competitor. Industrial espionage is conducted for commercial purposes rather than national security purposes (espionage), and should be differentiated from competitive intelligence, which is the legal gathering of information by examining corporate publications, websites, patent filings and the like, to determine a corporation’s activities.
EXPLAINATION OF ‘INDUSTRIAL ESPIONAGE’
Industrial espionage describes covert activities, such as the theft of trade secrets, bribery, blackmail and technological surveillance. Industrial espionage is most commonly associated with technology-heavy industries, particularly the computer and auto sectors, in which a significant amount of money is spent on research and development (R&D).
Competitive intelligence and economic or industrial espionage
“Competitive intelligence” levels out two scenarios of description as the legal and ethical activity of systematically gathering, analyzing and managing information on industrial competitors becomes beneficial. It may include activities such as examining newspaper articles, corporate publications, websites, patent filings, specialised databases, information at trade shows and the like to determine information on a corporation. The compilation of these crucial elements is sometimes termed CIS or CRS, a Competitive Intelligence Solution or Competitive Response Solution. With its roots in market research, “competitive intelligence” has been described as the “application of principles and practices from military and national intelligence to the domain of global business”; it is the business equivalent of open-source intelligence. The difference between competitive intelligence and economic or industrial espionage is not clear; one needs to understand the legal basics to recognize how to draw the line between the two. Others maintain it is sometimes quite difficult to tell the difference between legal and illegal methods, especially if considering the ethical side of information gathering, making the definition even more elusive.
Forms of economic and industrial espionage
Economic or industrial espionage takes place in two main forms. In short, the purpose of espionage is to gather knowledge about (an) organization(s). It may include the acquisition of intellectual property, such as information on industrial manufacture, ideas, techniques and processes, recipes and formulas. Or it could include sequestration of proprietary or operational information, such as that on customer datasets, pricing, sales, marketing, research and development, policies, prospective bids, planning or marketing strategies or the changing compositions and locations of production. It may describe activities such as theft oftrade secrets, bribery, blackmailand technological surveillance. As well as orchestrating espionage on commercial organizations, governments can also be targets — for example, to determine the terms of a tender for a government contract so that another tenderer can underbid.
Target industries
During testing, automakers commonly disguise upcoming car models with camouflage paint patterns, padded covers, or deceptive decals.
Economic and industrial espionage is most commonly associated with technology-heavy industries, including computer software and hardware, biotechnology,aerospace, telecommunications, transportation and engine technology, automobiles, machine tools, energy, materials and coatings and so on. Silicon Valley is known to be one of the world’s most targeted areas for espionage, though any industry with information of use to competitors may be a target.
Information theft and sabotage
Information can make the difference between success and failure; if a trade secret is stolen, the competitive playing field is leveled or even tipped in favor of a competitor. Although a lot of information-gathering is accomplished legally through competitive intelligence, at times corporations feel the best way to get information is to take it. Economic or industrial espionage is a threat to any business whose livelihood depends on information.
In recent years, economic or industrial espionage has taken on an expanded definition. For instance, attempts to sabotage a corporation may be considered industrial espionage; in this sense, the term takes on the wider connotations of its parent word. That espionage and sabotage (corporate or otherwise) have become more clearly associated with each other is also demonstrated by a number of profiling studies, some government, some corporate. The United States government currently has a polygraph examination entitled the “Test of Espionage and Sabotage” (TES), contributing to the increasingly popular, though not consensus, notion, by those studying espionage and sabotage countermeasures, of the interrelationship between the two. In practice, particularly by “trusted insiders,” they are generally considered functionally identical for the purpose of informing countermeasures.
Agents and the process of collection
Economic or industrial espionage commonly occurs in one of two ways. Firstly, a dissatisfied employee appropriates information to advance their own interests or to damage the company or, secondly, a competitor or foreign government seeks information to advance its own technological or financial interest. “Moles” or trusted insiders are generally considered the best sources for economic or industrial espionage.Historically known as a “patsy,” an insider can be induced, willingly or under duress to provide information. A patsy may be initially asked to hand over inconsequential information and once compromised by committing a crime, bribed into handing over material which is more sensitive. Individuals may leave one company to take up employment with another and take sensitive information with them. Such apparent behavior has been the focus of numerous industrial espionage cases that have resulted in legal battles. Some countries hire individuals to do spying rather than make use of their own intelligence agencies. Academics, business delegates and students are often thought to be utilized by governments in gathering information. Some countries, such as Japan, have been reported to expect students be debriefed on returning home. A spy may follow a guided tour of a factory then get “lost”. A spy could be an engineer, a maintenance man, a cleaner, an insurance salesman or an inspector – basically anyone who has legitimate access to the premises.
A spy may break into the premises to steal data. They may search through waste paper and refuse, known as “dumpster diving”. Information may be compromised via unsolicited requests for information, marketing surveys or use of technical support, research or software facilities. Outsourced industrial producers may ask for information outside of the agreed-upon contract.
Computers have facilitated the process of collecting information, due to the ease of access to large amounts of information, through physical contact or via the internet.
Click on the below link to look at some of the Case Studies and type of Frauds that has taken place around the world.
Personal Computers
Computers have become key in exercising industrial espionage due to the enormous amount of information they contain and its ease of being copied and transmitted. The use of computers for espionage increased rapidly in the 1990s. Information has been commonly stolen by being copied from unattended computers in offices, those gaining unsupervised access doing so through subsidiary jobs, such as cleaners or repairmen.
Laptops were, and still are, a prime target, with those traveling abroad on business being warned not to leave them for any period of time. Perpetrators of espionage have been known to find many ways of conning unsuspecting individuals into parting, often only temporarily, from their possessions, enabling others to access and steal information. A “bag-op” refers to the use of hotel staff to access data, such as through laptops, in hotel rooms. Information may be stolen in transit, in taxis, at airport baggage counters, baggage carousels, on trains and so on.
The Internet
The rise of the internet and computer networks has expanded the range and detail of information available and the ease of access for the purpose of industrial espionage.Worldwide, around 50,000 companies a day are thought to come under cyberattack with the rate estimated as doubling each year. This type of operation is generally identified as state backed or sponsored, because the “access to personal, financial or analytic resources” identified exceed that which could be accessed by cybercriminals or individual hackers. Sensitive military or defense engineering or other industrial information may not have immediate monetary value to criminals, compared with, say, bank details. Analysis of cyberattacks suggests deep knowledge of networks, with targeted attacks, obtained by numerous individuals operating in a sustained organized way.
Opportunities for sabotage
The rising use of the internet has also extended opportunities for industrial espionage with the aim of sabotage. In the early 2000s, it was noticed that energy companies were increasingly coming under attack from hackers. Energy power systems, doing jobs like monitoring power grids or water flow, once isolated from the other computer networks, were now being connected to the internet, leaving them more vulnerable, having historically few built-in security features. The use of these methods of industrial espionage have increasingly become a concern for governments, due to potential attacks by terrorist groups or hostile foreign governments.
Malware
One of the means of perpetrators conducting industrial espionage is by exploiting vulnerabilities in computer software. Malware and spyware as “a tool for industrial espionage”, in “transmitting digital copies of trade secrets, customer plans, future plans and contacts”. Newer forms of malware include devices which surreptitiously switch on mobile phones camera and recording devices. In attempts to tackle such attacks on their intellectual property, companies are increasingly keeping important information off network, leaving an “air gap”, with some companies building “Faraday cages” to shield from electromagnetic or cellphone transmissions.
Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack
The distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack uses compromised computer systems to orchestrate a flood of requests on the target system, causing it to shut down and deny service to other users. It could potentially be used for economic or industrial espionage with the purpose of sabotage. This method was allegedly utilized by Russian secret services, over a period of two weeks on a cyberattack on Estonia in May 2007, in response to the removal of a Soviet era war memorial.
Type of Cyber Attacks(DDoS) attack
Related security categories
- Internet security
- Cyberwarfare
- Information security
- Mobile security
- Network security
Threats
- Computer crime
- Vulnerability
- Eavesdropping
- Exploits
- Trojans
- Viruses and worms
- Denial of service
- Malware
- Payloads
- Rootkits
- Keyloggers
- Malware and Homegrown Technology
- Botnets and Zombie Computers
- Phishing, Spear Phishing, and Pharming
- Hacktivism
Defenses
- Access Control Systems
- Application security
- Antivirus software
- Secure coding
- Security by design
- Secure operating systems
- Authentication
- Multi-factor authentication
- Authorization
- Firewall (computing)
- Intrusion detection system
- Intrusion prevention system
- Mobile secure gateway