Case studies

A carrier faced a mid-six-figure liability claim that didn't add up. Defense counsel suspected the claimant's sworn account was false: the addresses they attested to and the daily routine they described. Counsel needed to know, before an independent medical examination (IME) 30 days out, whether the sworn routine matched how the claimant actually lived.

• A hard deadline. The IME was 30 days away.
• Defense posture. Findings had to hold up as evidence: each one rated for confidence, with no overreach.
• Uneven location accuracy. Some places could only be fixed to within about a city block. Each site was rated and flagged for field verification before anyone relied on it.

• Intake: broke the claimant's sworn statements into four testable claims.
• Pattern of life: reviewed about a year of historical device-level location intelligence. Mapped the recurring places, when visits happen, how long they last and where the device rests overnight.
• Testing: compared each sworn claim with the observed pattern and gave every finding a confidence rating.
• Planning: turned the pattern into ranked windows for lawful surveillance, with predicted presence, so field work could confirm the findings on the ground.

• Four sworn claims tested. Three contradicted.
• Home and work were swapped. The claimant visited the address they called their primary residence only on weekday afternoons (22 of 22). The address they called their workplace was where the device spent every night in the window (23 of 23), with a consistent overnight sleep window.
• An undisclosed second household.
• The described disability routine didn't match the claimant's observed daily movement.
• One claim held up, and the report said so. The claimed medical-treatment schedule was corroborated: 13 of 13 appointments kept. We report what the data shows, including findings that support the claimant.

A surveillance plan was ready in five days, well inside the 30-day IME deadline.

The claim settled before trial, in the carrier's favor.

• Geolocation and pattern of life →
• Pattern of Life report →
• OnTrial for insurance defense →
• Sub rosa surveillance →

Before committing to a commercial relationship, the client needed to know whether Company X, a privately held manufacturer in mainland China, was who it claimed to be. Who actually controlled it? Did the company or its principals carry sanctions, export-control, political or integrity risk?

• Desk-based only, with no site visit. Most sources were in Chinese.
• Restricted official portals. Some court and customs portals were closed to us, so we rebuilt litigation history from other records.
• Common names. Several principals had common names, which makes screening harder.

• Ownership: verified Company X's registration, capital and ownership against official Chinese registers, then traced its ultimate beneficial owner.
• Related companies: mapped Company X's network of related companies.
• Screening: checked the company, its controlled affiliates and Individuals 1–3 against global sanctions, export-control, politically-exposed-person and debarment lists.
• Reviews: ran bilingual adverse-media, litigation, state-affiliation and intellectual-property reviews.
• Claims check: reconstructed the company's sales footprint from current and archived public materials, and checked its marketing claims against official records.

• Ownership doesn't match the public story. Company X is publicly presented as founded by Individual 2, a director. Official registry filings show Individual 1 as the controlling equity owner and legal representative. Ownership was otherwise transparent and private, with no state shareholding.
• Political exposure. Individual 2 was reported to hold local political-advisory and business-federation roles.
• Unresolved screening hits. Screening on Individual 2 returned candidate enforcement records, including a historical export-control matter, that matched on a common name only. They could not be ruled out without more identifiers.
• Sanctioned-market exposure. Company X's own marketing claimed sales coverage in sanctioned and high-risk markets, including a since-removed agent in a comprehensively sanctioned jurisdiction.
• Overseas agent. Individual 3, an overseas sales agent, appeared in historical corporate-director disqualification listings in another jurisdiction.
• Unsupported credential. Company X advertised a government recognition that official records did not support. Our analysts rated overall risk as moderate and recommended end-user and shipping documentation, additional identifiers for the principals, and an on-site inspection before any commitment.

The client walked away from the relationship.

• China and APAC due diligence →
• Due diligence →
• Private equity due diligence →