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Case Studies

UK Law Enforcement Uncovers £4.5M in Illicit Assets within 7 Days

Critical Risk Domains Anti-Money Laundering (AML) | Anti-Bribery and Anti-Corruption (ABAC)

To combat sophisticated organized crime, a leading UK law enforcement agency transitioned from a centralized intelligence request model to a decentralized, data-driven investigative approach. By integrating Sayari Graph’s high-fidelity corporate and property data, the agency eliminated workflow bottlenecks and achieved immediate operational wins.

Immediate ROI:

Identified a £4.5M unmortgaged property—a key indicator of money laundering—within the first week of deployment.

Workflow Optimization:

Bypassed burdensome open source intelligence unit request delays, putting data directly into the hands of investigators.

Global Transparency:

Linked UK-based subjects to opaque shareholdings in China and used trade data to identify importers of equipment used in human smuggling.

The Challenge: Siloed Intelligence and Investigative Delays

The agency’s primary obstacle was a restrictive workflow where investigators relied on a centralized open source intelligence unit to process data requests, creating significant friction and delays. This bottleneck hindered the ability to meet strict 30-day regulatory charging windows. Furthermore, existing tools lacked the comprehensive data provenance required to expose high-value assets and complex cross-border corporate structures used by organized crime groups.

The Solution: Decentralized Intelligence for Immediate Results

Sayari transformed the agency’s investigative capacity by providing an intuitive platform for coordinated data usage across 40+ police forces, with API access for specialized analysts performing strategic lead generation.

Key Transformation Pillars:

  • Verified Data Provenance: Empowered analysts to cite authoritative source records directly in senior leadership briefings, ensuring evidentiary integrity.
  • Property and Trade Dominance: Delivered high-fidelity UK property data and global trade records to trace illicit assets and fraudulent investments previously invisible to legacy systems.
  • Cross-Border Connectivity: Provided a unified view of individuals and assets across borders, connecting global corporate shareholdings, shell companies, and physical property.

The Sayari team was praised for being “highly responsive and thorough” in overcoming process friction to align the solution with complex regulatory needs.

Impact: Accelerated Justice and Asset Recovery

  • Eliminated Investigative Bottlenecks: By decentralizing data access, the agency removed open source intelligence unit request delays, ensuring investigators could consistently meet the 30-day regulatory window for charging cases.
  • High-Value Asset Seizure: Surfaced a £4.5M property asset purchased without a mortgage that existing tools had failed to uncover, providing a direct lead for potential asset recovery.
  • Global Footprint Visualization: Connected UK leads to shareholdings in opaque jurisdictions such as China, providing a comprehensive map of a lead’s global footprint for further evaluation and action.
  • Disrupted Organized Crime Networks: Leveraged international trade data to identify importers of equipment used in human smuggling, leading directly to arrests and the dismantling of illicit supply chains.

Contact us to learn more about how Sayari helps global law enforcement teams use corporate and trade data to identify fraudulent activity, trace illicit assets, and support prosecution.

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