The key to improvedsecurity and better The digital economy delivers many benefits to societiesand businesses, but it also spawns a technologically These techno-criminals transform the fraud and risk mitigationpractices of financial institutions, corporations, and lawenforcement into a complex game of digital whack-a-mole.Identity theft, money laundering, synthetic identities, account A sophisticated class of criminals These fraudulent crimes share one common tactic: perpetrators use false informationand digital misdirection to fool their victims and evade detection. The complexity andsophistication of these crimes may vary but in recent years, it has become clear that The core problem is that online criminals understand the methods financial institutionsand law enforcement typically use to identify fraud, money laundering, and other illegal Clearing the smoke Criminals avoid detection by hiding their activities with encryption, artificial intelligence(AI) deepfakes, false identities, fake websites and social media feeds, the dark web, cryptocurrencies, and other diversionary measures. As a result, anyone using free search toolslike Google™ or Bing® to check a fake business may find information that looks legitimatebut isn’t. Even worse, finding this information, an investigator might mistakenly believe they The weakness for criminals is that their evasion methods only provide a surface-levelillusion of credibility. Dig a few layers deeper — into public court records, police reports,business licensing data, SEC filings, credit reports, motor vehicle records, utility bills, real Even the most dedicated criminals leave some sort of digital trail, and not every datasource can be manipulated or hidden. To reveal these deceptions, one must use a search Thomson Reuters CLEAR: The search toolinvestigators know they can trust Although dataprivacy laws restrictaccess to certainpersonal details, awealth of information The need for more penetrating searches of publicly available information is why manymodern risk management and fraud prevention teams rely on Thomson Reuters® CLEAR. CLEAR is specifically designed to access and search all kinds of public records, unlikepopular public search engines or other tools. Combined with proprietary databasesdeveloped through years of research, CLEAR helps corporate, financial, and legal Using CLEAR, companies can confidently verify the legitimacy of new vendors. Financialinstitutions can ensure that their know-your-customer (KYC) protocols offer the best CLEAR effectively searches public records, analyzes the data, organizes the results, andpresents the findings on a customized, easy-to-read dashboard. The dashboard includesat-a-glance risk flags, as well as a GenAI-powered Risk Analysis Summary (RAS) that The power of public records There are several reasons why CLEAR focuses on public records. First, public records are legal sources of valuable information. Most government agenciesare required to publish data related to their official activities. This includes information onbusiness transactions and beneficial ownership, property records, zoning codes, businessaddresses, and death records, as well as records relating to bankruptcies, liens, and Data privacy laws block access to certain personal information, like sealed court recordsand private financial data. However, a vast amount of information is available online for While people won’t go to the trouble of locating hard-to-find information, companies,law firms, and financial institutions operating in competitive environments can use public More information, better protection Public records, when used responsibly and legally, provide information that can helpfinancial institutions protect against money launderers and high-risk clients. Companiesthat conduct thorough due diligence on new suppliers can find public records thatwarn them against certain suppliers and guide them to more reliable and cost-effective However, finding valuable insights into public data can be challenging. The main obstacle isthat many people, including experienced investigators, don’t know where or how to search.Manually searching for this information is time-consuming, and there’s no guarantee that Cutting through the clutter CLEAR solves problems by decluttering and locating needed information based on thesearch parameters and risk tolerance set up by the user. CLEAR can also predict resultsfrom incomplete information, like missing addresses or unclear ownership details, tofind likely connections between data in different databases. These capabilities make Risk and fraud: Challenges and solutions In the real world, there are numerous regulatory requirements, security protocols, and other challenging scenarios that can Synthetic and stolen identities Vendor due diligence The challenge:Banks and other financial institutions oftenstruggle to distinguish real customers from those usingsynthetic or stolen identities. Fraudst