Accelerated data interrogation
Challenge
How to more rapidly index, interrogate and cross reference newly acquired and business-critical data than legacy processes allowed.
Outcome
Frisk Insight Engine reduced the time taken for interrogation of data by 92% (vs. existing capabilities and processes).
Background
The Panama and Paradise Papers are two data leaks, each containing millions of files. Information contained related to offshore investments and tax regimes, including names of people and businesses that were exploiting them.
The business challenges
When a federal government agency responsible for financial crime investigation acquired the Panama and Paradise Papers, it was determined as business-critical to rapidly review and interrogate what they contained.
Existing procedures to understand the content and priority of datasets of this volume and nature were manual and slow.
A typical review of all the unstructured content would have taken employees thousands of hours, with speed and capability limitations existing when it came to optical character recognition (OCR) and indexing – both which were required for these datasets.
The Frisk solution
Delivering results that matter
Deployment of Frisk has contributed to the Taskforce progressing cases that have resulted in1:
- Completion of 1,851 audits and reviews
- Conviction and sentencing of 27 people
- Raised liabilities of $1.855 billion
- Collection of $730 million.
Indexed, connected and enriched
On both occasions, Frisk Insight Engine was deployed to aid accelerated data interrogation, including rapidly indexing, connecting and enriching the available data utilising optical character recognition (OCR), Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT). This also generated business-specific, dynamically created context files – capabilities that were previously limited within the department.
Frisk Insight Engine allowed for swift identification of items for further investigation, including identification of Australian entities referenced within the data.
Open-source intelligence (OSINT)
Data was cross-referenced with owned and open-source intelligence (OSINT), and iteratively refined using bulk query capabilities.
The output allowed for rapid identification of ‘entities of interest,’ making significant contribution to financial crime investigations within the agency.
Rapid response and critical time savings
Frisk Insight Engine accelerated data interrogation to reduce the time taken by 92% vs. existing capabilities and processes, exceeding client expectations and delivering business-critical intelligence.
Data-led confidence
The insights uncovered enabled senior members of the organisation to confidently address members of the Australian Senate with impressive insights backed by data, all achieved with the assistance of Frisk Insight Engine.
* Serious Financial Crime Taskforce. (n.d.). Our focus. The fight against tax crime. Australian Taxation Office. Retrieved August 15, 2023, from
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