Referenced in our Newsletter Volume 2, Issue 3 - March 2003
Proactive Analyses
The following network was uncovered while performing proactive analyses on financial data using the Network Miner service. The span of this network is fairly extensive and has a number of interesting features.
The SUBJECT shown at the bottom of this network is connected to five unique SSNs (Social Security Numbers). The thickness of the link indicates the frequency of the connections; thicker lines indicate more links, thinner lines indicate fewer links. In this cluster, three of the five SSNs are heavily connected to the SUBJECT. This type of behavior could indicate that the SUBJECT intends to misrepresent his identity.
Although not displayed in this diagram (use of the Data Details mouse mode shows the object attributes), characters in the SSNs were transposed in a manner that could not result from data entry transpositions: sequences of two and three digits were switched. The combination of the transaction frequency and the character-group transpositions can only be interpreted as purposeful misrepresentation.
The SSN near the top of the diagram, connected to four SUBJECTS, reveals another scenario. In this case, the SSN is considered to be "valid" because it passes all of the basic validity tests, including the SSN Validation and Death Master Index Check. However, this number was used heavily for fixed time periods by different people. Again, the thicker lines indicate there is a heavier utilization by certain individuals.
Overall, the entire network of SUBJECTs and SSNs shown exposes a highly unusual set of connections. Because this network exposed such a suspicious set of actors, a large scale investigation ensued using this small network as the starting point.
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