Following the money isn’t enough anymore: why OSINT and financial intelligence work better together
Following the money has long been fundamental to investigating economic crime. But today, the financial trail is only one part of the picture. Fraud increasingly begins online, with digital identities, online relationships, businesses and interconnected networks appearing long before money reaches an account.
For investigators, understanding the transaction is important. Understanding the people, relationships and digital activity surrounding it can be just as valuable. Bringing financial intelligence and open-source intelligence (OSINT) together can provide that wider investigative picture.
Economic crime is becoming increasingly digital
The way economic crime is committed has changed considerably.
Digital platforms, online identities, social media, websites and increasingly complex networks can all play a role in facilitating fraud and other forms of economic crime. We’ve explored this changing landscape in our article, Fraud is learning and investigations need to evolve faster.
For investigators, this means there is often a much broader trail to follow. Financial records can reveal how money has moved, but the digital trail surrounding those transactions may provide valuable context about the people and organisations behind them.
Following the money is still essential
Financial analysis remains central to understanding economic crime. Bank statements, transaction histories and other financial records can help investigators identify unusual activity, trace the movement of funds, uncover hidden income and establish relationships between accounts. The challenge is often the volume and complexity of information investigators need to analyse.
Technology such as Altia’s Financial Investigation Toolkit (FIT) helps transform complex financial records into structured, searchable data, making it easier to identify patterns, anomalies and relationships. But even detailed financial analysis cannot always explain everything surrounding a transaction. It may show where money travelled, when it moved and which accounts were involved. What it may not immediately reveal is the wider network behind that activity.
This is where OSINT can add another layer to the investigation.
Looking beyond the transaction with OSINT
Open-source intelligence involves collecting and analysing publicly available information to support an investigation.
For economic crime investigators, this could help uncover:
- Connections between individuals and organisations
- Associated companies and company directors
- Online identities and digital footprints
- Websites and other online infrastructure
- Relationships that may not be immediately apparent from financial records
For example, financial analysis might identify transactions moving between several accounts. Open-source research could then reveal that individuals connected to those accounts share links to the same company, website, online profile or wider network.
Altia’s OSINT Investigator is designed to support this process, helping investigators capture and manage online intelligence securely as part of an evidential workflow.
Each source tells part of the story. Together, they can provide a much clearer picture.
One investigation, a wider intelligence picture
Financial intelligence and OSINT shouldn’t always be viewed as separate investigative disciplines. They answer different questions and provide different pieces of the investigative picture.
Financial analysis can help investigators understand:
- Where money has moved
- Who sent or received it
- Patterns across transactions
- Unusual or unexplained financial activity
- Relationships between accounts
OSINT can help investigators explore:
- Connections between people and organisations
- Online identities and digital footprints
- Companies and associated individuals
- Websites and online infrastructure
- Publicly available information relevant to the investigation
The real value comes when those two intelligence pictures are brought together.
What could that look like in practice?
Consider an investigation where unusual payments have been identified across several bank accounts. Rather than treating the financial and digital elements as separate lines of enquiry, investigators can begin connecting them.
1. Identify
Financial analysis highlights unusual payments, transaction patterns or activity across several bank accounts.
2. Follow
Investigators follow the movement of funds, identifying accounts, transactions and relationships that may require further investigation.
3. Connect
Open-source research provides additional context, uncovering potential links between individuals, businesses, online identities and digital activity associated with those accounts.
4. Build the picture
Financial and digital intelligence can then be considered together, helping investigators understand the wider network and identify connections that may not have been visible from either source alone.
Instead of looking at a series of transactions in isolation, investigators can begin to build a more complete picture of the people, relationships and activity behind them.
Connecting financial and digital intelligence
Economic crime investigations rarely rely on one source of information. Investigators may move between bank statements, online research, company information, intelligence and evidence as an investigation develops.
The challenge is connecting those different strands. As explored in UK criminals are not abandoning cash, they are digitising the laundering chain, criminals increasingly move between traditional financial systems and digital platforms.
When financial and digital intelligence are considered together, relationships and patterns can become easier to identify. The tools investigators use need to support that same connected way of working.
Building a more complete picture of economic crime
Following the money hasn’t become less important. The environment surrounding it has simply become more complex. Financial intelligence can help establish what happened to the money. OSINT can help investigators understand more about the people, organisations and digital activity surrounding it.
Neither replaces the other.
Together, they can help investigators move beyond isolated transactions and pieces of information towards a clearer understanding of the wider activity behind them.
As economic crime continues to evolve, connecting financial and digital intelligence will become increasingly important in helping investigation teams uncover relationships, follow evidence and build stronger cases.
Explore Altia’s investigation solutions and discover how our technology supports complex investigations.
