Following the money in a high-net-worth divorce
Counsel for one spouse needed to know where the marital money had gone, including through companies that had never been disclosed. The records arrived as hundreds of statements from several banks, many of them scanned. We turned them into evidence.
Every figure in the final ledger is traceable to the statement page it came from.
Two problems at once
The first problem was data. Each bank lays out its statements differently, and many pages were scans: skewed, faint or creased. Software that reads text from images can mistake a 0 for an O or drop a leading digit, and running balances or page subtotals can look just like transactions. One misread number and the account no longer adds up.
The second problem was the investigation itself. Some entities had been disclosed, some had been disclosed without any statements produced, and others had never been mentioned. Money moving between related accounts also inflates apparent spending unless it is matched and set aside.
Why a scanned statement is hard
Reading the page is only half the job. The other half is proving the reading is right. Every statement was tied out to the totals and balances the bank itself printed. Try it:
- 24.10Leading digits lost to a crease
- 3,O24.1OZeros read as the letter O
- 3,024.10Correct reading
Off by $3,000.00 against the printed ending balance of 18,240.55. Sent to review.Ties to the penny. Committed to the ledger, with its source page.
From paper to evidence
We built a repeatable process rather than keying data by hand, so every number could be checked and every correction explained.
- Collect
Every statement fingerprinted, so duplicates and missing months surface immediately.
- Read
Text-based PDFs are read directly; scans go through character recognition.
- Rebuild
Each transaction row reconstructed, separating real activity from subtotals and balances.
- Reconcile
Totals, counts and balances tied to what the bank printed. Exceptions go to a person.
- Connect
Transfers between related accounts matched; counterparties linked to entities.
- Investigate
An interactive tool for the forensic accountant, with every row tied to its source page.
An interactive workbench for the forensic accountant
The reconciled ledger fed an interactive tool built around how a forensic accountant actually works: start from the people and entities, follow the money, and record findings as you go. Explore the demonstration below.
The map places the account holder at the centre. Solid lines are disclosed relationships; dashed bronze lines lead to entities identified through the investigation.
- In
- $1.42M
- Out
- $1.18M
- Txns
- 212
Disclosed. Accounts produced and reconciled statement by statement.
- In
- $0.86M
- Out
- $2.04M
- Txns
- 96
Disclosed. Capital calls and distributions; accounts produced.
- In
- $0.94M
- Out
- $1.37M
- Txns
- 3,412
Disclosed. Checking, savings and four credit cards.
- In
- $0.21M
- Out
- $0.64M
- Txns
- 18
Disclosed, but no statements produced. Visible only from the other side of transactions.
- In
- —
- Out
- $0.48M
- Txns
- 27
Not disclosed. Recurring payments from Northgate; flagged for counsel.
- In
- —
- Out
- $0.31M
- Txns
- 9
Not disclosed. Round-dollar wires soon after capital distributions; flagged for counsel.
- In
- $0.12M
- Out
- —
- Txns
- 6
Possible name variant of a disclosed entity. Counsel to confirm.
| Date | Account | Description | Category | Entity | Amount | Flags | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-01-06 | Northgate oper. x4471 | ACH PMT HALCYON DESIGN STUDIO | Professional services | Halcyon Design Studio LLC | -18,500.00 | Undisclosed entity | p. 7 |
| 2023-01-19 | Bayview cap. x0932 | CAPITAL DISTRIBUTION | Investment income | Bayview Capital LP | +250,000.00 | Large | p. 3 |
| 2023-01-23 | Bayview cap. x0932 | WIRE OUT KESTREL IMPORTS INC | Wire transfer | Kestrel Imports Inc. | -120,000.00 | Undisclosed entityLarge | p. 6 |
| 2023-02-03 | Personal chk. x2210 | ONLINE TRANSFER TO SAV x5518 | Internal transfer | Personal & joint accounts | -40,000.00 | Internal transfer | p. 6 |
| 2023-02-03 | Personal sav. x5518 | ONLINE TRANSFER FROM CHK x2210 | Internal transfer | Personal & joint accounts | +40,000.00 | Internal transfer | p. 3 |
| 2023-02-07 | Northgate oper. x4471 | ACH PMT HALCYON DESIGN STUDIO | Professional services | Halcyon Design Studio LLC | -18,500.00 | Undisclosed entity | p. 7 |
| 2023-02-14 | Personal chk. x2210 | WIRE IN CEDAR LANE FAM TR | Trust distribution | Cedar Lane Family Trust | +35,000.00 | Large | p. 3 |
| 2023-02-28 | Card x8812 | JEWELERS ON FIFTH NEW YORK | Luxury goods | Personal & joint accounts | -14,960.00 | p. 4 | |
| 2023-03-06 | Northgate oper. x4471 | ACH PMT HALCYON DESIGN STUDIO | Professional services | Halcyon Design Studio LLC | -18,500.00 | Undisclosed entity | p. 7 |
| 2023-03-15 | Personal chk. x2210 | DEPOSIT WESTMARK HLDGS | Unclassified | Westmark Hldgs | +20,000.00 | Undisclosed entity | p. 5 |
| 2023-03-21 | Bayview cap. x0932 | WIRE OUT KESTREL IMPORTS INC | Wire transfer | Kestrel Imports Inc. | -95,000.00 | Undisclosed entityLarge | p. 6 |
| 2023-03-30 | Northgate oper. x4471 | RENT RECEIPTS | Rental income | Northgate Realty LLC | +64,200.00 | Large | p. 6 |
Monthly outflows. Months more than three standard deviations above normal activity are marked ▲. Both spikes follow capital distributions and lead to an undisclosed entity.
Demonstration only. Every name, account and figure in this mockup is fictional.
Built for evidence, not just analysis
Open the exact statement page behind any transaction, so every number can be shown to counsel or a court.
The extracted data cannot be changed in the tool. Corrections are proposed with a full who, when and why trail.
Each entity is marked as disclosed with accounts, disclosed without accounts, or identified through the investigation.
Money moving between the family’s own accounts is matched and set aside, so true outside spending is not double-counted.
Unusual bursts of activity are highlighted on a timeline, with the largest movements inside any window.
The tool runs on the examiner’s own machine. Findings are exported for counsel; nothing is uploaded.
Different disciplines, one matter
The work combined Clovis resources that rarely sit in the same firm, working side by side from intake to findings.
Led the investigation: defined what mattered, reviewed exceptions, classified counterparties and built the findings.
Turned the statements into a reconciled ledger and built the interactive tool around the accountant’s workflow.
Set the legal questions, supplied the list of known entities and used the findings in discovery and negotiation.
What counsel received
A reconciled, searchable ledger of every transaction across every produced account. A map of the entities in the account holder’s orbit, with each one’s status and the money flowing to and from it, including entities identified through the investigation and flows to entities whose statements had never been produced.
Documented findings tied to source pages, ready to support targeted discovery requests and expert testimony.
Facing a matter where the money is hard to follow?
We combine forensic accounting with financial-crime data engineering to turn difficult records into evidence.