ACC 693 Module 8 Link Analysis Assignment Example

Link Analysis of the Flashing Subcontractor

[Student Name]

Southern New Hampshire University

ACC 693: Investigating with Computers

Module Eight Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The organization, setting and figures below are a composite written as a model document. No real employer, client, colleague or patient is described.

Link Analysis of the Flashing Subcontractor

Introduction

The data tests and document analysis have tied the flashing subcontractor's paperwork to the project manager's own laptop and login. A remaining question is who controls and benefits from the subcontractor itself. Link analysis addresses that question by treating each person, company, account and record as an entity and each documented relationship as a link. Sparrow (1991) argued that network analysis could give investigators a structured way to see criminal relationships, provided each link rests on evidence rather than suspicion. This paper identifies the entities, documents each link and its source, grades its strength, describes the chart and interprets it.

Building the Network

The analysis began with the subcontractor and worked outward one step at a time. For each entity, the examiner asked which records named it and what other entities those records named. A link was added only when a document, data file or log connected two entities directly, and each link was recorded in a log with the source, the date the source was obtained and the person who reviewed it. Entities that appeared only in rumor, such as a second relative mentioned by a foreman, were left out until a record supported them. The examiner used link analysis software to draw the chart, but the link log, not the picture, is the evidence; the chart is a view of the log.

Two categories of record were especially productive. Public records, the state business filing and the historical domain registration, could be gathered without legal process and named people directly. Financial records, the company's own payment files and the credit union statements produced under subpoena in the civil lawsuit, showed where the money went. Between them, these two categories supplied seven of the nine links.

Entities

The analysis includes nine entities: the project manager; his wife; her brother, who organized the LLC; the flashing subcontractor LLC; its business address; its web domain; its phone number; the credit union account that received the company's payments; and the joint account held by the project manager and his wife. The company itself and the seventy-four invoices are shown at the edge of the chart as the source of the funds.

Links and Their Sources

Documented links

The Chart

Drawn as a chart, the network has two clusters joined by the LLC. On one side are the records of the LLC's public face: its filing, address, domain and phone. On the other are the money and the people: the credit union account, the joint account and the project manager. The LLC node has the most links, since every public-facing record attaches to it, but the project manager is the most central figure because every path from the company's payments ends with him, either through the invoices he created or the funds that reached his joint account. The wife's brother appears as organizer and as the emergency contact, but no link shows him receiving funds beyond the 39 percent that remained in the credit union account, which bank records show was used mostly for cash withdrawals.

Interpreting the Links

Some links are direct proof. The payment files and bank records show where the money went, and the historical domain registration shows the project manager registered the domain the subcontractor used. Others support inference: the mailbox store address is consistent with a sham business but is common among small legitimate firms, and the shared phone number links the LLC to the brother-in-law rather than directly to the project manager. Kranacher and Riley (2019) advise distinguishing what the evidence establishes from what it suggests, and the table's strength ratings serve that purpose.

The historical domain record deserves attention because it is the kind of evidence a shell company's organizers often overlook. The domain was registered on February 27, 2023, three days before the vendor setup request, with the project manager's personal email as the registrant contact. Privacy protection was added four days later. A historical registration service had captured the original record. Casey (2011) notes that online records of this kind must be documented with screenshots, retrieval dates and the service used so that they can be authenticated, and the examiner did so.

What Remains Unproven

Three questions remain. Whether the wife knew of the scheme is not shown by her name on the joint account alone. The use of cash withdrawn from the credit union account is unknown. And whether the brother-in-law performed any work, or agreed to the use of his name, depends on his account, which counsel has requested. Each gap is a question for the next stage rather than a reason to speculate. Two further steps would strengthen the network. A subpoena to the mailbox store would show who rented the box and who collected mail, and a request to the domain registrar, through the civil case, would produce the payment card used to register the domain. Either could add a direct link between the project manager and the subcontractor's operations rather than its paperwork.

Conclusion

The link analysis shows that the subcontractor was organized by the project manager's brother-in-law, used a domain the project manager registered and a phone tied to his family, and paid most of its receipts into his joint account. With the invoices traced to his laptop, every path from the company's payments leads to him. Milestone Three will place these links on a timeline.

References

Casey, E. (2011). Digital evidence and computer crime: Forensic science, computers, and the Internet (3rd ed.). Academic Press.

Kranacher, M.-J., & Riley, R. A. (2019). Forensic accounting and fraud examination (2nd ed.). Wiley.

Sparrow, M. K. (1991). The application of network analysis to criminal intelligence: An assessment of the prospects. Social Networks, 13(3), 251-274. https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-8733(91)90008-H