Claims are tested, not accepted
Client-supplied details form the baseline. We independently confirm each material data point against primary and historical sources before it appears in a report.
Our method
We verify what you’ve been told — then find what you haven’t.
Every investigation starts with the information you supply. We treat that as a set of claims to be tested, not facts to be repeated. From there we work outward across digital infrastructure, corporate records, archived history, social media, human sources and physical observation.
Operating principles
Evidence over assumption. Discretion throughout.
Our method is built around three disciplines that shape every engagement.
Multiple sources, one finding
A finding is only reported when it is supported across more than one layer — registry, digital, archived, human or physical. Single-source claims are flagged as unconfirmed.
Your interest is never disclosed
Enquiries are made without revealing who we are acting for, or the nature of the transaction being assessed. Discretion is a method requirement, not a courtesy.
The process
Seven stages, from intake to report.
Not every engagement requires every stage. Scope is set at intake and adjusted as discrepancies emerge.
Stage 01
Intake & baseline construction
We begin with what you already hold — company names, ACNs, ABNs, directors, trading names, addresses, domain names, key personnel and any representations made by the vendor or counterparty. This becomes the baseline claim set. Every subsequent stage exists to test it.
Output
- A structured claim matrix — what is being asserted, and by whom
- Priority list of data points that carry the most commercial risk
- Confirmed scope, timeline and reporting format
Stage 02
Corporate & registry verification
We verify the corporate skeleton: who the entity actually is, who controls it, and whether its history is consistent with how it has been presented. This stage frequently produces the first contradictions.
ASIC
ABR
ACN / ABN history
Director records
Registered addresses
Trading names
What we look for
- Directors with prior involvement in failed, deregistered or liquidated entities
- Name changes, re-registrations and business names that mirror a previous operation
- Registered address changes that align with a change in control
- ABR status inconsistencies against how the entity presents itself publicly
Stage 03
Domain, SSL & subdomain analysis
Digital infrastructure is difficult to erase. Certificates, subdomains and hosting records accumulate over time and often reveal relationships that the corporate record does not.
SSL certificate history
Certificate transparency logs
Subdomain enumeration
Hosting & nameserver data
What we look for
- Certificates issued to a different legal entity than the one being presented
- Subdomains exposing internal systems, staging environments, staff portals or legacy brands
- Shared infrastructure with other companies — indicating common control or a services arrangement
- Certificate issuance dates that predate the claimed formation of the business
Stage 04
WHOIS history & ownership tracing
Current WHOIS records are frequently redacted. Historical records are where ownership patterns surface — particularly when a domain has changed hands quietly between related parties.
WHOIS history
Registrant changes
Nameserver migrations
Registration timelines
What we look for
- Registrant details that previously belonged to a different, now-defunct entity
- Registrations predating the company’s claimed trading history
- Ownership transfers that coincide with insolvency, deregistration or a director change
- Nameserver shifts indicating the domain was moved between business groups
Stage 05
Archived web record & Wayback Machine
Websites are edited. Archives are not. We reconstruct the public history of the business to see what has been changed, removed or quietly rewritten.
Wayback Machine
Archived page captures
Historical site structure
Removed content
What we look for
- Previous company names, logos or branding still visible in older captures
- Address, phone and ABN details that have since changed
- Claims about capability, certifications, contracts or client base that no longer appear
- Sudden wholesale site rewrites coinciding with a corporate restructure
Stage 06
Open-source & human intelligence
Where records alone cannot resolve a discrepancy, we draw on open-source material and direct human enquiry. Social media, professional profiles, public listings and conversations with people who were there often produce what no registry can.
Social media
Professional networks
Public listings
Ex-employee interviews
Contractor & supplier enquiry
How discretion is maintained
We never misrepresent ourselves, and we never disclose your identity, your transaction or the reason for the enquiry. Contact is framed around general market research, supplier verification or historical enquiry — enough to open a conversation, never enough to reveal your position.
The objective is simple: understand the discrepancy. If a former contractor says payments were routinely late, or that the business traded under a different name twelve months ago, that is a data point the records alone would not have produced.
Stage 07
Physical corroboration
Where publicly available and lawful to access, we use public CCTV, open-source imagery and — where the matter warrants it — licensed private investigators to corroborate physical claims: that premises are operating, that assets exist where they are said to, that activity levels are consistent with representations made.
Public CCTV
Open-source imagery
Location verification
Licensed investigators
What this adds
- Independent confirmation that claimed operations exist as described
- Activity levels that contradict representations about scale or turnover
- Signage, branding or vehicle livery that reveals a different trading identity
- Physical assets whose existence, location or registration conflicts with what you were told
Sources & techniques
The full toolkit behind every report.
The seven stages describe how we sequence an investigation. These are the sources we draw on while doing it — the complete set of techniques that feed into a Sentinel report. Not every engagement uses all of them. Scope determines which apply.
A small sample of the open-source tools we use is published for reference. It is a fraction of our actual toolkit — the tools that happen to be browser-based and shareable.
01 — Corporate & registry
Primary corporate record
The authoritative record of who a company is and who controls it.
- ASIC company records — registration, status, history, document listings
- ABR — ABN status, trading names, GST and PAYG registration
- ACN and ABN history — prior registrations, cancellations, reinstatements
- Director and officeholder records — appointments, resignations, prior entities
- Registered address history — changes of principal place of business
- Business name registrations — current and historical, across all entities
- Related-body and shareholding disclosures — where ASIC filings reveal them
02 — Domain & infrastructure
Digital ownership and history
Infrastructure records accumulate over time and are rarely fully cleaned up.
- SSL certificate history — issuance dates, issuing authorities, entity names on certificates
- Certificate transparency logs — every certificate ever issued for a domain
- Historical DNS records — A, MX, TXT and CNAME history over the life of the domain
- Nameserver migrations — when hosting moved, and where it moved to
- Subdomain enumeration — internal systems, staging environments, staff portals, legacy brands
- WHOIS history — registrant changes, ownership transfers, registration timelines
- Hosting and IP history — shared infrastructure between apparently unrelated entities
- Email authentication records — SPF, DKIM and DMARC configuration and history
03 — Archived web record
What the site used to say
Websites are edited. Archives are not. We reconstruct what has been removed or rewritten.
- Wayback Machine captures — full historical site content and structure
- Previous branding and company names — visible in older captures
- Removed claims — capability, certification, client or contract statements that have vanished
- Historical contact details — addresses, phone numbers and ABNs that have changed
- Site rewrite patterns — wholesale content changes coinciding with corporate events
- Archived third-party references — press, directories and listings from earlier periods
04 — Open-source intelligence
Public digital footprint
What principals and entities publish about themselves, deliberately or otherwise.
- Social media profiles — personal and business, across major platforms
- Professional networks — employment history, connections, endorsements and claims
- Public posts and check-ins — location data, associations, timing patterns
- Tagged and posted imagery — vehicles, premises, staff, equipment, lifestyle indicators
- Marketplace and classified listings — assets for sale, plant, equipment, property
- Public company and trust registers — where accessible and lawful
- Industry directories and review sites — reputation, complaints, former associations
- Tender and contract listings — public awards, subcontracting relationships
- Court and tribunal records — where publicly searchable
- News and media archives — coverage, disputes, insolvency notices
05 — Human intelligence
People who were there
Records show events. Conduct lives with the people who experienced it.
- Ex-employee interviews — conducted one-to-one, discreetly, without disclosing your interest
- Former contractor and supplier enquiry — payment behaviour, project conduct, disputes
- Landlord and neighbouring business enquiry — occupation, activity levels, tenure
- Industry contact enquiry — reputation and history within the sector
- Former business partner enquiry — where relationships have ended
- Correspondence logs — what was asked, when, and by what means
06 — Physical observation
What can be seen in the real world
Physical corroboration where digital and documentary sources leave a gap.
- Public CCTV — where publicly accessible and lawful to view
- Open-source imagery — satellite, street-level and aerial captures over time
- Site observation — publicly visible activity, signage, staff, stock movement
- Vehicle and asset observation — where declared holdings conflict with what is visible
- Licensed private investigator engagement — for continuous or intermittent monitoring where the matter warrants it
The tools are published. The reading is not.
Anyone can run a WHOIS lookup in thirty seconds. The difficulty is not in the running — it is in what comes back, and knowing what it means.
Whether a registrant change two years ago matters or is routine housekeeping. Whether a director’s four prior entities are a pattern or a coincidence of a common name. Whether two businesses sharing an address means shared control or simply shared accountants. Whether the absence of a record is itself a finding. Whether the sequence of events you can see connects to the concern you actually have, or is noise. That judgement is not in any tool we have shown you — it comes from the volume of matters you have worked, and the consequences of getting them wrong.
Where it becomes necessary
Sometimes the only way to answer a question is to watch.
Most investigations resolve from records, digital history and human enquiry. Occasionally a matter turns on a specific physical fact that cannot be established any other way — whether premises are genuinely operating, whether stock is moving, whether an asset a person claims to own is where they say it is.
In those cases, and only where the matter warrants the cost, we engage licensed private investigators to conduct observation. This is not routine surveillance. It is targeted, time-boxed, and scoped to a specific question the documentary record has been unable to answer. Engagement is subject to licensing requirements in the relevant Australian jurisdiction, and the client is informed before it proceeds.
Worked example — declared versus actual asset position
A director represented his asset position in support of a commercial arrangement. On paper, the only vehicle he owned was a modest Toyota — consistent with the financial picture he had presented.
Physical observation identified a Corvette Stingray stored in a shopping centre car park, registered not to him, but to a person we later identified as a school friend from two decades earlier. The vehicle was not on any register connected to him, was not disclosed in any document, and its registered owner had no apparent commercial relationship to the business or to the arrangement.
On its own, this proves nothing about the matter under assessment. As an indicator, it is significant: an undisclosed asset of material value, deliberately kept off the record, held through a nominee with no commercial connection to the principal. It raises the question of what else has been structured the same way — and it changes how the declared financial position should be read.
Scoped, not open-ended
Engagement is limited to a defined question and a defined period. You know what is being observed, why, and for how long before it begins.
Licensed operatives only
We engage investigators licensed in the relevant Australian jurisdiction. Their conduct is bound by state law and by our own instructions on lawful method.
You are informed beforehand
Escalation to physical observation is not absorbed silently into an engagement. We come back to you with the reason, the scope and the cost before proceeding.
Findings are framed as indicators
Observation produces facts, not conclusions. A vehicle in a car park registered to a third party is an indicator of possible concealment — it is reported as such, with its limits stated.
Reporting
What lands on your desk.
Findings are presented in the order that matters to a decision, not the order we discovered them.
Claim-by-claim verification
Each material claim from intake, marked confirmed, contradicted, or unable to be verified — with the source behind each outcome.
Reconstructed timeline
Corporate events, domain changes, site rewrites and registry movements placed on a single sequence so patterns become visible.
Red flag summary
Phoenix and sham activity indicators, ranked by severity and by how directly they affect your decision.
Source references
Every finding traceable to its origin — certificate logs, archived captures, registry records, social media or interview notes.
Confidence rating
Findings graded by strength of corroboration. Single-source material is labelled as such, never presented as settled fact.
Practical next steps
Questions worth putting to the vendor, conditions worth attaching, or areas warranting deeper investigation.
Scope & limits
Clear about what we do — and what we don’t.
Being precise about boundaries is part of producing reliable intelligence.
Lawful sources only
We work exclusively from lawful, publicly available or properly obtained information. We do not access private systems, intercept communications, or obtain data unlawfully.
No false representation
Discretion means we do not disclose your interest. It does not mean we misrepresent who we are. Third-party contact is honest in nature, limited in detail.
Licensed investigators where engaged
Private investigators are engaged only where they hold a current licence in the relevant Australian jurisdiction, and only within the lawful scope of that licence.
Not legal or financial advice
We supply investigative findings. Interpretation, legal consequence and transaction structuring remain the province of your advisers.
Confidence is stated, not implied
Where evidence is thin, we say so. A report that overstates its certainty is worse than no report at all.
Nothing retained after delivery
Reports, evidence and working files are deleted on delivery. See our Privacy & Retention policy.
Confidential enquiry
Tell us what you need verified.
Send through the entity, the transaction and what you already know. We will confirm scope, timing and the appropriate investigation level.
Send a Confidential Enquiry[email protected]