OSINT Investigation — Public Records Cross-Reference

Investigative framework for public-records OSINT: government contracts, corporate filings, lobbying, sanctions, offshore leaks, property records, court records, web archives, knowledge bases, and global news. Resolve entities across heterogeneous sources, build cross-links with explicit confidence, and produce structured evidence chains.

Python stdlib only. Zero install. Most sources work with no API key.

When to Use

Use when the user asks for:

• "follow the money" — government contracts, lobbying → legislation, sanctions
• Corporate due diligence — who controls company X, where incorporated, board

members, filings

• Sanctions screening — is entity X on OFAC SDN, ICIJ offshore leaks
• Property ownership — find recorded deeds/mortgages by name or address
• Litigation history — find federal + state court opinions
• Multi-source entity resolution where naming varies (LLC suffixes, abbreviations)
• Evidence-chain construction with explicit confidence levels
• "what's been said about X" — international news + Wikipedia + Wayback Machine

Core Sources

Corporate & Financial

| Source | What | Access | |--------|------|--------| | SEC EDGAR | US public company filings (10-K, 10-Q, 8-K, 13F) | curl to https://efts.sec.gov/LATEST/search-index?q=... | | USAspending.gov | Federal contracts and grants | curl to https://api.usaspending.gov/api/v2/... | | Senate Lobbying | Lobbying Disclosure Act filings | curl to https://lda.senate.gov/api/v1/... | | OFAC SDN | Sanctions list | curl to https://www.treasury.gov/ofac/... | | ICIJ Offshore Leaks | Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, etc. | browse_page to https://offshoreleaks.icij.org/... | | OpenCorporates | Corporate registry (optional free token) | curl to https://api.opencorporates.com/... |

Property & Courts

| Source | What | Access | |--------|------|--------| | NYC ACRIS | NYC property records (deeds, mortgages) | browse_page to https://a836-acris.nyc.gov/... | | CourtListener | Federal + state court opinions | curl to https://www.courtlistener.com/api/... |

Archives & Knowledge

| Source | What | Access | |--------|------|--------| | Wayback Machine | Archived web pages | browse_page to https://web.archive.org/web/... | | Wikipedia/Wikidata | Encyclopedia + structured data | bash with curl to Wikipedia API | | GDELT | Global news monitoring | bash with curl to https://api.gdeltproject.org/... |

Methodology

1. Entity Resolution

Before cross-referencing, resolve the entity across sources:

• Normalize names (LLC suffixes, abbreviations, DBA aliases)
• Identify unique identifiers (EIN, LEI, CIK, OpenCorporates ID)
• Build a canonical entity record with all known aliases

2. Source-by-Source Query

For each relevant source, query by entity name or identifier:

bash
# SEC EDGAR — search for company filings
curl -s "https://efts.sec.gov/LATEST/search-index?q=%22Company+Name%22" | python3 -c "..."

# USAspending — federal contracts to entity
curl -s -X POST "https://api.usaspending.gov/api/v2/search/spending_by_award/" -d '{"filters":{...}}'

# OFAC SDN — check sanctions list
curl -s "https://www.treasury.gov/ofac/downloads/sdn.csv" | grep -i "entity name"

3. Cross-Link Analysis

Build explicit cross-links between sources:

• Same entity appearing in multiple sources
• Timing correlation (contract award → lobbying registration → legislation)
• Shared addresses, phone numbers, officers across entities

4. Confidence Scoring

For each finding, assign confidence:

• High: Official government record, multiple corroborating sources
• Medium: Single official source, or multiple unofficial sources
• Low: Single unofficial source, unverified

5. Evidence Chain

Construct an evidence chain showing how findings connect:

[Source A: fact 1] → [Source B: fact 2] → [Inference: conclusion]
  confidence: High      confidence: Medium     confidence: Medium

Output

Produce a structured investigation report:

markdown
# OSINT Investigation: [Entity / Topic]

## Executive Summary
[2-3 paragraph overview of findings]

## Entity Profile
- **Canonical Name**: ...
- **Aliases**: ...
- **Identifiers**: EIN, LEI, CIK, etc.
- **Known Addresses**: ...

## Findings by Source

### SEC EDGAR
[Findings with dates, filing types, key data]

### USAspending
[Contract awards, amounts, dates, agencies]

### OFAC SDN
[Sanctions status: CLEAR / MATCH (with details)]

### [Other sources...]

## Cross-Link Analysis
[Explicit connections between findings across sources]

## Evidence Chain
[Step-by-step reasoning from raw data to conclusions]

## Confidence Assessment
[Summary of confidence levels for key conclusions]

## Sources
[All URLs queried, with access dates]

Save to .poirot/outputs/osint-{entity}-{YYYYMMDD}.md.

Pitfalls

• Name variants: "Acme LLC", "Acme L.L.C.", "Acme" may be different

entities. Normalize but don't assume.

• Stale data: Public records may lag. Note the record's date.
• False positives: Sanctions list partial name matches need full record

review. Don't report a match without verifying the full entry.

• Rate limits: Government APIs may rate-limit. Add delays between requests.
• Legal caution: OSINT findings are leads, not proof. Frame as "evidence

suggests" not "proven".