i2 Analyst's Notebook - List Most Connected

Would you like to know how to find out which bank account might be involved in money laundering? Do you want to be able to identify transit accounts? Would you like to get a quick overview of which accounts have had the biggests loss? For all of these questions you can use List Most Connected, an analysis tool in i2 Analyst’s Notebook. This tool is very useful for financial investigations or investigations where the financial moneyflow can give insight in a network.

The tool has two tabs, Counts and Values.

The tab Counts is about the number of connections and links.

The tab Values shows the information about the link.

The overview is structured in a way that, after you selected what you want to view, you see a list of results underneath. You'll see the account number on the left, and for example on the right, the number of links this account has with other entities. Image 3 is an example to show this. Image 4 shows the account number on the left and on the right it shows the total value of the incoming transactions. 

The bar beside shows the ratio between incoming and outgoing transactions. If you click on it, the links will be selected in your schedule.

By hovering over this bar, more details are shown.

Image 3

Image 4

When looking between two entities as a pair, identified by the word Connection, you will see both accounts.

Under Connections with the most links, image 5, you see the amount of links between the two accounts.

At Connection totals, image 6, you will see the total amount that has been transferred between these two accounts. The bar shows you the direction of the transfer.

By hovering over this bar, more details are shown.

Image 5

Image 6

What are the options on the tab Counts:

• Most links: Which entity has the most links
• Most connected entities: Which entity is in contact with the most entities
• Most inbound/outbound: Which entity has the most incoming/ outbound links
• Connections with the most links: Which entities have the most interconnections, as a pair.

Within a drugs network you may want to know which people have had frequent contact with each other, for example through transactions or telephone calls. You can use 'Connections with the most links' for this. For financial transactions, you will receive an overview of the two bank account numbers that have transferred money to each other and the number of times a transaction has taken place. By clicking on the bar, the relevant links are immediately selected. This can also be applied to a schedule of telephone calls.

What are the options on the tab Values:

The information you see here depends on the information available on the link. For example, if amounts have been added as an attribute to the link, this will not provide a useful overview.

• Total inbound: Which account has the most incoming amounts
• Total outbound: Which account has the most outgoing amounts
• Net inbound: Which account has received the most net inbound
• Net outbound: Which account has spent the most net
• Total value of links: What is the total value of all links
• Totals with low net change: Which account has no more than X% of the incoming minus outgoing amounts. The percentage can be adjusted.
• Connection totals: The amount of transactions between two accounts, as a pair
• Connection net totals: The net amount remaining from the transactions between two accounts, as a pair

In cases such as money laundering, it is useful to be able to quickly identify a transit account by looking at accounts where a lot of money comes in, but also where a lot of money goes out quickly. The Totals with low net change option can help you with this. You can set the percentage of “residual amount” you are interested in.

If you have a schema with multiple types of entities and links, it is possible to make a selection which type of link you would like to display. You do this under the heading Links of type.

If you only want to search within a specific selection, you can choose under the Restrict heading to search only within the selected entities or to count only within the selected links.

You can highlight the results found individually with a color by clicking on the circle in front of the account number. It is also possible to highlight the top 10 all at once. 

As soon as you choose another category to display, the colors will disappear. You have the option to select the entities and links you have highlighted and copy them to a new chart, which will preserve the colors.

List most connected is not only useful for charts with exclusively financial transactions or phone calls. It's also useful for charts that, in addition to financial transactions and phone calls, contain other entities.

If you have more questions about this topic or are interested in an i2 Analyst's Notebook training please view the training page or contact us.

For information about available dates and costs, please contact training@dataexpert.nl.