Amcrin, i2 to provide fraud viewer

Amcrin Corp.

Amcrin Corp. and analysis software developer i2 Inc. plan to develop a quick-use "visual link" Web-based viewer for the rapidly growing, multistate CrimeDex network.

CrimeDex has online alerts and information about fraudulent activity for corporate and public sector investigators, with the aim of producing faster arrests and better strategic processes to reduce fraud. The FBI recently became a member of CrimeDex, as did the National White Collar Crime center.

i2's Anacubis CrimeDex viewer will make it much easier for people to pull meaningful information together using the network's data, said Jim Hudson, co-founder and vice president of business development for Amcrin (www.amcrin.net), which provides online fraud information and is based just outside of Portland, Oregon.

"It's a lot easier for people to explain things in terms of pictures and diagrams, rather than just text," he said. "This provides a way to draw a picture from the data, to see where the links are between things that, on the face of it, don't seem to have any links."

The Web viewer lets CrimeDex users quickly connect relevant pieces of information. For a more detailed chart, the user can drag the Anacubis chart into i2's Analyst's Notebook product which then goes back into the CrimeDex database to pull out any of the detailed underlying data behind the links.

"This saves hours and hours of an investigator's time in pulling this kind of picture together," Hudson said.

There's a natural synergy between the Amcrin and i2 products, he said, since CrimeDex has a strong presence in the local government level, while Analyst's Notebook is widely used by investigators at the state and federal level.

There's also a geographic advantage in the partnership, Hudson said. CrimeDex is active in every state west of the Mississippi, and is now branching out into the Midwest. The deal will also give Amcrin an introduction into the Eastern states, where i2 (www.i2inc.com), based in Springfield, VA, has a large part of its market, he said.

Brian Robinson is a freelance journalist based in Portland, Ore. He can be reached at hullite@mindspring.com.