The Sentry Partners With Castellum.AI to Expand Compliance Screening and Impact

The Sentry Announces Tech Partnership With Castellum.AI to Help Companies Screen Customers for Corruption Links

 
November 17, 2022 (Washington DC) – Today, The Sentry announced a partnership with Castellum.AI to improve the ability of businesses and organizations to screen their customers for ties to corruption.

As the world’s only freemium compliance screening platform, Castellum.AI will expand the impact of The Sentry’s investigative work, broadening access to information of critical value to the public and private sector. This data partnership means that Castellum.AI users can access and search information derived from The Sentry’s investigations for free to ensure that they are not conducting business with known kleptocrats or their enablers.

Michelle Kendler-Kretsch, Investigative Coordinator and Data Specialist at The Sentry, said: “Through this partnership, The Sentry shares the data underlying our in-depth investigations with Castellum.AI’s publicly available compliance platform. This vastly improves the ability to screen against individuals and companies from our reporting and make informed decisions shortly after the story breaks. It can sometimes take years after someone has committed human rights violations, grand acts of corruption, or abuses of power for their name to appear on a sanctions list. Data sharing between our investigative and policy team and the private sector provides a nimbleness necessary to effectively protect the international financial system.”

Peter Piatetsky, Castellum.AI CEO and co-founder, and former US Treasury Department official, said: “We are very excited to formally announce our partnership with The Sentry. We have been working closely with The Sentry to expand the impact of its investigations by making its data easily and freely available to everyone in the world with an internet connection. With The Sentry’s data now available to investigators in Nairobi and corporate compliance teams in New York, for free through Castellum.AI, and structured for easy screening, there is no excuse for businesses not to check their customers and counterparties for ties to corruption.”

Castellum.AI provides global watchlists checks to users and clients, covering sanctions, politically exposed persons (PEPs), export controls, law enforcement, and other data types. By structuring The Sentry’s data in a watchlist format, Castellum.AI enables compliance professionals to screen the results of The Sentry’s investigations in the same way that they are already screening sanctions and PEP lists.

Justyna Gudzowska, Director of Illicit Finance Policy at The Sentry, said: “The Sentry’s deep dive investigations provide critical data for compliance professionals to identify high-risk individuals and companies, including corporate holdings, personal identifiers, and family relationships. Given our expertise in specific regions, the data shared with Castellum.AI and made publicly available will help compliance professionals make judgement calls in jurisdictions lacking transparency. Castellum.AI’s platform enables The Sentry to take its storytelling and turn it into free, accessible, and actionable data, shining a light into the shadows where illicit actors hide.”

 

For media inquiries or interview requests, please contact: Greg Hittelman, Director of Communications at The Sentry, [email protected]

For Castellum.AI inquiries or requests, please contact: Spencer Vuksic, Director of Solutions and Partnerships, Castellum.AI, [email protected]

 

About Castellum.AI

Castellum.AI is a Public Benefit Corporation with the mission of democratizing compliance tools and data. Castellum.AI provides free access to over 1,000 watchlists to over 1,400 users globally and over a dozen enterprise clients. Castellum.AI also has paid features that include audit trails, batch screening, an API and more.

About The Sentry

(Short descriptor for press use: “The Sentry, an investigative organization that tracks corruption”)
The Sentry is an investigative and policy organization that seeks to disable multinational predatory networks that benefit from violent conflict, repression, and kleptocracy. Pull back the curtain on wars, mass atrocities, and other human rights abuses, and you’ll find grand corruption and unchecked greed. These tragedies persist because the perpetrators rarely face meaningful consequences. The Sentry aims to alter the warped incentive structures that continually undermine peace and good governance. Our investigations follow the money as it is laundered from war zones to financial centers around the world. We provide evidence and strategies for governments, banks, and law enforcement to hold the perpetrators and enablers of violence and corruption to account. These efforts provide new leverage for human rights, peace, and anti-corruption efforts.