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Catch Criminal Risk Hiding in Public Records

Check people and companies against public crime records, watchlists, and sanctions, and monitor them daily.
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Why conduct a criminal record check

Anyone you engage with carries a history you cannot see at a glance, whether that is a customer, a partner, or a prospective hire. A criminal record check pulls out the piece of that history recorded in public: charges, convictions, court cases, and appearances on crime and watchlists. It answers a simple question — does this person carry criminal risk that bears on the role or relationship? — and it answers it before they are on your payroll, in your building, or working with your customers. For regulated businesses, running the check is often mandatory. For everybody else, it is just sensible risk management, because one bad decision ends up costing far more than the check ever would.

Get records from a variety of public sources

No single source tells the whole story, and much of what matters is scattered across the public record. Beady pulls from more than a thousand publicly available sources, published court cases, public most-wanted and crime lists, sanctions and watchlists, adverse media, and social, and brings them together in one search. Instead of checking each one separately and piecing the results together by hand, you get a single, consolidated view of a person or company, drawn from wherever the relevant public information happens to live.

Instant checks to scale your compliance workflows

The problem with manual crime checks is that they do not scale. Search the lists, read the court records, paste your findings into a file, repeat — do that for every check and your team reaches its limit well before the business reaches its own. Beady runs the check in minutes and hands back a completed, source-linked report you can use right away. Screening one person? Screening hundreds of counterparties a week? Same speed either way. That keeps compliance moving at the pace of growth instead of dragging behind it.

Detect risks based on verified data, not assumptions

A crime check is only worth acting on if you can trust it. Beady works exclusively from publicly available information, and every flag it raises links straight back to the original source, a court record, a most-wanted listing, a news report. Nothing is inferred, scored behind a black box, or invented by the model. If a record shows a charge or a listing, you can open the source and confirm it yourself. That means the decisions you make rest on evidence you can actually defend.

Why traditional and manual checks fail

Traditional crime checks fall short in two ways. The first is speed, or rather the lack of it. Relevant records are scattered across separate courts, registries, and lists, so doing the job properly means querying each one and then waiting for a response. The second problem is that these checks only ever capture a single moment in time. You look someone up once and never return to it, yet a clean record today will not necessarily stay clean. A charge, a conviction, or a fresh listing that appears next year passes by unnoticed. By the time you finally learn of it, that person may have been part of your business for months.

Crime monitoring with AI makes it better

AI closes both gaps. Instead of querying sources one at a time, Beady searches more than a thousand public sources at once and returns a consolidated report in minutes. Its models read the results, filter out wrong-person matches and irrelevant noise, and surface only the records that genuinely apply to the person or company you’re checking. And the check doesn’t end there. Beady can keep monitoring an individual or business and alert you the moment a new charge, listing, or adverse story appears, so you’re never the last to know.

01 Most-Wanted Lists
Beady checks people and companies against publicly available most-wanted and law-enforcement lists from around the world, so a name that appears on a public wanted list is surfaced as part of the check, complete with a link to the public source.
02 Public Court Cases
Few sources reveal as much about public risk as court records do. Beady searches through publicly available court cases and filings connected to a person or a company, bringing litigation and other legal matters on the public record into view. You get to see the cases attached to a name without spending hours digging through court systems yourself.
03 Watchlist & Compliance Screening
Not every risk turns up in a court record. Some of it lives on official lists instead. Beady checks people and companies against publicly available watchlists, PEP data, and the various regulatory and enforcement lists out there, so the compliance exposure that a straight criminal check would overlook does not slip past you. All of it comes from public sources.
04 Social Media Screening
Public behaviour online can reveal risk long before it reaches a formal record. Beady scans public social media for red flags tied to a person or company, from threats to concerning conduct, and links every finding to the public post it came from, so nothing rests on hearsay.
05 Adverse Media Screening
Crime and wrongdoing often surface in the news before they reach an official record. Beady searches publicly available news across 100,000+ sources for negative coverage tied to a name, so a fraud allegation, investigation, or scandal reported publicly is caught and linked to its source.
06 Sanctions Lists
Dealing with a sanctioned person or company is not a small mistake. The legal fallout is serious, and it lands on you. That is why Beady screens every name against the major public sanctions lists. OFAC, the EU, the UN, the UK’s HMT. And it refreshes them daily, which is the part that actually matters, because a party sanctioned last week is no use to you if your list is a month old. Someone newly sanctioned gets caught at the check itself. Not afterwards, when the damage is already done.

What Can You Check

People

Criminal and public risk usually attach to people, so Beady checks all of them. That means your customers, the beneficial owners (UBOs) behind the companies you deal with, company directors, employees, and the agents acting on a business’s behalf. It also flags politically exposed persons (PEPs), whose position carries a higher risk of bribery or corruption and calls for closer scrutiny. Crucially, Beady looks past the name on the paperwork to the individuals behind it, drawing on a database of 200M+ companies and officers, so you check who you’re actually dealing with, not just the entity on the contract.

Organizations

Companies show up in the public record as often as people, and the risk isn’t always obvious from the name above the door. Beady checks corporate entities, the supplier businesses in your chain, and the counterparties on the other side of your deals against public crime records, sanctions, and watchlists. It pays particular attention to shell companies, the opaque structures often used to disguise who really owns or controls a business. By tracing ownership across 200M+ legal entities and their officers, Beady helps you see the real organisation behind a name before you commit to working with it.

Assets & Transport

Most checks look at people and companies. Fair enough, but that is only half the picture. Sanctions and watchlists name specific assets as well. A vessel. An aircraft. Deal with one of those and the exposure is real, even if the name attached to it looked perfectly clean. Beady runs vessels and aircraft against public sanctions and watchlists, using identifiers like IMO and tail numbers, so a ship or plane linked to a sanctioned owner or route does not make it into your operations unnoticed. It matters most in shipping, trade finance, logistics and insurance. Places where a single flagged asset can drag an entire transaction down with it. Check the asset itself. Not just the party behind it. That is the gap name-only checks leave wide open.

Built for Every Kind of Company

Anyone you bring in or deal with can carry criminal or public risk. Beady checks and monitors people and companies against public records, whatever your size or sector.
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For Fintechs & Crypto Firms
At onboarding, run every user and counterparty against public crime records, sanctions, and watchlists — and as you scale, keep them under ongoing monitoring so fresh charges or listings do not go unnoticed.
For Venture Funds
Check founders and their companies against public court cases, sanctions, and adverse media before you invest, then keep your portfolio monitored for new criminal or legal risk.
For Investment Companies
Monitor the individuals and businesses tied to every holding against public crime records, and you will hear about a new charge, listing, or case in a matter of hours rather than at your next scheduled cycle.
For HR Departments
Check executives, candidates, and contractors against public crime records, sanctions, and adverse media before you hire, catching risk a standard reference check misses.
For Compliance Departments
Automate public crime, sanctions, and watchlist checks, cut false positives by up to 95%, and attach source-linked evidence to every decision for audit-ready records.
For Law Firms
Run fast, defensible checks against public court cases, sanctions, and adverse media for onboarding, litigation, and due diligence, with every finding traceable to its source.
For Financial Institutions
Check customers and counterparties against public crime records, sanctions, and watchlists, and monitor them continuously, so a newly charged or listed party is flagged the day they appear.
For Regulated Industries
Meet sector-specific vetting rules with public crime, sanctions, and watchlist checks, from iGaming to insurance to healthcare, tuned to what your regulator requires.
For Large Corporates
Check people, suppliers, and partners across the enterprise against public crime records and sanctions, thoroughly, at scale, and all in one place.

Find the criminal record before it finds your business.

Courts, wanted lists and enforcement registers checked in one pass — and watched every day after.
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Works Across Industries

One platform, every industry. Check and monitor the people and companies you deal with against public crime records, sanctions, and adverse media wherever you operate.
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Software & Technology
Check investors, acquirers, and enterprise partners against public court cases and sanctions before you commit, and keep key relationships monitored through growth.
Finance & Insurance
Check customers and counterparties against public crime records, sanctions, and watchlists, with monitoring that flags a new charge or listing the day it appears.
Supply Chain
Check suppliers and vendors against public crime records, sanctions, and adverse media, before onboarding and continuously throughout the relationship.
Government
Check contractors, grant recipients, and partners against public court cases, sanctions, and crime lists, with source-linked evidence for public accountability.
Law Enforcement
Accelerate investigations with source-verified searches across public most-wanted lists, court cases, sanctions, and 200M+ entities and officers in one place.
Human Resources
Check candidates, contractors, and executives against public crime records and adverse media before hiring, catching integrity risks a standard check misses.
Healthcare
Check providers, vendors, and partners against public crime records, sanctions, and adverse media, protecting patients and your standing.
Trading
Check counterparties against public crime records, sanctions, and adverse media in minutes, spotting exposure before you take a position.
iGaming
Check players and partners against public crime records, sanctions, and PEP data, meeting AML obligations without slowing onboarding down.
Energy & Utilities
Check partners, contractors, and joint-venture counterparties against public crime records and sanctions across every market you operate in.
Manufacturing
Check suppliers, distributors, and partners against public crime records and sanctions, keeping your networks clean.
Media & Telecom
Check talent, advertisers, and partners against public crime records and adverse media, and catch impersonation targeting your brand.
Retail
Check suppliers, franchisees, and partners against public crime records and sanctions, protecting customers and your name at scale.

Set Once. Monitor Daily

Check a person or company once, then keep them monitored. Choose a one-time crime check, or continuous daily monitoring against public records for as long as the relationship lasts.

One-time Screening

With a one-time check, you search a person or company against public crime records, court cases, sanctions, watchlists, and adverse media all in one go, and there is no paperwork to hand over. It was made for the specific decision you are facing, be it a hire, a deal, or an onboarding, giving you the confidence to either clear a party or raise a flag.

Ongoing Monitoring

A clean check today doesn’t stay clean, so one check often isn’t enough. Ongoing monitoring rechecks each person and company daily, so a new charge, court case, listing, or adverse story reaches you within hours rather than at the next review. Check everyone once, then keep the ones who matter monitored.

Clear Intelligence, Built for Your Workflow

Trace every finding to its public source, produce audit-ready reports, and feed crime intelligence straight into the tools your team already uses.
Social Signals Monitoring
Beady watches public social sources in real time, not just official records. Risk signals, an accusation, an arrest, a brewing scandal, often surface on social media hours or days before they reach the news or a court record.
How early they appear varies by case and sector, but social monitoring runs across everyone you check, so you get the earliest possible warning of new risk.
Messenger Integration for Daily Risk Alerts
Beady connects to messaging platforms like Telegram to send daily alerts on the most important crime and risk findings from your monitoring, with no need to log into the portal each day.
Skim a short summary on your phone, and when something needs a closer look, sign in for the full report and the source behind every flag.
Quality Of The Data Provided
Beady works only with publicly available data, refreshed daily and updated as soon as a change appears. Every finding carries a direct link to the record it came from.
And the AI never invents or embellishes. Each result can be checked against its original public source, so a crime finding is something you can verify, not just trust.
Report Consolidation
Bookmark the findings that matter to build a report around a specific person, case, or decision. Share it in a couple of clicks with an analyst, the compliance team, or an auditor.
Everyone works from the same set of verified findings, so no one has to reassemble the file by hand.

How It Works

A step-by-step look at how scattered public records become a single, verified crime report in minutes.
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Step 1
Add the Name
Enter the person or company you want to check, by name, to begin. No documents required.
Step 2
Search Public Sources
Beady searches public crime records, court cases, sanctions, watchlists, adverse media, and 1,000+ other public sources for anything tied to the name.
Step 3
Filter the Noise
The AI reads, matches, and verifies each result, clearing wrong-person hits and duplicates to leave only the records that genuinely apply.
Step 4
Build the Report
Confirmed findings go into a single report, ranked by severity, with each one linked back to its public source.
step 5
Monitor & Share
Keep the name under daily monitoring for new records, and share a clean, audit-ready report with your team whenever you need it.

Frequently
Asked Questions

What is a basic criminal record check?
A basic criminal record check tells you whether someone has a criminal history sitting on the public and official record. In most cases that means charges, convictions, and any appearances on crime or wanted lists, though the exact details vary from one jurisdiction to the next. Beady searches across a range of public sources all at once, covering everything from court records to most-wanted lists, and hands back a verified result with links to the source in a matter of minutes.
Checks are common in any role that involves working with children or vulnerable people, as well as in healthcare, finance, security, government, and driving. A large number of regulated employers are legally required to run them. Even in positions where the law does not demand it, plenty of employers still choose to check, simply because a bad hire can prove expensive. Beady adjusts how deep the check goes to match what the role actually needs.
Employers, organisations, and their screening providers can check a person’s public record where they have a lawful basis and, in most jurisdictions, the individual’s consent. What can be accessed depends on the role and local law. Beady works from publicly available information and is built to run these checks within the rules that apply.
Yes. Beady searches publicly available court cases and filings tied to a person or company, surfacing litigation and legal matters on the public record. Instead of trawling individual court systems by hand, you get the public cases attached to a name in one place, each linked to its source.
To obtain your own official criminal record, you’d typically apply through the relevant government or police body in your country, which issues the certified record. Beady isn’t that official issuer; it’s a tool for organisations to check people and companies against publicly available crime, court, sanctions, and adverse-media sources as part of due diligence.
You can find what’s on the public record. Beady searches publicly available sources, court cases, most-wanted and crime lists, sanctions, and adverse media, for information tied to a person, and consolidates it into one report. What’s accessible depends on jurisdiction and law, and Beady works only with public information, always linked to its source.

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