Importer & Exporter Investigations
Every shipment tells a story of where products come from, how they move, and who profits along the way. Yet in the complexity of global trade, there are often blind spots — gaps in visibility that conceal how goods move between manufacturers, distributors, and markets.
At Vaudra International, we use investigative experience and trade data research to connect the dots between shipment patterns, trading entities, and supply chain activity, spotting insights that are often hidden from view.
Interpreting Trade Data for Investigative Insight
Trade data offers a unique view into the movement of goods across borders. Each record includes shipment details such as dates, ports of entry and origin, commodity descriptions, quantities, weights, and the parties involved in the transaction.
When investigating a particular entity, research may focus on known trademarks, industry keywords, or identifiers. In other cases, such as exploring a broader class of goods, Harmonized System (HS) codes provide another way to filter and analyze shipment activity by product category.
Our analysis centers on maritime shipments, providing visibility into trade activity that can support competitive insights, supplier vetting, or broader investigative objectives. Trade data on its own has limits, but when combined with investigative work and brand intelligence, it helps clarify connections, confirm assumptions, and broaden perspectives.
Leveraging Import Research
Our team uses trade data intelligence to support client objectives, due diligence, and proactive brand protection strategies. We focus on turning information into visibility — detecting irregularities, overlaps, or shifts within your trade lanes that deserve closer review, and helping you determine what merits deeper investigation and resource allocation.
Our work may include:
- Targeted Trade Research: Identifying shipment records tied to specific importers, exporters, or commodity descriptions relevant to the brand or competitors.
- Pattern Analysis: Evaluating shipment frequency, volume, and routes to highlight possible diversion, unauthorized distribution or changes in sourcing.
- Entity Profiling: Building background intelligence on importers or exporters of interest, including related business names, addresses, and online presence.
- Competitive Trade Analysis: Examining shipment activity tied to other market participants to clarify sourcing, supplier relationships, or distribution overlap within domestic and international trade.
- Connection Mapping: Integrating findings from trade-data research, marketplace monitoring, and prior investigations to identify overlap and collaborators.
- Seizure Contextualization: Assisting when CBP Fines, Penalties, and Forfeitures (FP&F) notices become available, using trade data to add context on importer or exporter identities and potential shipment histories.
- Actionable Reporting: Presenting clear findings that help you determine next steps, whether that means internal follow-up, external advances, or continued monitoring.
Trade data can also reveal insights about your own supply chain. Reviewing inbound shipments may uncover previously unknown distribution routes, secondary suppliers, or parties involved in the logistics chain. We find that an internal audit is often helpful when compiling the most accurate information to share with CBP as part of your e-recordations.
Strengthening Visibility Across the Supply Chain
Importer and exporter investigations enhance visibility by connecting scattered shipment details into a coherent picture of trade activity involving your brand or competitive landscape.
Findings may also identify entities worth closer examination, leading to Supplier & Manufacturer Investigations that trace production sources and verify supplier legitimacy, or emphasizing the importance of CBP Recordations, Authentication Guides, and Trainings that help Customs recognize and act on your rights at the border.
Working with Vaudra provides:
- Perspective to strengthen business and supply-chain decisions.
- Precision in identifying which entities or routes deserve attention.
- Confidence in how trade information is interpreted and contextualized.
- Fewer blind spots across the movement of goods entering and exiting the United States.
Contact us to learn how we can help you develop actionable intelligence from importer and exporter research.
Why Us
Offering Intellectual Property (IP) investigations & brand protection solutions globally since 2003.
How may we help? We look forward to your feedback.