Due Diligence & OSINT

Supplier verification · China

Verification of suppliers
& sourcing of manufacturing in China

Practice of uncovering hidden risks, fake capacities and minimising the risk of losing advances when buying equipment.

Bazhutov Consulting Due Diligence · OSINT · Sourcing 2026

Three main questions

Precedents from real procurement cases

01

Are there capacities?

To avoid funding intermediaries

Precedents
  • An attempt to sell capacity through a fictitious agreement at an auction held under the prosecutor's supervision.
  • The intermediary receives the money but cannot export due to lack of brand rights — total loss of the advance and six months.
  • The supplier has no workshops and secretly places the order with third-party assemblers — markup above 20%.
  • The declared plant has 12 people in the office and 10 in the workshop, which physically excludes in-house casting.
  • Payment to a trading agent instead of the real plant is blocked by Russian banks' currency compliance.
02

Are there competencies?

To avoid paying for someone else's experiments

Precedents
  • Complete absence of a testing methodology for export, with reliance exclusively on local standards.
  • Workers grind the wall thickness 100 microns more than specified on a 20 m lathe — 100% rejects.
  • Cracks in rubber seals: the chemical composition of the gaskets was mixed up — a critical production breakdown.
  • Drives assembled not to drawings, with FC/FO logic violated in 100% of cases — emergency call-out of engineers for re-sorting.
  • Workers break gland assemblies on the test bench and, when turning manually, punch through the drive with an oil leak.
03

Is there any stimulus?

To avoid begging for results

Precedents
  • Refusal to customise to the technical specification, imposing a serial analogue after signing with a threat to miss the deadlines.
  • Market leaders block direct shipments, imposing dealer exclusivity and an unworkable MOQ.
  • Management sabotages the development of export markets for the sake of a fast personal bonus here and now.
  • Without a constant presence of an external inspector on the site, production processes stop completely.
  • Breach of exclusivity and attempts by the plant to reach the end customer directly.
Losses 100% of the advance
Losses 80% of the contract
Losses 100% of the contract

You save $3,600 and 30 days

9 100 5 500 3 100 1 670 5 8 14 21 50 Timeline, days
In-house search and staff travel — $9 100 and 50 days
Bazhutov Consulting protocol — $5 500 and 16 days

In-house search and staff travel

  • Photos of the buyer, the technical specialist and the deputy technical director — from RUB 262 000 (~$3 100).
  • Flights, hotels and a translator for 2 people for 5 days — from RUB 450 000 (~$5 300).
  • No access to Chinese commercial databases, a high language barrier, superficial search.
  • Long planning, a parade tour instead of a technical cut of production because of the VIP protocol of the host side.

Budget> $ 9 100 + downtime

Bazhutov Consulting protocol

  • Your staff does not leave its processes. Deadlines up to 16 days.
  • Deep OSINT analytics on internal and commercial databases of China. A proven methodology.
  • Industry insight, understanding of the local business culture and the Chinese language, analysis of the negotiating leverage on site.
  • Everything is included in the price — taxes, tickets, hotels, commissions.

Fixed check$ 5 500

OSINT architecture: analysis of open sources

01

Legal contour

  • Historical court activity
  • Detection of trade schemes
  • Reconciliation of the actual staff
  • Validation of the charter capital
  • Analysis of direct founders
  • Behavioural screening

Included in Tariff I, II

02

Business profile

  • Production capacities
  • Reconciliation of specifications and certificates
  • Routing of payments
  • Payment terms and batch volumes
  • Export barriers to Russia
  • Warranty procedure
  • Search for discrepancies in the data

Included in Tariff I, II

03

UBO map

  • Disclosure of offshore structures
  • Search for nominal owners
  • History of capital movement
  • Analysis of affiliated persons

Shows who actually owns the assets and whether the director really has the right to make decisions on the deal.

Included in Tariff III · outside package $600

Tariff matrix

Tariff
I · Express $500
II · Market analysis $1 650
III · Complex with on-site visit $5 500
Sample size
1 plant
3 plants
3 plants
Readiness time, working days
5
8
16
OSINT analysis (slide 4)
✓
✓
✓
TZ volume
up to 4 criteria
up to 5 criteria
up to 6 criteria
Comparative matrix
–
✓
✓
On-site inspection and negotiating leverage
–
–
2 plants
UBO map
–
–
for 1 plant
VIP status, priority of tasks
–
–
✓

Adding 1 plant

$600

UBO outside the package

$600

Additional criteria in the TZ

Calculated individually

Payment

In rubles at the rate of the Central Bank of Russia + 7% on the day the invoice is issued

On-site factory verification

Hidden metrics, invisible to commercial databases and parade tours.

Metal casting plant
01

Infrastructure and authenticity

  • Reconciliation of the actual information about the plant with the declared one; search for visual signs of shadow assembly instead of a full cycle
  • Assessment of the access level to production zones on the part of the hosts
CNC machining workshop
02

Technological reality

  • Analysis of the wear of the machine park and the real loading of the conveyors
  • Visual audit of incoming raw materials for cheap analogues; verification of the measuring base of the QC department
Warehouse with raw materials
03

Production culture

  • Assessment of the protection of raw materials and warehouses as a factor of future rejects
  • Inspection of welfare areas and the state of the shop floor as an indicator of discipline; recording of chaos and of the attitude to safety
Negotiation between engineers
04

Negotiating leverage

  • Removal of information asymmetry for a confident and reasoned defence of the customer's commercial interests

Request plant selection and verification

Send us the brief — we will check the plant

Response within 24 hours

Send the input data on the task. We will run a quick assessment and outline our readiness to take the project on.

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Bazhutov Consulting · Due Diligence & OSINT bazhutov.com 2026