Lionsgate Intelligence Network is seeking to develop a financial fraud intelligence service by combining forensic investigations, asset recovery assessments, and IRS Section 165 theft-loss substantiation into a specialized intelligence service designed to help accounting firms handle complex fraud cases without building the infrastructure themselves.
As financial fraud grows more sophisticated, accounting firms are facing a new operational challenge: clients increasingly need more than tax advice. They need financial investigations capable of reconstructing stolen assets, evaluating recovery prospects, and producing defensible evidence for potential tax relief.
For the world's largest professional services firms, the expertise to address these challenges often exists. The question is whether deploying extensive investigative resources on every individual fraud case is the most efficient use of that expertise.
Lionsgate Intelligence Network is developing a specialized service that takes on investigative complexity, evaluates recovery opportunities, and returns structured forensic evidence to accounting firms—allowing their professionals to focus on tax advisory, compliance, and client relationships. According to the company, its proposed workflow aims to deliver an initial assessment within 24 hours for qualifying cases. This target does not represent a guaranteed turnaround time for a complete forensic investigation, which may require additional analysis and verification.
Why Financial Fraud Is Becoming an Accounting Problem
Investigators have traditionally traced stolen money, attorneys pursued remedies, and accountants evaluated tax consequences. Cryptocurrency scams, fraudulent investment platforms, and cross-border financial crime increasingly require these disciplines to work together.
A client who loses $750,000 through a fraudulent investment platform may arrive with only bank statements, blockchain records, and screenshots. Before a CPA can evaluate the tax consequences, someone must reconstruct the money trail, establish actual loss, identify any recoveries, and assess remaining recovery prospects. These activities can require specialist blockchain analytics and financial crime research.
The 24-Hour Intelligence Model: Complexity Without the Burden
Lionsgate's proposition is not that accounting firms lack investigative expertise. It is that building and maintaining specialized financial crime workflows requires substantial investment, talent, and accumulated experience. The startup aims to make that infrastructure available as a service.
Founded by Bezalel "Eithan" Raviv, Lionsgate brings together blockchain forensics and law enforcement experience, including professionals with backgrounds in financial investigations and law enforcement. Its leadership includes Donna Gregory, former Chief of the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3).
For qualifying cases, Lionsgate is developing a rapid initial assessment targeting less than 24 hours, intended to give the referring firm an accelerated understanding of the loss, available evidence, and next steps. A rapid assessment is not necessarily a complete forensic investigation; complex cases can require additional research and verification.
The accounting firm retains the client relationship and professional judgment. Lionsgate handles the specialized investigative work and returns a structured output.
How Specialist Fraud Intelligence Could Support Large Accounting Firms
Large professional services firms already maintain substantial tax, forensic accounting, and risk advisory capabilities. Lionsgate aims to complement—not replace—those teams. An external intelligence layer could help firms triage cases faster, standardize evidence collection, reduce operational burden, and expand capacity for private-client and fraud-related engagements.
Under a potential white-label or embedded service model, Lionsgate would supply investigative findings within an agreed professional framework while the accounting firm continues to own the advisory engagement and tax determinations. Such arrangements would require appropriate independence, confidentiality, and quality controls.
IRS Section 165: The Role of Forensic Evidence in Assessing Theft-Loss Claims
Section 165 of the Internal Revenue Code permits certain theft-loss deductions for transactions entered into for profit, subject to specific conditions. IRS Chief Counsel Advice Memorandum 202511015, published in March 2025, discusses cryptocurrency investment scam scenarios. It does not create a new deduction or guarantee eligibility, and it is not precedential authority. Further guidance of tax write-off for scam victims appears is available from the National Taxpayer Advocate, which discusses the relevant eligibility requirements and limitations).
The challenge for CPAs is often evidentiary: documenting ownership, actual invested capital, transaction history, fictitious platform returns, and whether a reasonable prospect of recovery remains. Lionsgate seeks to supply the forensic facts so tax professionals can independently apply the law.
Eligibility for a theft-loss deduction under Section 165 depends on the circumstances of the transaction, the applicable tax year, the taxpayer's investment purpose, the amount of the substantiated loss and the reasonable prospect of recovery. IRS Chief Counsel Advice Memorandum 202511015 discusses selected fraud scenarios but does not constitute binding precedent or guarantee that a particular taxpayer will qualify. Individuals should seek advice from a qualified tax professional before relying on any potential deduction.
Two Pathways, One Evidence Foundation
Recovery intelligence: transaction tracing, wallet attribution, asset location findings, and documentation that may support appropriate enforcement processes.
Tax-loss substantiation: records of transfers, cost-basis support, loss reconstruction, and dated recoverability findings that a CPA may evaluate for Section 165 purposes.
The process begins with the client's case, moves through Lionsgate's forensic assessment, and returns an organized evidence package to the referring firm. No particular recovery or tax outcome is guaranteed.
Turning Unrecoverable Fraud Into Documented Financial Losses
Consider a hypothetical investor who transferred $900,000 to a fraudulent crypto investment platform. The dashboard later showed $1.4 million before disappearing. Forensic reconstruction could distinguish the $900,000 actually transferred from $500,000 in fictitious returns and document the available evidence about recovery prospects.
A CPA could then assess the taxpayer's basis, discovery year, reasonable prospect of recovery, and other requirements. Neither a $900,000 tax deduction nor a corresponding refund is automatic. The innovation is the production of usable evidence—not a new tax benefit.
Building Intelligence Infrastructure That Firms Can Access
According to public announcements by Lionsgate Intelligence Network and AnChain.AI, the companies have established a technology partnership focused on integrating blockchain forensic analysis, Know Your Customer (KYC) capabilities and open-source intelligence (OSINT) into financial investigations. Separately, Lionsgate Intelligence Network has announced a strategic partnership with Utila aimed at combining digital-asset security infrastructure with blockchain tracing and investigative support. These announcements describe the companies' stated areas of collaboration and should not be interpreted as independently verified evidence of investigation volumes, asset recoveries or financial performance.
Lionsgate's stated strategy is to provide specialist investigative research, forensic analysis and structured evidence services to accounting firms, tax advisers, family offices, law firms and insurers. This business model focuses on supporting professional intermediaries rather than solely providing cryptocurrency tracing services directly to individual consumers. Independently verified figures for completed investigations and recovery outcomes were not available for this article.
Figures relating to Lionsgate's completed consumer-fraud investigations and asset recovery outcomes remain company-reported and have not been independently verified for this article.
A New Category in Financial Recovery
Traditional recovery services ask whether stolen assets can be located and returned. Lionsgate asks a broader question: what evidence-supported financial outcome is available? Sometimes the answer may be enforcement-led recovery; in other cases, properly substantiated losses may be relevant to tax analysis.
The startup is not claiming to have invented forensic accounting or theft-loss deductions. Its proposed innovation is an integrated workflow connecting investigative research, recovery assessment, and CPA-ready evidence.
The Future of Accounting May Depend on Specialist Partners
As digital financial crime becomes more complex, professional services firms will decide which capabilities to build and which to integrate. Lionsgate is positioning itself as a specialist intelligence layer that lets accountants spend more time on client advice and less on reconstructing complex fraud cases.