How-to

Reading a money trail: a walk through Operation High Tide

A step-by-step look at the sample case in Minotrace, from a consulting contract to a cash withdrawal, and how each layout shows a different part of the story.

When you first open Minotrace, you land in a sample case called Operation High Tide. It's fictional, but it's built like a real fraud case: a consulting contract, shell companies, a front man, a burner phone and money that ends up in cash.

This post walks through it, so you can see how a board helps you read a case. It takes about five minutes. Open Minotrace in another tab and follow along.

1. Get the big picture

Right-click an empty spot, choose Arrange ▸ Force. The board spreads out into groups.

Before reading any detail, notice the shape. A few entities have many links; most have one or two. The busy ones are where the story is: the main person under investigation, Richard Vance Pratt, two companies, NovaMar Consulting and Dawnbridge Holdings, and the bank accounts between them.

2. Follow the contract

Find Contract No. 044/2026, a port logistics consulting contract. Double-click it to see its attributes, then follow its links.

Harbor Development Foundation, a grant-making nonprofit, signed it with NovaMar Consulting LLC for $1,240,000. On its own, that's ordinary. Now open NovaMar: it was incorporated on November 18, 2025, two months before the contract was signed, with $800,000 in capital and no registered employees. Its registered office is a 130 sq ft suite in Long Beach, the same suite where Dawnbridge Holdings is registered. That's the first question for the case.

3. Find the front man

Look at who owns NovaMar. The owner of record, Gary Lemmons, holds 99% of the shares. Open his card: his declared income is $2,100 a month, nowhere near the size of the company, and the driver's license used to incorporate it was reported lost in 2024. In investigations, this is a classic sign of a front man, someone whose name is on the paperwork while someone else controls the business. The sample marks him as a straw owner.

Then look for controls links. The dashed one into NovaMar comes from Richard Vance Pratt, labeled "hidden partner (2 witnesses)". He's the person the case is really about.

4. Watch the money in time

Switch to Arrange ▸ Temporal. The entities that have a date line up in order: NovaMar incorporated, its website registered on December 2, Dawnbridge incorporated on January 9, the contract signed on January 22, and the cash withdrawal on April 14.

Transfers are links, so read them on the board. The foundation paid NovaMar $1,240,000 in four installments between January and March 2026. Then NovaMar sent three transfers to Richard's own account: $49,500, $49,800 and $49,200, on March 12, 13 and 16. Each is just under $50,000, and all three fall within five days. Splitting a payment to stay under a limit is a classic sign of structuring, and it's much easier to see on a timeline than in a list of statements.

On April 2, another $210,000 went to the account of Owen Reyes Cameron, labeled "consulting". Then, on April 14, the trail ends in a $96,000 cash withdrawal from Richard's account. The sample marks the cash as not recovered. Cash is where money trails usually go cold.

5. Check the phones

Find the two phone numbers. One is a postpaid line, active since 2021, in Richard's name. The other is a prepaid burner, active for only 12 days in March 2026, and attributed to Richard by cell-site data from a phone-records subpoena. It called Owen Reyes Cameron 14 times in nine days, from March 5 to 14, right around the transfers. When a case has a phone that appears only when the money moves, that's worth a closer look.

6. Try the other layouts

• Tree shows who owns and controls whom.
• Radial puts one entity in the center: select the main person first.
• Swimlane splits a timeline into lanes, one per person or account. The sample has no lanes, so try it on your own board.

Every layout is one Ctrl+Z away from undo, so experiment freely.

Your turn

When you're ready, ☰ → New board starts your own case. Double-click to add an entity, drag a handle to link two of them, and arrange. The guide has the details.

If you'd like to see a different kind of sample case, like phone records or company ownership, tell us.