Kroll was founded in 1972 by Jules Kroll as a consultant to corporate purchasing departments. The company focused on helping clients improve operations by uncovering kickbacks, fraud or other forms of corruption. Kroll began its line of investigative work in the financial sector in the 1980s, when corporations in New York City approached Kroll to profile investors, suitors and takeover targets, with special attention to any perceived connections to disreputable organizations, suspicious business practices, personality and integrity issues, or any kind of corporate malfeasance. In the 1990s, Kroll expanded into forensic accounting, background screening, drug testing, electronic data recovery and market intelligence. In June 1993, A.I.G. "became one of the largest investors in Kroll, after it retained a minority interest in the firm." In 1997, with annual revenues of approximately $60 million, Kroll merged with vehicle armoring company O'Gara-Hess & Eisenhardt. The new entity, The Kroll-O'Gara Company, became a public company listed on NASDAQ as "KROG." In December 1998, Kroll acquired Schiff & Associates, Inc., a small security engineering and consulting firm based in Bastrop, Texas just outside Austin. The name was changed to Kroll Schiff & Associates then Kroll Security Services Group and finally to Kroll Security Group. In February 2001, Kroll expanded its working relationship with the insurance company, A.I.G., offering through their Private Client group personal security services to high-net-worth individuals and their families. "Under its working arrangement with AIG, Kroll is called in to supervise crisis management when an incident occurs. In its expanded role the company will now provide those services to private individual holders of AIG policies, providing global protection, for which there is an ever increasing need." In August 2001, the O’Gara vehicle armoring businesses were sold to Armor Holdings. The company name was changed to Kroll Inc. and its ticker symbol became "KROL." Kroll ended the year with more than $200 million in annual revenues. In 2002, Kroll acquired Kelly McCann's firm Crucible. In September 2008, Crucible was acquired by its management and now operates privately. Earlier in 2002, "Kroll’s US corporate advisory subsidiary was given the monumental challenge of restructuring Enron." In July 2004, Kroll was acquired by professional services firm Marsh & McLennan Companies in a $1.9 billion transaction. Over the next few years, Kroll began selling off subsidiaries in order to focus on its core business lines. In June 2008, Jules Kroll left Kroll, Inc. He tried to buy Kroll Inc. back from MMC. When that bid failed, he launched in 2010 Kroll Bond Rating Agency and K2 Global Consulting with his son Jeremy. Jules and Jeremy Kroll created K2 Intelligence in 2009. In August 2010, Kroll was acquired by Altegrity, Inc. in an all-cash transaction valued at $1.13 billion. Altegrity's family of companies also included USIS and Explore. It is principally owned by Providence Equity Partners. Altegrity declared bankruptcy in 2015. Kroll was bought by Corporate Risk Holdings, LLC, which is also the parent company of two separately managed information service businesses: HireRight and Kroll Ontrack. On October 21, 2016, Carlyle Group-owned LDiscovery acquired Kroll Ontrack in an all cash transaction valued at roughly $410 million, from which time Kroll Ontrack operated as a separate company. In 2018, Kroll Inc. acquired the controversial cybersecurity firm Tiversa. On March 13, 2018, it was reported that Duff & Phelps Corp. would buy Kroll, Inc. On June 4, 2018, the transaction was completed.
Kroll acquired a computer forensics, electronic discovery, and data recovery company named Ontrack. On January 31, 2006 Kroll Ontrack Inc. announced that it has completed the acquisition of Ibas Holdings ASA, a Norwegian-based provider of data recovery, data erasure and computer forensics services. Ibas became a wholly owned subsidiary of Kroll Ontrack AS, a newly formed Norwegian entity. Prior to its acquisition by Kroll Ontrack Inc., Ibas had expanded its own geographic reach and service offerings through its acquisition of Vogon International, a privately held U.K. company specializing in computer forensics, electronic discovery, and data recovery. In October 2016, Kroll sold the Kroll Ontrack business to LDiscovery LLC. forming KrolLDiscovery, which now operates independently of Kroll.
Background screening
Kroll's Background Screening division provides screening services for areas such as employment, supplier selection, investment placement and institutional admissions. Kroll's Background Screening division also includes the Kroll Fraud Solutions unit, which specializes in identity theft protection and identity restoration services.
Security consulting
Kroll offers consulting services through Kroll Security Group, its Security Consulting and Security Engineering & Design division. These services include threat assessments, vulnerability assessments, physical security surveys, security disaster planning, policy and procedure development, staffing studies, etc.
Historical cases
The Heroin Trail case
In 1987, in the prominent First Amendment case over The Heroin Trail stories in New York Newsday, attorney Floyd Abrams enlisted Kroll's help to find an eyewitness: "But was it conceivable that we could come up with an eyewitness who could be of help? I called Jules Kroll, the CEO of Kroll Associates, the nation's most acclaimed investigative firm, to ask him if he could inquire, through the extensive range of former law enforcement officials employed by him, whether Karaduman was known to be a drug trafficker in Istanbul." Kroll came through: two weeks into the trial the firm produced Faraculah Arras, who was prepared to testify he was involved in one of Karaduman's drug deals. "I was stunned," recalled Abrams. Abrams used Kroll again in 1998 to investigate claims by CNN's Newsstand documentary that sarin nerve gas had been used in Vietnam in 1970 as part of Operation Tailwind.
Kroll were responsible for revamping security at the World Trade Center after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. They also took on responsibility for security at Chicago's Sears Tower following the September 11, 2001 attacks. Just prior to the September 11 attacks, Kroll Inc., with the guidance of Jerome Hauer, at the time the Managing director of their Crisis and Consulting Management Group, hired former FBI special investigator John P. O'Neill, who specialized in the Al-Qaeda network held responsible for the 1993 bombing, to head the security at the WTC complex. O'Neill died in the attacks.
Capital outflows from the Soviet Union and Russia
In March 1992, the Yeltsin government contracted Kroll Associates to track down and find very large sums of money that had been removed from the Soviet Union prior to the August 1991 putsch on the Russian White House. In 1992, First Deputy Prime MinisterYegor Timurovich Gaidar said, "Last year saw large-scale privatization by the nomenklatura, privatization by officials for their own personal benefit." Gaidar called the Communists and KGB officials criminals and that a "a vigorous search" for the money trails from state-owned capital had flowed abroad virtually unchecked before the collapse of the Soviet Unionin the summer of 1991. On March 15, 1992, the Russian government froze all capital outflows from Russia. In April 1992, Kroll Associates began their investigations with Joseph Serio heading the Kroll Associates efforts in Moscow. Also, Joseph Rosetti, the vice chairman of Kroll Associates, was in Moscow to assist. The Kroll Associates determined that more than $14 billion in 1991 real dollars had been transferred from Switzerland to New York prior to the August 1991 putsch. Also, the Communist Party of the former Soviet Union along with other government agencies, such as the KGB, had transferred more than $40 billion in 2014 real dollars out of the country. The assets of the Vneshekonombank were frozen during the investigation. However, numerous transactions occurred to bypass the capital flow restrictions often with the British Barclays Bank in Cyprus acting a money laundering center for public officials from Saint Petersburg and Moscow. According to Valery Makharadze, the government's chief inspector, many joint stock companies were formed to provide an illegal means for capital outflows from Russia, such as the Leningrad Association of Joint Ventures and KOLO. Numerous officials became wealthy Russian oligarchs including numerous former KGB officials, prominent Communists such as Oleg Belyakov and other former Communists who headed the party Central Committee department that dealt with the defense industry, as well as Leonid Kravchenko, who was the former head of the state television and radio company. Jules Kroll, the head of the Kroll Associates, uncovered hundreds of illicit transactions with massive capital outflows. This outflow of capital from the Soviet Union and Russia directly contributed to severe economic conditions in Russia during Boris Yeltsin's second term, leading to its collapse, and resulting in the age of Vladimir Putin as the President of Russia.
Identity protection
Kroll entered into a joint marketing agreement with legal service plan provider LegalShield in 2003, to distribute an identity theft product to consumers, called the Identity Theft Shield, the first time Kroll offered a service to individuals. As of June 30, 2006, Kroll had over 560,000 customers, according to LegalShield's quarterly report. In addition to the LegalShield subscribers, Kroll's Identity Theft Shield serves about 500,000 other consumers.
