Fogel & Potamianos LLP has offices in Los Angeles, CA (Headquarters) and Austin, TX. Jerome Fogel and Constantine Potamianos are the leaders that run each office.
Fighting Crime in the Shadows: The Rise of Dark Watch
Dark Watch is part superhero epic, part action thriller and part heart-warming story. If it were a movie, it would be award-worthy, defiant and uplifting. But it’s not a movie… it’s a real life company making the world a safer and better place. Few people can say that about a company they have built and that serves as their life passion. When the Department of Homeland Security chooses your company’s services to help keep the world safe from human traffickers, you can safely say you are doing something right.
The world can be dangerous, quite possibly now more than ever. This is one of the many reasons Dark Watch, a digital intelligence company which combats human trafficking, serves as a real-life hero, and is truly necessary. We read today’s news about genuinely bad actors and often feel there is nothing we can truly do about it. Visionary Noel Thomas begged to differ, and he actually did something about it.
His humility is inspiring in the face of such important work. His company, Dark Watch, uses online intelligence scans to track criminal trafficking organizations. He explains, “Our product scans the dark web and various watch lists for ‘bad guys’ involved in human trafficking and other crimes. And it’s a simple system that allows you to scan your business to see if you’re at risk for any of this nefarious activity.”
He came by this company quite frighteningly. “My passion for this work started as a child when my sister was nearly kidnapped. My dad was able to recover her at the very last second as they were walking out the door. That really stuck with me.”
“My passion for this work started as a child when my sister was nearly kidnapped. My dad was able to recover her at the very last second as they were walking out the door. That really stuck with me.”
– Noel Thomas Visionary and Founder of Dark Watch
As he grew older, his fervor for standing up to these horrific crimes grew stronger. After traveling to India for a case in which a 14 year old girl was being trafficked above a police station, he’d seen all he needed to see. “I dedicated my life to this mission.”
So it was fate when he crossed paths with Jerome Fogel, partner in Fogel & Potamianos LLP (F&P). As a law firm, F&P is dedicated to working with clients who make positive changes in our ever-complicated world. They see the growing issues facing humanity, and seek to work with people who are part of the solution, rather than the problem. Their mission? To act as guides to companies they believe can be heroic and to help elevate them to positions where those companies can effect the most positive impact.
How did their paths eventually cross? That took a bit of time. After Thomas committed his life’s work to combating trafficking, he actually became a statewide anti-trafficking coordinator in Florida. He co-wrote (with Rob Suggs) a book called Dark Traffic: The Dangerous Intersection of Technology, Crime, Money, Sex, and Humanity, in which he discusses the many horrifying facets of the “organized crime behind human trafficking.”
Thomas then took all of his experiences and vast knowledge and started building a real life Avengers-type team. “I started bringing all these guys together who came from the intelligence community or financial crime or AI. And we just started applying all that technology to this problem of human trafficking and broader threats which threatened the world.”
“I dedicated my life to this mission.”
– Noel Thomas
That broader threat landscape has led Dark Watch to support law enforcement and national security efforts beyond trafficking alone. Through its digital intelligence platform, Dark Watch helps law enforcement agencies identify and monitor terrorist networks and other serious criminal organizations operating online. By analyzing data from the dark web, illicit marketplaces, and global intelligence sources, the company delivers actionable insights designed to help authorities disrupt criminal activity and prevent emerging threats.
As business luck would have it, he happened to listen to an episode of The Silicon Valley Podcast, with host Shawn Flynn, when Jerome Fogel was a guest. The topic was not about human trafficking, but it still grabbed his attention. “Jerome was talking about acquisitions. There was interest from a very large company to acquire us. I just wanted to understand the process; what to expect; what we should be looking for. That kind of started our relationship. We (Dark Watch) decided not to sell the business. And thank goodness we didn’t. That’s what brought us to Jerome and F&P.”
Fogel, alongside corporate partner Constantine Potamianos and senior IP counsel Robert Kramer, has since helped advise Dark Watch through its full evolution from a local startup with committed angel investors to a national company that has gone through an institutional round of funding, led by Eagle Venture Fund, where former NFL quarterback Tim Tebow is a general partner. And now, Dark Watch actually made their own strategic acquisition, ultimately acquiring the assets of the Anti-Human Trafficking Intelligence Initiative.
Fogel remarks, “There are few clients I can think of who have scaled both personally and as an organization to meet the changing demands of the business and its purpose; I am very proud of Noel and the Dark Watch team for accomplishing this feat.”
Potamianos is similarly proud to have them as a client, and also takes pride in the work his legal team has done to assist. “F&P worked hand in hand to take them from their first steps to where they are now.” Fogel adds, “From start-up to portfolio company to strategic acquirer. We’ve helped Dark Watch evolve from a legal and foundational perspective to support that growth. The corporate work from governance to capital raising to M&A is the architecture, and the IP work from rights, to confidentiality, to protection, are the guard gate around Dark Watch’s prized intellectual property possessions.”
“F&P worked hand in hand to take them from their first steps to where they are now.”
– Constantine Potamianos about F&P’s team work with Dark Watch
Dark Watch’s CFO, Michael Bowles, shares his appreciation for F&P. They helped “raise the capital in the round that is the fuel that is building the company. Jerome and his team and their talents did a fantastic job guiding us through that. So Noel and I have been putting that important capital to good work, building Dark Watch and achieving its mission.”
Fogel adds, “Michael has been key to Dark Watch’s success. He is sharp, level-headed, and sees both the big picture, and the strategy and steps to get there.” That mission has also seen Dark Watch going after drug traffickers, terrorist groups, cartels and fugitives. They’ve helped save their clients/customers (including Wells Fargo, Uber and the aforementioned Department of Homeland Security) an astounding amount of money, as well. “At least 50 incidents of businesses were suspected of trafficking at a bank,” Thomas tell us. “A regional bank had estimated that each incident could cost something like a million dollars apiece. So we saved about 50 million dollars in risk for them. One of our investors used it on one of his own commercial real estate properties and found illicit activity was going on there. The police came and raided the place.”
As for what’s next? Thomas confidently shares, “We’d like to reduce the numbers of those who are trafficked around the world and broadly make the world a safer place. We want to be on the cutting age of innovation and AI, as it pertains to public safety and national security. And we hope that our first acquisition is just the tipping point of many more that will soon become part of the Dark Watch network.”
Both Fogel and Potamianos feel honored to watch and guide their growth. And while Dark Watch’s work continues to evolve, their vision stays steadfast. Dark Watch is really only getting started – and the world is already much safer for it.
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