The Arkin Group, a world threat consulting and intelligence agency, has launched TAG Intel, which can present non-partisan geopolitical intelligence to the wealth administration neighborhood. TAG Intel is led by Jack Devine, a 32-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Company, who goals to democratize the knowledge he’s been bringing to world company shoppers since 2000.
Devine created The Arkin Group in Might 2000, together with New York lawyer Stanley Arkin, who handed away in 2023. The agency makes a speciality of worldwide disaster administration, strategic intelligence, investigative analysis and enterprise problem-solving.
Devine has fairly a fame within the intelligence neighborhood; he led the CIA’s Counternarcotics Middle when drug kingpin Pablo Escobar was taken down. He was in command of this system that drove the Soviets out of Afghanistan within the late Nineteen Eighties. He was in Chile when Salvador Allende was overthrown in 1973. He was head of Iranian operations in the course of the Iran-Contra affair, which he’s been outspoken about saying was not a good suggestion.
He stated the human sources and community he’s constructed over time differentiate his intelligence.
“Around the globe, I’ve individuals which can be indigenous and are very educated about their nations,” he stated. “They usually construct up a really spectacular, for my part, community.”
A 12 months and a half in the past, Devine began to satisfy with wealth and asset managers.
“Lots of the asset managers specifically stated, ‘We have all the time checked out geopolitical issues all over the world. And we had fashions. However now these fashions aren’t working for us. It’s a far more advanced world. And though AI gives numerous data that’s typical knowledge, it’s stuffed with what all people else thinks,'” he stated.
There’s additionally numerous disinformation round geopolitical occasions, so these firms had been searching for a supply of intelligence they might belief. Devine stated his content material doesn’t lean towards one celebration or one other, and it’s primarily based on data he’s receiving from sources on the bottom in these nations.
TAG Intel will present this similar intelligence in a shortened model for wealth managers to cut back uncertainty round world crises and different occasions shoppers could ask about.
It will embrace a turnkey subscription-based content material service, The Intel Director’s Temporary, which begins at $10,000 a 12 months. That subscription features a weekly evaluation of geopolitical points and their impacts, a disaster report on fast-breaking world occasions and potential market affect, a quarterly report that gives deeper intelligence into industries and sectors, month-to-month stay Q&A periods with analysts, entry to Devine’s podcast, and in-person occasions with Devine for choose shoppers. For $299 a 12 months, advisors can get entry to the weekly experiences, and for $500 a 12 months, they’ll get the disaster experiences, in keeping with TAG Intel’s web site.
“What I hear from asset managers or wealth is, ‘the world is advanced, and it is unsure, and we do not know the place to go to search out the reply,’” Devine stated.
“They will move it on to their shoppers; they are often sensible. And it relieves numerous that rigidity about, ‘I’ve this particular person’s cash, however is there going to be a struggle subsequent week?’ Or, ‘Is Putin going to truly use a nuclear weapon?’ And I’ve solutions primarily based on a reasonably exhausting assortment on all these points,” he stated.
For instance, his content material would possibly discover the chance of a full-blown struggle between Hezbollah and Israel, given latest developments. He’ll speak about the place the struggle in Russia goes and the way that struggle may be advantageous. He’ll have a look at how secure issues are in Brazil and Argentina.
“Every little thing on the planet is interlocked as we speak,” he stated. “In the event you’re taking a look at Russia, they have their hand within the Center East. In the event you’re taking a look at Iran, they have their arms in Russia and the North Koreans. In different phrases, every part’s interconnected. The cash’s interconnected.”