Patricia arrived on time the next afternoon, Hua Hua held three stacks of documents, her face full of seriousness and nervousness.
Lin Ze asked her to sit down opposite him.
Patricia's document not only marked several mismatched amounts that Lin Ze wanted to check, but also incidentally pointed out that the other four accounts handled by Slater were from the same shell company. She said that these accounts were wrong at the time, but she did not dare to ask more questions after Slater signed them.
"Slater is gone. Department of Commerce is now under your control. You must be careful about the accounts, especially the recent cases that Special Operations Team has handled. Of course, it depends on you whether you can always be in charge of Department of Commerce afterwards."
Patricia was stunned for two seconds, and then understood what Lin Ze meant.
She stood up and nodded several times, unable to speak clearly.
"Okay, let's go, let's go." Lin Ze waved her hand and asked her to go back quickly.
After Patricia left, Lin Ze went through the three piles of documents she brought one by one.
The few accounts that Slater handled were not very clever. The money was transferred from a shell company, passed through two hands in Caribbean, and finally ended up in several private vaults.
The method is exactly the same as that of White Raven Chamber of Commerce. It seems that people in this underground business chain are using the same money laundering method.
Patricia can pick these things out from a pile of legal accounts, which shows that she is more useful than Fudge described. She is timid, and it is precisely because she is timid that she is extremely cautious in doing things.
Lin Ze pulled out a few key pages and marked them, and asked her to take the rest back to Department of Commerce and file them.
He didn't go out much for the next three days and reorganized all the threads on his hands.
Group Three is nominally a field team specializing in dealing with Dark Magic items and dangerous creatures, but what Lin Ze is doing now has long gone beyond this scope.
The White Raven Chamber of Commerce case gave him a legitimate reason to contact Department of Commerce's accounts, and the appointment of Administrative Office gave him a channel to spread rumors within Wizengamot.
These two things alone are nothing, but together they are a bit interesting.
The problem is that these channels are still at the stage of "looking for things only when you have something to do" and have not formed a fixed process.
Although the three people Malfoy passed over sat in the Administrative Office, Lin Ze had no direct binding force on them.
He needs to solidify these temporary relationships.
On Thursday morning, Lin Ze went to the office area of Wizengamot, nominally to deliver supplementary materials for White Raven Chamber of Commerce's case, but actually to do other things.
One of the two new people at Administrative Office is named Esra Warren. He is in his forties and wears a pair of round-rimmed glasses. He had previously worked in Administrative Office as a file transfer for twelve years and knew the details of hearing scheduling and file filing.
Lin Ze met him in the corridor, handed him a pile of materials for filing, and casually mentioned that Group Three's case may be moving forward in a hurry, and if there is room in the schedule, he hopes it can be moved forward.
Warren didn't ask any questions when he took the materials. He just nodded and said he understood.
This is considered as delivering the message.
Although Administrative Office has limited scheduling authority, when the case will be heard, which judge it will be assigned to, and whose desk the file will be sent to first, these details can determine many things at critical moments.
Warren has been at Administrative Office for twelve years, so Lin Ze doesn't need to teach you these things.
After coming out of Wizengamot, Lin Ze went around to the floor of Department of Commerce.
The office of Patricia was changed to the original one of Slater. Before the name on the door plate could be redone, a handwritten note was posted.
When she saw Lin Ze come in, she stood up reflexively. Lin Ze waved her hand and asked her to sit down and talk.
"Group Three is currently checking the bad debts left by White Raven Chamber of Commerce. Some of them are Department of Commerce's import and export records. I need a copy of all Potions material import and export records approved by Department of Commerce in the past three years, classified by quarter, and abnormal batches marked."
Patricia flipped through the schedule on the table and said he would sort it out in the afternoon.
"There's another thing," Lin Ze leaned against her desk, "It's not a big deal that Department of Commerce's deputy director position is vacant. You should take up the daily affairs first, and don't let others see that you have no idea before the ministry officially appoints you."
Patricia opened his mouth, obviously wanting to say something, but in the end he only managed to say "I understand".
Lin Ze didn't stay any longer.
On the way back to the office, he thought of something.
Patricia has been at Department of Commerce for quite some time. She has seen every illegal approval that Slater has handled. This person has much more things in his hands than she lets on.
It's just that no one supported her before, so she didn't dare to take it out.
But from now on, this woman should be bolder.
In the next week, Lin Ze divided part of Group Three's daily cases for Amos and Weiqi to run, freeing up his own hands to handle a few things.
The first thing is to ask Ben to reorganize and archive all the case reports of Group Three from its establishment to the present, and make an index according to the departments involved and the persons involved.
While flipping through old files, Ben muttered that these reports were originally written by him, and Lin Ze said, "That's why I let you do it, not anyone else."
After the index was created, Lin Ze flipped through it and found that the cases handled by Group Three had touched nearly half of Ministry of Magic's departments, among which Department of Commerce, Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and Wizengamot Administrative Office appeared most frequently.
In other words, although the ten people under him are only responsible for Dark Magic items and dangerous creatures in name, they actually cover a very wide area.
The second thing was to ask Carl to trace the origin of White Raven Chamber of Commerce's alchemical equipment.
Carl squatted in his alchemical junk pile and studied for two days, and finally gave Lin Ze a list of high-risk alchemical items that had flowed into the black market from the Burke Family or other channels in the past ten years. Several items appeared in the Greengrass Manor's cellar, but not in White Raven Chamber of Commerce's warehouse.
This means that Weil is missing something, or a storage location.
Lin Ze asked Sirius to investigate this matter.
Sirius has recently been in and out of the ministry as Auror. Kreacher expressed strong dissatisfaction with this, but Sirius has no intention of paying attention to House-elf's opinions.
"If you ask me to check a warehouse, you have to give me some clues." Sirius said, leaning on the door frame of Lin Ze's office.
"Carl The things on that list, have you checked in the books in Black family's old house to see if there are any records, especially the family notes related to alchemy equipment. Your ancestors are very interested in collecting Dark Magic items. Maybe someone has seen something similar."
Sirius shrugged and left.
Fudge came over on Friday evening and told Lin Ze two things.
The first is the performance of Patricia in Department of Commerce. Fudge said that she had recently sorted out all the old debts left by Slater. She sealed what should be sealed and reported what should be reported. It seems that she is much bolder than before. At least she is not afraid of doing things.
Second, someone at Wizengamot began to inquire about the follow-up to the White Raven Chamber of Commerce case, and wanted to know if Group Three had found anything else.
"Who's asking?"
"Two judges, and Administrative Office, a new assistant."
"What's the name of the new assistant?"
"Call... wait..." Fudge flipped through the note in his pocket.
"Oh... the name is... Thomas Perry."
Lin Ze Write down the name.
Administrative Office's new assistant was introduced by Malfoy.