Salamandre is a French strategic intelligence firm. We help leaders see further, decide faster and protect what matters — across cyber, data and the most sensitive strategic environments.
Salamandre is a European firm headquartered in London, founded in 1996 by Pierre Sellier. We bring together senior practitioners drawn from national security, intelligence, defense, finance and cybersecurity — operating where stakes are highest and information is hardest to obtain.
We work for a select group of leading corporations, financial institutions and government-affiliated organisations. Every engagement is bespoke, confidential, and led by a senior partner.
Three decades on, our purpose has not changed: turn complex, fragmented or contested information into clear strategic advantage for the people who make the decisions that matter.
Confidentiality is the foundation of our work. Our methods, our clients, and our findings remain protected.
A privately held firm, free from conflicts of interest, accountable only to the clients we serve.
Sourcing, verification, and analytical depth standards inherited from the world's most demanding intelligence services.
Salamandre is led publicly by its Founder and Chairman, Pierre Sellier. Additional members of the Board, partners and senior staff contribute to the firm but are not disclosed publicly, in keeping with the operational confidentiality inherent to our work.
"Three decades on, our purpose has not changed. We give decision-makers the same depth of intelligence they would receive if the stakes were national rather than corporate — because in the world we now operate in, the line between the two has become dangerously thin." Pierre Sellier — Founder, Salamandre
A pioneer of European private strategic intelligence, Pierre Sellier founded Salamandre in 1996 with a singular conviction: that the most consequential business decisions deserve the same depth of intelligence-grade research that nation states reserve for their own strategic interests.
Over nearly thirty years, he has built Salamandre into a discreet but trusted partner of European industrial leaders, financial institutions and government-affiliated organisations. Under his stewardship, the firm has navigated three of the most demanding decades in the history of corporate intelligence — from the post-Cold War recomposition of European industry, through the rise of cyber and the digital economy, to today's contested information environment and the emergence of digital assets.
In the mid-2010s, Pierre Sellier led the strategic refoundation of Salamandre, broadening the firm's technical capabilities into cybersecurity, digital-asset forensics and satellite geospatial intelligence — anticipating the convergence of intelligence and technology that now defines the field. The firm's relocation of its headquarters to London and the opening of its Singapore, Washington, Zurich and Brussels offices were part of the same long-term vision: a European-rooted partnership operating wherever the stakes are highest.
As Founder and Chairman, Pierre Sellier safeguards the firm's long-term strategic direction and remains personally involved in its most sensitive engagements.
Illicit finance moves faster than the institutions built to stop it. Salamandre stands on the front line of that fight: tracing dirty money through traditional banking systems, complex corporate structures and, increasingly, the digital-asset ecosystem.
We help banks, exchanges, regulators, law-enforcement bodies and corporates expose, contain and reverse the flow of laundered funds — wherever they hide. Our approach combines intelligence-grade investigation, on-chain forensics and the technical engineering needed to build the systems that keep illicit value out of legitimate finance.
Real-time AML, KYT and sanctions monitoring across fiat and crypto rails — including DeFi, mixers and cross-chain bridges.
Forensic tracing of laundered, stolen or sanctioned funds, beneficial-ownership analysis and court-grade evidence files.
Asset recovery support, regulatory cooperation and the secure infrastructure that prevents the next attack.
Our five practices share a single objective: give our clients the strategic clarity, protection and reach they need to operate with confidence in any environment.
Open-source and proprietary research, due diligence and competitive intelligence on the people, companies and ecosystems that shape your strategic environment.
End-to-end protection for organisations whose data, infrastructure and people are exposed to advanced threats. We combine deep technical expertise with intelligence-grade analysis.
Acquisition, structuring and secure exploitation of the high-value datasets that drive strategic decisions — from sensitive corporate records to specialised industry data.
Direct access to satellite capabilities and geospatial intelligence for clients who need to see, monitor or verify what is happening anywhere on the planet.
A dedicated practice combining intelligence, cybersecurity and engineering to secure, investigate and build on digital-asset infrastructure — for funds, exchanges, custodians, banks and regulators.
Real-time monitoring, AML/KYT controls, sanctions screening and on-chain risk scoring across major chains. Counter-fraud and counter-laundering programs for trading desks, exchanges and custodians.
Tracing of stolen, laundered or misappropriated digital assets across mixers, bridges and DeFi. Court-grade evidence reports, asset-recovery support, and coordination with law enforcement and counsel.
Design and engineering of secure custody, wallet, settlement and tokenisation infrastructure. Smart-contract audits, key-management architecture and red-team validation prior to production.
Beyond our five horizontal practices, three sector verticals concentrate our most demanding mandates — where geopolitics, finance and law converge, and where independent intelligence is the decisive variable.
In volatile and geopolitically charged commodities markets, Salamandre delivers bespoke strategic intelligence and risk assessment for energy companies, traders, producers and investors navigating supply-chain disruptions, physical-asset security and counterparty risk.
Salamandre is a trusted partner to leading banks, financial institutions, sovereign funds and investors operating in high-stakes environments — across traditional finance and digital assets — providing the independent intelligence required for confident decision-making and robust protection.
Drawing on more than fifteen years of operational experience in over-the-counter commodities markets — across food, metals, energy and, more recently, digital assets — Salamandre helps counterparties, trading desks and physical operators sanitise the ecosystem and protect their interests. We design, implement and supervise the compliance and security protocols required to transact in opaque markets without absorbing the risk that flows through them.
Soft & agricultural commodities (food, grains, sugar), industrial & precious metals, energy products (crude, refined, gas, power) and cryptocurrency OTC desks.
Enhanced due diligence on counterparties, ultimate-beneficial-owner mapping, sanctions and PEP screening, source-of-funds and source-of-commodity verification.
Design and implementation of AML, KYT and transaction-monitoring frameworks tailored to OTC flows; trade-finance and letter-of-credit verification; sanctions-evasion screening on physical and paper trades.
Secure communication and settlement protocols, protection of trading-desk infrastructure, custody and key-management for digital-asset OTC, and continuous threat monitoring throughout the trade lifecycle.
Over-the-counter deals — whether in physical commodities, structured trade finance or digital assets — are bilateral, off-exchange and largely invisible to the wider market. That privacy is part of their value: counterparties can move size without distorting prices, and bespoke terms can be negotiated where listed markets offer none. But it is also their structural weakness. There is no exchange to enforce settlement, no central clearing house to absorb default, and no public order book to reveal a counterparty's true exposure. Every party at the table — buyer, seller, intermediary, financing bank, custodian — carries risk the market does not see.
Salamandre's role in these transactions is to make the invisible visible, and to harden every step of the trade lifecycle before exposure becomes loss. We design, implement and supervise the protocols our clients need to transact with confidence in opaque markets: layered counterparty due diligence covering ultimate beneficial ownership, sanctions and PEP screening, source-of-funds and source-of-commodity verification; continuous transaction monitoring calibrated to OTC flows rather than retail patterns; secure communication and settlement channels resistant to interception, impersonation and authorised-push-payment fraud; and — for digital-asset desks — custody architecture, key-management governance and on-chain forensics embedded directly in the trade workflow.
The objective is straightforward: no stakeholder should walk away from an OTC deal having absorbed a risk they did not consciously accept. In a market built on trust between two counterparties, the protocols are the trust.
Salamandre maintains a carefully selected international network of leading independent law firms and senior legal advisers across five strategic jurisdictions. This privileged ecosystem allows us to combine world-class strategic intelligence with immediate, discreet and highly specialised legal support wherever our clients operate.
The integration of intelligence capabilities and top-tier legal expertise ensures our clients receive seamless, multi-jurisdictional solutions delivered with the utmost confidentiality and efficiency.
Since 1996, Salamandre has been called in on the situations where ordinary advisors do not fit the brief — contested takeovers, hostile information environments, high-value asset recovery, sensitive cross-border investigations and crises where a single decision can shift a company's trajectory.
Confidentiality is absolute, so the engagements below are anonymised. They reflect the breadth and depth of the work we have led for clients across Europe, North America, Asia and the Middle East.
A major European industrial group faced a multi-stakeholder battle over its leadership and strategic direction. Salamandre conducted in-depth research on the key actors, structured the information environment, and delivered the intelligence that allowed our client's preferred candidate to prevail.
Following a targeted intrusion against a regulated digital-asset exchange, our forensic team traced funds across multiple chains, mixers and bridges, identified the off-ramps used by the attackers, and built the evidence file that supported coordinated action with law enforcement and counsel in three jurisdictions.
Ahead of a multi-billion equity commitment, we deployed a tailored research programme combining open-source intelligence, financial forensics and on-the-ground sourcing across three continents. The findings reshaped the deal terms and surfaced material risks invisible to standard advisors.
Salamandre's incident-response unit was engaged at the height of a sophisticated intrusion against a critical European bank. Working in continuous shifts across our London, Paris and Brussels offices, the team contained the threat, eradicated the foothold, and rebuilt the impacted environment without service disruption to clients.
For a global energy operator, we built a continuous geospatial monitoring programme over a fleet of strategic assets exposed to political and security risk. Tasked imagery, change detection and human-source corroboration provided executives with verified situational awareness ahead of every major decision.
A leading European banking group asked Salamandre to design and validate a sovereign custody infrastructure for institutional digital assets. We led the architecture, key-management design, smart-contract audit and adversarial red-teaming through to certified production launch.
A non-exhaustive list of organisations on whose behalf the firm — or its principals, operating in their personal capacity prior to or alongside Salamandre — have conducted penetration testing, intrusion simulation or offensive-security assessments. Engagement scopes and findings remain confidential.
Our six offices give us continuous coverage of the world's most strategic financial, technological and political hubs — each connected to a regional network of trusted analysts and operators.
Strategic command, partner-led engagement, City of London ecosystem and English-law mandates.
Sovereign French expertise, continental coverage and historic centre of the firm.
Public affairs, regulatory intelligence and trans-Atlantic strategic dialogue.
Discretion, asset-tracing, financial intelligence and Swiss banking ecosystem.
Asian markets, maritime intelligence and the regional financial gateway.
Regional coverage hub combining EU-institutional reach with Middle East advisory expertise and technology partnerships.
All inbound enquiries are handled directly by a senior partner. Please share only what you are comfortable sending by email — for highly sensitive matters, request a secure channel and we will arrange one.
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