[FIND] Investigations Gear now available

If you're interested, you can click on over to our storefront on cafepress and pick up a little [FIND] Investigations swag. Check it out.

How to tell if you're being followed.

Here's another bit of intel from our friends over at Burn Notice. This one's for the person who thinks they're being followed. I've had several requests from female clients asking me to find out if they are being followed. We've searched cars for GPS trackers, set up counter surveillance, and instructed them on cleaning runs. This video, like most from the Burn Notice folks, gives a short and simple solution to the question: "Am I being followed?"

Physical Fitness and the Private Investigator

After several days of scouring the Internet, I’ve found only one source that even mentions health and private investigators on the same page: The Alberta Occupational Profiles page lists "physical fitness" as one of the personal characteristics of a Private Investigator. Why is it that no one ever discusses health and fitness in the context of the work we do?

Hours of surveillance are the bane of fitness. We sit, we wait, we eat, and we watch, all the while slowly racking up pounds on top of pounds. Here’s a little tip for the working PI: make time for exercise, and eat healthy foods. It's that simple.

Exercise - Make a Plan

We here at [FIND] Investigations make it a priority to maintain at least a baseline level of fitness. We provide the space and encourage our staff to take the time to get some exercise at least five days a week. Some of us work out together. Others take their own time to get in a quick walk or run.

No single exercise regimen is right for everyone. The "get in shape real fast" approach is a sure-fire way to derail your good intentions with an injury, especially if you're over 35 and not exactly Lance Armstrong. Be realistic about your abilities and limitations -- age, physical condition, health issues, weight -- and plan your climb to fitness accordingly. Haven't run a mile in ten years? Go for a walk, increasing distance and speed gradually. Multiple knee surgeries in your past? Try swimming or biking. I’ll make the assumption that you are smart enough to check in with your doctor prior to starting any exercise plan. 

I know, I know…it’s hard enough to find the time to eat a decent meal, much less trek over to the gym and pump some iron. But really, it's not about time. People find time for what matters most to them. The issue is energy and motivation: how to heave tired butt out of chair in the first place. There's no easy way to do that, but we've found a trick that seems to help: make exercise into a treat. An indulgence, even. 

If what you love most is time with the kids, then why not shoot hoops with them, or take them for a long hike in the woods? Or if you're a competitive type, how about putting together a pickup basketball game or tennis tournament with some equally competitive PI buddies? Try taking your significant other on a romantic bike ride/picnic in the park. (See below for the positive effects of exercise on romance.) Sign up for a race to motivate your weekly mile count (such as the Warrior Dash, an insane-looking, mud-soaked obstacle course a couple of us are planning to run next month).

The best kept secret in the world of fitness is that you don’t need to join a gym. There’s really no need for expensive equipment. You don’t even have to run out and buy a pair of dumbbells. You just need a little space, and about an hour. And a workout partner can help with motivation and accountability.

A few of us at [FIND] are about three weeks into one of the commercial DVD workout programs, a six-day-a-week regimen of simple body weight exercises and cardio. We've already noticed a huge difference in energy, strength and stamina. And it's actually been fun to work out together and measure our progress.

But you don't have to go out and buy a DVD set. Remember high school PE class? Basketball practice? Armed services boot camp? Calisthenics? The 45-minute workouts come straight out of those playbooks, because they work. Try to do each one for just 30 seconds apiece, and you'll see what I mean:

Running in place (no need to explain)

Jumping jacks 

Butt kicks

High knees

Mummy kicks

Burpees (squat thrusts, suicide jumps, etc.) 

Pushups 

High plank / Low plank positions

Squats

Lunges

Variations on all of these themes abound. Go online and search for any of these exercises, and you’ll likely be able to find a demo of the proper way to perform the exercise. I’ve included a few links above to get you started. Also, you probably want to mix it up on a daily basis and make sure to take at least one day of total rest to let your body recoup. The addition of some type of cardio to your exercises is also important: road or mountain biking, jogging or running, walking or hiking (find some hills to climb), rowing, or swimming.

Again, you can go online and get countless suggestions for walking, biking, running, or swimming schedules. If you’re out of shape, start with a brisk walk and work your way up to more intense exercises.

 

The Benefits

Conditioning has so many benefits it’s impossible to make an exhaustive list, but here are a few that relate directly to the work of a PI.

Increased Energy:  It may seem counterintuitive, but we’ve found that when the [FIND] Investigations team is on a set exercise schedule (at least one hour every week day), we are actually able to stay with surveillance for a longer period of time, take on more work, and remained focused.

Stress Reduction:   This profession, while most definitely fun, can produce an excess of stress, both physical and mental. With regular exercise, stress levels are naturally reduced.

Mental Acuity:  Several sources cite increased mental acuity in people who exercise on a regular basis.

Elevated Mood:  Exercise releases endorphins that improve your mood. Some studies show that exercise can help improve mood control in depressed patients. Not to mention that feeling of accomplishment your get when you get your body active and burn some calories.

This next benefit doesn’t necessarily relate to our work, but it certainly adds to quality of life. This is taken directly from the Mayo Clinic’s list of exercise benefits: 

“Regular physical activity can leave you feeling energized and looking better, which may have a positive effect on your sex life. But there's more to it than that. Regular physical activity can lead to enhanced arousal for women, and men who exercise regularly are less likely to have problems with erectile dysfunction than are men who don't exercise — especially as they get older.”

Increased strength, decreased body fat, better sleep…, the list goes on.

Nutrition

It's easy to live the stereotype: the overweight PI in rumpled suit consuming burgers and chain smoking on surveillance, client meetings over a second piece of pie in a greasy-spoon diner, evenings spent tilting back a few (or more) rounds of Jack with a beer back.

Problem is, the food coma you get in the afternoon after that Big Mac isn't so conducive to alertness, and neither is a hangover. I'm not going to tell you what to eat, but food writer Michael Pollan perhaps says it best: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." 

Final Thoughts

I live in one of the fattest regions of one of the fattest countries on earth. I’ve been fat and out of shape. I am not a crusader for exercise. It’s just that I’ve found that regular exercise and a healthy diet helps me to do my job better and enjoy my life more. I find that my team works better when they’re in shape. I love the idea that for the small investment of a time and effort you can see and feel almost immediate benefits. 

The Unburnable Female Operative

The female covert operative: the very idea evokes smoky, black-and-white images of leggy, Cold-War Soviet spies laying (forgive the pun) the perfect honey trap for unwitting Western journalists, diplomats, and men who wield power, influence, or (most importantly) information.

 Phillip Knightley explodes a few “honey trap” myths in this article for Foreign Policy Magazine, titled: "The History of the Honey Trap." And in this piece for the Times Online, British journalist Jon Swain describes his romance with a beautiful “Mossad Mata Hari” posing as a photojournalist.

Mostly, these anecdotes reveal a simple truth. The honey trap often comes to naught: sex or romance exchanged for useless information, if any at all; failed schemes to ensnare, compromise, and blackmail powerful men (and sometimes women).

And from the point of view of the private investigator, what’s the use of it? Considering how many of our cases have to do with domestic relationships, how would a honey trap work, exactly? The word “entrapment” immediately springs to mind.

Which leads to the point of this article: why waste a female operative’s unique skills by merely exploiting her sexuality? 

“In most of the world, women in law-enforcement or security are considered non-players,” says Agent X, a 20-year veteran of the trade who has worked internationally. “It’s just a mindset. That’s why it’s often so much easier for women to do surveillance.”

Agent X points out that because such a small percentage of law-enforcement and security personnel are female, women can often disappear into the environment in ways men might not be able to. A man walking a dog in a neighborhood at night might arouse suspicion, for example. “But a woman in that situation is perceived as non-threatening,” he says. “It’s not uncommon to see a woman walking a dog or pushing a carriage…and she’s able to get closer to targets that way.”

The same goes for surveillance at a bar or restaurant. “It’s easier for a man-woman surveillance team or a single woman to sit in a bar and watch (without arousing suspicion) than for a man to sit alone,” says Agent X.

“Women just aren’t seen. They're invisible,” he adds, at least, from the point of view of targets keeping an eye out for tails. “Because they’re not ‘classical’ authority figures.”

Agent X admits, this approach plays to the stereotypes about men’s and women’s traditional roles in society. But when it comes to surveillance, playing to stereotypes works. Would you wear a polo shirt and khakis while infiltrating a biker bar? What about a country club?

When it comes to disappearing into the background and quietly gathering information, it’s all about perception, playing to what people expect to see. “If you’re a female with a stroller, a dog, a leash, or a baby seat in your car, there’s nowhere you can’t go,” he says. “Think about it: a guy walks around looking in my yard - suspicious, right?  He’d better have on a gas company vest. But a woman out there with a leash calling a lost dog? Who’s not gonna come out and help her look for it?

“A female just has so many advantages,” says Agent X. Especially as part of a man-woman team. “If somebody’s engaged at the front door with some stupid dog story, somebody else can be in back doing a trash pickup.

“Pack a baby seat, stroller, and leash in your car,” he advises female investigators. “Then have a bag ready with a jacket, shorts, sweat pants, sneakers, pumps, and a couple of different shirts.” In two minutes, he says, a female can easily dress up or down, go into character, walk in anywhere, and fit in, from a gym to a nightclub. “Boom, you’re done,” he says. “You’re unburnable.”

And the purse-cam is rolling.

THE MOST IMPORTANT SPY SKILL

We're often asked what special skills are required to be a private investigator. Well, once again our friends over at Burn Notice have summed it up nearly perfectly. Check it out.

Tradecraft - Public Records and Gathering Intelligence

 

Private investigators love information, also known as “intelligence.” We gather it and analyze it. We spend hours online searching proprietary databases trying to locate people, things, and places. It’s true, we sometimes go dumpster diving, clawing through trash to find tidbits of information that can help a case. Get enough intelligence gathered, and you can make a case for fraud or infidelity simply by arranging the information in a timeline and making inferences.

Identifying links, connecting the dots, is the key to solving most cases. There are a number of resources that help us connect the dots, tie people together, and establish that a relationship exists.

 

Surface Data

We crawl around our online sources every day. We hit Facebook, Linked In, and My Space regularly to identify people and relationships. One service we employ actually has a graphic that shows relationships between people, assets, and criminal records. It looks and behaves just like Visual Thesaurus. This tool is perfect for gaining that 1,000 foot view of a case, kind of like a data-driven aerial photo, a data-map. There are other services we use that aggregate publicly available information. These are all great places to start an investigation, but we here at [FIND] Investigations like to dig a little deeper.

 

Deep Research – Applied Tradecraft

Once the obvious connections have been made, we have the information to start really digging for connections. An article in the March/April 2010 edition of PI Magazine covers one of the least used resources available, the City Clerk’s office.

The City Clerk often handles personal property and maintains a list of property owned by residents. Want to find a boat or its owner? Just check out the personal property index for boats. It’ll have a detailed list of owners in alphabetical order, mailing address, and type of personal property owned. Want to find the owner of a piece of rental property? Have a look at the book that tells where tax bills are mailed. Some rural locales actually keep what they call the 3x5 file, a card index of residents in a town. These little gems very often have extra notations, hand written notes about the person in question. Notes like, “watch out for dog,” or “nut job.” The City Clerk’s office can be a treasure trove of intelligence.

We also like to pay a visit to the Tax Assessor’s office. In larger metropolitan areas, the assessor’s office is usually well organized and relatively easy to navigate. Most larger counties actually have their full database online. Still, when you drop by the office in person and take the time to pull a property file, you’d be amazed by what you can find. I’ve used the property file to get floor plans, pictures, and detailed lists of improvements on the property. The property file will almost always have a list of past sales for the property, listing deed book and page numbers.

Next stop, after the assessor’s office, is the Register of Deeds office. Armed with document numbers, you can go to the records room, pull the heavy leather bound book off the shelf and review the original deed. Here’s where the real fun starts. Make note of all signatures, buyer (Grantee), seller (Grantor), what law firm filed the deed, and who notarized the deed.

It’s possible to tie a single fraudster to several transactions simply by noticing that the same person notarized every one of the deeds in question. A quick stop by the Notary Public’s office and a few friendly questions later and you can likely identify the one person behind all of the sales.

Notifications are often sent to all parties involved in a transaction (sale or lease). In the Notifications clause, you may find alternative addresses for everyone concerned. Read the entire document and make note of all details.

Another source of valuable information is the prior ownership certification. I’m not certain about this for all states, but in Tennessee every deed includes a legal description followed by a clause that states who owned the property previously and a document number for that last sale. Track the sales back for several years. Pull all of the deeds and see what you can find.

If the property is owned in the name of a company or a corporation, track down the principals of that entity. It’s not unusual to find several companies owned by the same person. People try to distance themselves from transactions sometimes, but no matter what the degree of separation, there’s almost always some piece of paper that ties them to the deal.

Compiling information, the tradecraft of intelligence gathering, is not necessarily a difficult process. Sometimes it just takes a lot of time and a high degree of patience to establish all the connections. Start drawing the inferences with online searches and databases--these are the recognized starting points. But to make the hard case, it’s helpful to physically visit the original source of information and review the documents. We here at [FIND] Investigations have spent the past 24 years creeping around court houses and city offices. If there’s a connection, we can usually find it.

 

Real-World CSI: The Near Future

Someday soon, law enforcement may be able to ID criminals by the microbial signature they leave behind, says Noah Fierer of UC Boulder. 

Fierer says more than a hundred different types of bacteria (most of which are harmless, some, even beneficial) live on the surface of our skin, and that each person's microbial colony is unique. That bacterial trail we leave behind--on a computer keyboard or mouse, say--may be identifiable for up to two weeks, according to Fierer's experiments...which could one day give law-enforcement agencies one more tool for gathering physical evidence. 

Hear the full story or read a transcript at NPR's website.

In other odd forensic news: one day soon you may be asked to put your nose into a 3D scanner, instead of your thumb onto an inkpad.

Scientists at the University of Bath in England are developing software that recognizes individual noses, which are unique, just like fingerprints.

Read the full BBC story here.