Investigative Articles

Private Investigative Trends 2004! Twenty-Two Hot Investigative Trends And Speciallizations To Help You Grow Your Investigative Business With More Cases And More Clients
This extensive reference article explores 22 major investigative trends and services you can learn to market and offer to grow your private investigative practice. By Ralph Thomas

Understanding The Covert Video & Mystery Shopping Services Boom
An Old Investigative Service With A New Twist Creates A Booming And Highly Lucrative Trend! By Ralph Thomas

Mobile Phone Are a GPS Tracking Beacon When Turned On
When a mobile phone is switched on, it's cellular network provider knows exactly where you are in the world to within a hundred metres or so.

Scaffolding Investigations: A Power Point Presentation Online
By James Harbert Author of Complex Legal Investigations

200 Digital Camera and Digital Photography Tips
Extensive reference for digital cameras and digital photography.

Summer Surveillance Tips
Or How To Avoid The Helter Swelters
Compiled From Various Investigator Mailing Lists
Compiled By Ralph Thomas

Cell Phones That Allow And Disallow GPS Location Tracking
Some cell phones let you disable GPS tracking features. This article deas with those models.

Skip Tracer Tricks Of The Trade
Compiled From Members Of The Tracer's Forum

New Breed of Data Forensics Specialists Help
Recover Data For Use as Courtroom Evidence
Businesses and law firms are increasingly turning to data forensics specialists to extract and preserve data from computers for use as courtroom evidence. Civil suits involving fraud, embezzlement, employment or theft of intellectual property often hinge on electronic data. Culprits leave a trail of evidence that's difficult to delete .

People Searching Tutorials, Tools And Resources
This article with links gives you a very good overview of people searching and skip tracing and both tutorials and free searches on the net. Worth your time.

Location Tracking And Technogical Trends
Location tracking is one of those double-edged swords of technology. It can help find people in an emergency, but it can also make your whereabouts known to strangers. Explore these new systems.

Combating The Insider Espionage Threat
An extensive article from the federal offiice of the Counterintellgence Executive in a PDF file download.

High Tech Surveillance Techniques And Cutting Edge Technology
This article takes a look at cutting-edge technology as it relates to surveillance.

Interviewing Elderly Subjects
From The John Reid Investigative Interviewing Web Site.

Trends: Big Companies Employing Snoopers For Staff Email
Large companies are now so concerned about the contents of the electronic communications leaving their offices that they're employing staff to read employees' outgoing emails.

Profile: Detective Karl Hancock Named “Deputy of the Year”
Sheriff John Anderson named Detective Karl Hancock “Deputy of theYear.” Hancock, who has served Madera County for nearly 14 years, will be honored Thursday, August 12 during a formal ceremonial dinner at the Elks Lodge in Madera.

Surveillance Basics-Tailing, Shadowing, Positioning and the Stakeout
This useful article covers the basics of conducting a surveillance. Although it contains basic knowledge and techniques--it's amazing even what pros can learn by getting back kto basics.

How Anti-Shoplifting Devices Work
Learn about all the different techniques that merchants use to protect their merchandise! A How Stuff Works article.

Understanding Black Boxes
Often the only "survivor" among the wreckage, black boxes help investigators determine what happened in an airplane accident. Find out how they tell the story after a crash.

Profile: Public People Finder Helps Find People With
Free Public Records Sources Online
Keyser, WV- PublicPeopleFinder.com a leading Internet based detective agency, recently launched a group of new services designed to find anyone in the world within minutes, providing key background information to prospective spouses, employees and long-lost relatives sometimes in seconds.

Investigative Report Writing
by Leilani F. Canella
As an investigator, I have had the occasion to read other investigators reports as part of follow-up assignments. In my experience, I have found that investigators tend to lay out what it is they have done in very large paragraphs with the results of the investigation buried randomly within this rambling dialog.

Surveillance In The Workplace
If you're surfing at work, you may not be the only one who knows. More than three-quarters of U.S. companies are actively monitoring their employees. Watching workers has become an industry unto itself. Find out exactly how employers are keeping an eye on their people during working hours.

How To Use Public Records Databases
Over the past few years many state and local government agencies have been moving towards electronic access to their records.  While some of it may be useful in issues stories (i.e.: statistics on health care or water quality or road characteristics), we'll be talking here about databases that can help you track down people, their associates, their assets and their personal histories.  The types of records, what they can provide, and what information you usually need to search by can help you determine what information might help you get what you need.  Some are statewide databases, others are local compilations, for which you would have to search county-by-county to get full coverage.

Facial Recognition Technology
How unique is your face? New software can identify you by scanning your features. Learn how facial recognition software can turn any crowded street into a police lineup.

Background Check Tutorial
A free background check can provide some enlightening information about a person. But what can a free background check tell me that I don't already know? First, let's take a look at some of the reasons you might want to conduct your own free background check.

Surveillance Training From A Military Perspective
This article is from a US Army field training manual but gives you a very good prospective on surveillance.

Investigative News

Israel Private Investigator Meir Palavsky Admits He Gave Recording to ...Maariv International
Private investigator Meir Palavsky was released today after admitting that he had transferred the recording of former Infrastructure Minister Joseph Paritzky (Shinui) discussing his attempt to frame Minister of the Interior Avraham Poraz (Shinui).

State Criminal Records Checks In Michigan Flawed
Local 4 Defenders discovered a murderer, a robber, sexual offenders, and many other criminals convicted of crimes were listed in the database with clean records.

Hard-boiled Detective Treads On Diplomatic Toes
A uthorities here consider Krzysztof Rutkowski to be a bit of an embarrassment - especially after he used his diplomatic passport as a member of parliament to track down and arrest three alleged extortionists in Sweden recently.

Private Investigator Popular With Some, Not With Others
WICHITA, Kan. - Vern Miller needed to find the guy who had partially blinded his client's son. Miller turned to someone he knew could get the job done: Wichita private investigator Emery Goad.

Divorcing Couples Fight Like Beasts Over Pets
The custody agreement is comparatively simple. Mark gets Sara one week, Michelle the next, give or take a day or two. If either party leaves the county, Sara remains with the other.
Grooming and veterinary bills are split.

Private Investigator Tracking Facts About John Kerry
The hunting of John Kerry has now been contracted to a hired gun. A private detective retained by "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" -- the Texas-based group seeking to discredit John Kerry's military record -- is contacting veterans who may have information about the incidents that led to Kerry's Vietnam decorations.

UK Investigative Agency Hits Back At Intel 'Passing Off' Claims
7intel has accused Intel of "a thinly veiled attempt to bully them into handing over their legally owned collateral, websites and trademarks".

Maritime Piracy Grows As Threat To World Commerce
The Jolly Roger -- the skull-and-crossbones flag of the pirates of old -- no longer flies from the masts of ships marauding the Barbary Coast. Bearded men wearing eye patches and peg legs and brandishing swords and flintlock pistols no longer lead shrieking boarders over the sides of helpless merchant ships. But if you thought that maritime piracy was a thing of the past, you were wrong. Pirates still menace the world's shipping, and the problem is getting worse.

Life After Death for CAPPS II?
The Department of Homeland Security decides to kill the CAPPS II passenger-screening program that critics had called ineffective and invasive. The department may try to revive it with a new name, but observers don't think it will succeed. By Ryan Singel - A WiredNews Story

Matrix: Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange Database
The Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange, a database known as Matrix, combines state vehicle and crime records with commercial files owned by a private company. Privacy advocates cry foul as feds gain access to masses of info on individuals.

Police Smash Russian Internet Extortion Racket
Police have smashed a Russian extortion racket preying on UK businesses and betting Web sites, in an ongoing war against Internet crime that often originates in Russia and Eastern Europe, Reuters reported.

Fake Bin Laden File Harbors Virus
A message posted on over 30,000 Usenet newsgroups, claiming to include images of Osama bin Laden's suicide, actually contains a Trojan horse. A Wired News Story

DNA Identifies Suspects In 30 Unsolved Crimes In England
More than 30 prime suspects in long-term unsolved crimes, mainly rapes, have been identified by using modern DNA analysis.

Lost Loves Click Again Easily - But Cautiously
Internet, reality TV make it easier to reunite couples from the past.

Experts Available to Discuss Increased Deaths Due to Asbestos
Deaths resulting from past asbestos exposure have increased since the late 1960s, according to an article by The Associated Press. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claims 1,493 people died in 2000 due to asbestos exposure, which is a severe increase from 77 deaths reported in 1968. Experts believe the number will continue to rise as it can take up to 40 years from the time a person is exposed to asbestos until the time of death. From the 1940s through the 1970s, asbestos was commonly used for insulating and fireproofing buildings.

The Electric Underworld Of Spy Ware
They stood in a lineup before me. The sophisticated Lopdotcom and his dumb vicious brother Lop Hijacker, the sexy but deadly Alexa Toolbar and the enigmatic CWS_NS3.

Dashboard DVDs And Death
A pickup truck driver -- who may have been watching a movie at the time he crashed head-on into an oncoming car -- faces the possibility of a second-degree murder conviction.

Chinese-American On Trial for China Espionage
Beijing (Reuters) - A Chinese-American businessman will go on trial in China soon, accused of spying on China for arch-rival Taiwan while in the United States, Chinese state media said Wednesday.  

Middletown Woman Faces Nursing Home Abuse Charges
Nicki J. Bradburn, 23, of Middletown is the second person charged in the Feb. 18 resident abuse and cover-up incident at Maple Ridge Care Centre.

MSN Fires Up Search Engine
MICROSOFT'S internet arm MSN is investing $US5 billion ($7 billion) to create a search revolution where users will be able to pose questions and receive real answers - all without leaving the comfort of the MSN web site and the reach of its advertisers.

LPD Busts Another Piracy Shop
Los Angeles police have busted another movie piracy operation, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.

A Dental Shocker
Claim dentist injected sperm into mouths of female patients. A Smoking Gun Story