Investigative Articles

Legal Ways To Locate Bank Accounts
The following information has been compiled from various sources to aid law information, bank investigators, law firms and researchers who are in need to obtain checking account information for investigatory reasons only.

HR 2971 Threatens Every Investigative Agency And
The Judicial System
A special article from Bruce H. Hulme, Chairman
for the NCISS Investigations Legislative Committee

The Use of Evidence During an Interrogation
Types of Evidence, The Psychology of Evidence,The Decision to Introduce Evidence, Using Weak Evidence to Imply Further Evidence, Using Evidence to Attack the Suspect's Credibility, Establishing the Credibility of Testimonial Evidence. A John Reid Article.

Wireless Internet Video Surveillance Technology
This PDF downloadable article shows you how to use Internet to view live video surveillance from anywhere in the world transmitted from a computer and camera connected to Internet via a long-range wireless access. We have reproduced web pages from the sites of several vendors from which you may want to purchase products or services to implement the system. From David Vine Associates, LLC

Aerial Photography: Applications In Accident Reconstruction
This article approaches aerial photography from two perspectives. Bob Wyman is a consulting accident investigator. He writes about this topic from the perspective of the end user of aerial photographs. Ross Cobb is a pilot and owner of Aerials Inc, an aerial photographic service. He offers the technical explanation. by: Robert Wyman and Ross Cobb

Defining Moments In One On One Surveillance
Is it patience, experience, positioning, luck, or perhaps a sixth sense at work for surveillance specialists who consistently provide clients with crucial video evidence? By Thomas J. Severin, Severin Investigation

The Science And Art Of Fire Investigation
by Tony Cafe Reproduced from "Firepoint" magazine - Journal of Australian Fire Investigators

Tractor Trailer Underride Accidents
It was approximately 5:30 PM on a bright clear afternoon, on a relatively busy six lane highway in suburban Arlington, Texas. A tractor trailer driver, on his way to make a delivery suddenly realized he had overshot his turnoff and decided to turn around and go back into the opposite lane of traffic. This required making a u-turn at a break in the concrete and grass median that divided the three lanes of east bound and three lanes of west bound traffic. By Jack Murray, CLI, CFE

Executive Protection: Utilizing Explosive Detector Dogs
An article from the Tony Scotti School web site by Gerry Adams

Recognizing the Elements of Fraud
A government agency official directs the owner of a company doing business under contract to provide equipment and contractor staff that will be used to perform non-contract related work for the agency. By Mark R. Simmons, CIA CFE

Psychopaths: Findings Point To Brain Differences
Psychopaths are characterized by shallow emotions, impulsiveness, irresponsibility, egocentricity, and a lack of empathy or guilt. Robert Hare, who specializes in the study of psychopaths—who make up as much as a quarter of the prison population—characterizes them as "intraspecies predators who use charm, manipulation, intimidation, and violence to control others and to satisfy their own selfish needs." Their egocentricity, Hare says, makes psychopaths particularly dangerous; a recent FBI study, for instance, found that almost half of law enforcement officers who died in the line of duty were killed by psychopathic individuals. A Crime Time Article

Focus On Asset Protection-Worldwide Product Protection
While most corporate security directors can effectively secure product at their own manufacturing facility or warehouse, they exercise far less control at overseas or contract sites and as product travels from the plant to stores. To develop an effective security program for product both in production and in transit, the security professional must understand the threat, the fundamental techniques used by thieves, the inherent weaknesses of certain manufacturing or shipping strategies, and the tools and solutions that can mitigate the risk. By Jeffrey A. Williams, CPP

What You Should Know About Conflict of Interest
Employees, in performing official duties, are expected to act on behalf of and in the best interests of the organization that employs them. A conflict of interest arises for an employee, officer or director of an organization when that person acts, or appears to act, on behalf of someone other than the organization; and has, or appears to have, a self interest of which the organization is unaware and that is actually or potentially adverse to its best interests. If a conflict of interest results in economic or financial loss to the organization through fraud, waste or abuse, then administrative, civil or criminal remedies may be pursued, as circumstances or policy dictate. By Mark R. Simmons, CIA CFE

Understanding Spoofed/Forged Email
This document provides a general overview of email spoofing and the problems that can result from it. It includes information that will help you respond to such activity.

Report On Identity Theft And Attacks On Computer Users
The most common email type attacks to get you to provide info.

Guide To Being An Effective Witness
An online guide to giving expert witness testimony
By Michael W. Decaire

Biometrics And Everyday Life
Stuffing something in a public locker usually isn't a memorable experience. You drop a coin, take the key and move on. But at the Statue of Liberty, recently reopened after a two-year closure, stashing a package offers a glimpse into the future. To rent, close and reopen lockers, visitors touch an electronic reader that scans fingerprints

Social Security Numbering Scheme Explained
In the United States a Social Security Number (SSN) is considered the standard identifier and is used by many government and private institutions. Each SSN is a unique identifier assigned to only one individual. When that individual dies their SSN is not reassigned, but rather, is used to administer benefits to their dependents and survivors, and becomes part of the Social Security Death Index.

Email Countermeasures
How and Why of obfuscating your address.

The Individuality Of Handwriting
A published research report made available by the National Criminal Justice Reference Service

The Miami Heist!
An update and reflection on getting $800,000 in diamonds stolen while trying to save money on gas. Could you prevent a brazen daylight robbery involving 10 robbers in 3 vehicles from happening again?
by Nick Spill

Port Scanning And Its Legal Implications
In the mind of a reader who has knowledge of the technology that I am about to throw light upon, the above statement, would surely cause some amount of apprehension if not criticism at my trying to knot together two diverse issues.

Investigative News

Profile: Tony Ulasewicz, President Nixon's Private Eye
Tony Ulasewicz was a retired New York City police officer who became President Richard Nixon's personal, confidential private investigator in 1969. His 1990 book, 'The President's Private Eye,' provides a detailed, insightful look at his involvement in one of the most far-reaching political scandals in American history.

Deeply Angry Vietnam Vets Buy Ads to Expose Kerry's Record
Some of the attacks, including some based on work by a Swift Boat Veterans for Truth-sponsored private detective, have drawn criticism from veterans who ...

Warning! Bluetooth Cell Phones Have Major Security
Problems Including Easy Bugging
Thousands of Bluetooth phones are vulnerable to hacking, researchers warn, allowing attackers to steal phone-book data and text messages -- and even turn the phones into bugs to surreptitiously listen to conversations. By Kim Zetter. WiredNews Story

Class Action On Yahoo Message Boards
On Slander Opens Flood Gate For All
A California lawyer who has waged an ongoing battle with Yahoo Inc. over personal attacks made against him on Yahoo message boards has filed a proposed class-action lawsuit against the company.

Big Business Becoming Big Brother
The ACLU says the government is using private companies to snoop on Americans, bypassing legal safeguards. What's worse, Americans share information with companies freely, not knowing where the data may end up. By Kim Zetter. A Wired News Story.

The World's First Non-Profit Private Investigator
 A seasoned investigator, juvenile prosecutor and youth counselor offers parents free advice on how to protect children and conduct their own investigations. White Plains, NY -- When asked about his quest to set up a non-profit entity as a licensed private investigator, Carl A. Bartol, Esq., creator of the F.A.M.I.L.Y. Model of Parental Supervision

Consumer Credit Report Security Freeze Takes Hold
Little by little, a weapon against identity theft is gaining currency - but few people know about it. It's called the security freeze, and it lets individuals block access to their credit reports until they personally unlock the files by contacting the credit bureaus and providing a PIN code.

Onion Routing Averts Prying Eyes
The Navy built a networking technology, called onion routing, to mask the online activities of intelligence employees. Now open-source programmers are using the same system to let users surf the Web anonymously. By Ann Harrison- a Wired News story.

E-Mail Privacy Is All The Rage
The First Circuit Court of Appeals rules that internet service providers are not in violation of violation of wiretap law if they read e-mail messages that pass through their system.

Investigator Claims 9/11 Hijackers Tied to WNY
Did two of the September 11th hijackers spend some in Lackawanna? That's the claim from a private investigator who tracks terror-related information.

Yahoo Unveils New Local Search Engine
Internet giant Yahoo Inc. is unveiling a new search site that promises to provide a more precise guide to neighborhood businesses, making the latest in a series of attempts to improve the World Wide Web's focus on local information.

OSHA Ordered to Disclose Injury Rates
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration must disclose injury and illness rates for employers with the worst safety records, a federal judge has ruled. The decision Thursday by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District in New York was in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed in October 2002 by The New York Times.

The Danger of the Dead
Across the country, coroners and health officials are figuring out how to dispose of hundreds or thousands of infectious corpses in case of a terrorist attack. By Randy Dotinga - A Wired News Story

Canada Music Biz Bites Dentists
Dentists in Canada discover they have to pay fees to Canadian music publishers for the right to play copyright music in their offices. U.S. dentists may be surprised to find out that similar rules apply in their country. By Katie Dean - A Wired News Story

Disappearing Without A Trace
01 August 2004 Walking out on your own life is easy. Staying there is much harder. Six weeks after scientist Jim Donnelly went missing, Sarah Stuart learns how to disappear.

Raising the Dead Online
She was dumped in the woods and buried without a name. Decades later, one man with a computer and an obsession cracks the mystery. How Todd Matthews helped the Tent Girl -- and her family -- find peace. By Noah Shachtman from Wired magazine.

FCC Seeks Internet Phone Wiretap Access
Internet phone calls should be subject to the same type of law enforcement surveillance as cell and landline phones, federal regulators said Wednesday.

Fahrenheit FBI
A new U.S. government decision extending wiretapping regulations to the Internet raises far more questions than it answers.

Albany Mosque Raid Uncovers Terrorist Missile Plot
Of leaders of a mosque in Albany, N.Y., were arrested on charges stemming from an alleged plot to help a man they thought was a terrorist purchase a shoulder-fired missile.

Six Internet Fradusters Indicted In International Conspiracy To Steal More Than $10 Million From World's Largest Technology Distributor
A federal grand jury this morning indicted a Romanian computer hacker and five Americans on charges that they conspired to steal more than $10 million in computer equipment from Ingram Micro in Santa Ana, California, the largest technology distributor in the world.

Bad Date? Use Your Cell Excuse
Two cell-phone providers offer fake rescue calls to help the mobility connected wiggle out of an uncomfortable situation. One company calls the service a 'lifestyle accessory.