What I can't do

As the last post shows it’s a little busy here at the moment so a bit of mind clearing is called for.

Would love to play a musical instrument. Tried a guitar when I was a small child and got as far as three blind mice and Bah Bah Black Sheep before the music teacher left the area. I guess she may have done this due to my musical talent actually being measured in negative numbers.

I am sadly blessed with absolutely no sense of rhythm. This is backed up by a voice that sounds like a sack of hungry tom cats and a dancing style that makes small children cry and grown people flee in terror.

Painting drawing or in fact any form of art seem totally beyond me.

I have a sense of direction that has served me well in the jungle (leafy not urban) but sadly leaves me at the first sign of tarmac. GPS mapping was designed with me in mind.

My sense of fashion can only, and frequently is described as unfortunate. I must NEVER be left alone in a cloths shop.

I’m sure, there’s more but those are the ones that come straight to mind.

More Non-Magnum stuff.

Been trying to get my head around a complex report pulling data from left right and center pulled from various stacks of paper and who know how many open applications and windows on my PC and lap top.

Emails are going ka-ding, instant messages are going bing bong and both cell phones have been ringing, one of them from the client who has shifted the deadline for the complex report forward to this afternoon. The other from a customer service guy who was lucky to escape with only the mildest level of my dissatisfaction ringing in his ears.

It’s end of month, I have late payers that seem to think their invoice only needs paying upon my retirement, my bills need to be sorted and books done.

There are three traces still outstanding after a second month. Two of the trace clients are going to scream (Hey cut me some slack! One is a guy with a very common name no date of birth and a 19 year old last known address. One is a guy for whom we only had a Po Box which has sadly not been paid for and only had a hotel room as a last known address, again no date of birth. Then there is the guy with two properties both of which are derelict)

The office is a looks mess once again courtesy of the complex job, a few too many coffee cups, unfiled paperwork and a mass of cables from my ongoing effort to get more stuff doing more things.

Rumor has it that I’m supposed to have a life outside of work. When I find it, there are household chores to sort, mates that I really should make a point to go and see, family overseas that I need to pay more attention to and a garden which although small is blessed with Amazonian undergrowth.

Getting my head around all of that when the phone rings again this time from a friend of a friend who through the sobs asks whether I know a lawyer that can help her with a restraining order. Listen some more, give the number for my man of domestic law, give some advice on personal security and listen till she’s sobbed out.

A USB flash drive that I was going to use for the complex job has chosen now is it’s time to fail. Can I find a blank DVD anywhere? Hell no! Damned things vanish quicker than socks. Never mind take a walk to the computer shop and buy some.

Time for a break. Get up leave the swirling realm of madness behind go out and spark up. It’s been raining for two days (a rare thing in Jo’burg) so the air is clean, I have a pre-employment screening meeting later that could be very lucrative, some good music is playing, a friend has shocked me with their kindness, this coffee is great and all round it aint a bad day.

Why people disappear

An interesting article from Scott Harrell of Pursuit Magazine. Although US orientated the principles here hold true around the world.

http://pursuitmag.com/2008/12/skip-tracing-intentionally-missing-people/

(Cut and paste the link to your browser)

Parental Abduction (What is wrong with people?)

Parental abduction is one of the saddest and most unfortunate type of case to work. I have been involved on the periphery of a few and worked directly on a couple of others. They fill me with dread and often present an ethical dilemma.

I have a habit of leaving my computer on at night with the speakers turned up loud so I can hear anything urgent that may come in. It is not that unusual for me to get a last minute case where the neigh on impossible needs to be done by yesterday.

Around one o’clock in the morning an email came in from a foreign colleague working on a parental abduction case.

When they reach the highest level of legal action parental abduction cases are covered by something called The Hague Convention On The Civil Aspects Of International Child Abduction. It is a longwinded title but is basically a rule book signed by most of the world’s nations outlining the assistance that they will give each other in such cases that involve minors under the age of 16.

My colleague had indications that the abducting parent and child were located in a territory that we have good contacts in. He urgently required confirmation of this in order to present the evidence at another related court case involving the legally rightful parent (a financially secure business person). The case was further complicated by the impending 16th birthday of the child in question.

Well with a bit of effort we managed to locate the abductor (a similarly financially secure business person) and complete a brief report outlining his place of residence, business affiliations and contact details. This report was issued so that the appropriate authorities in the country concerned could be notified and the child picked up, flown “home” and repatriated with the legally rightful parent.

Job done and finished.

Yes but with reservations on my part. Here was a child of almost 16 years old, described as being “intelligent, independent and charming.” Basically this was a child that knew how to use a telephone was old enough to make up their own mind and gave every indication of having freely gone with the abducting parent without any duress being placed upon them. Furthermore the child had been abducted a little over a year ago. In that time the child made initiated no contact with the legally rightful parent. Nether parent was any way connected with or accused of violence or abuse of either their ex spouse or child.

Yup the abducting parent was found to have broken various laws but there was absolutely no indication that the child was forced to do anything against their will. The legally rightful parent was I am sure incredibly concerned and most likely heart broken.

I cannot help but be concerned for the child in question and whether repatriation is what they want. I get little satisfaction from having taken the legally correct course of action.

What grates me even more however is how two intelligent successful individuals can allow the situation to develop to a stage where no level of agreement can be reached regarding a child’s wellbeing.

How with any sense of common decency, morality or sense can a parent act in such a way? It is only my opinion but is influenced by experience that some parents forget that their first duty in life is to ensure the wellbeing of their child, enabling them to become caring, strong, independent, free thinking, decent, and moral adults.

Both parents in this case would I am sure state that they are tying to achieve exactly that. How though after 14 years could either of them allow such a situation to develop where their child is reduced to being little more that a rope in a tug or parental war? Each parent will blame the other forgetting that blame is not the issue. Their child’s welfare is.

I guess I will never understand.

Co-incidentally a similar but unrelated case appears on page two of today’s Star here in South Africa.

Is it INTELLIGENCE or INFORMATION

Back to in the office and my word do I have some reading to do. A current tasking involves a background enquiry concerning a “gentlemen” of dubious integrity.

Information in such cases is typically drawn from a multitude of sources such as court records, press archives, personal interviews, telephone interviews, business databases, credit reports, social networking sites, you name it, and if there is information available we probably use it as a source. Nah, we are not tapped in to intelligence agencies, national police computers, satellite imagery (beyond Google earth) and so on.

Anyway I now have over 180 pages of data to go through evaluate and report on.

People do not often realise that the reason WHY the information is required is often more important than WHAT information is required. Understanding the client’s intentions and goals allows us to better cater for their requirements.

This is where the difference between INTELLIGENCE and INFORMATION comes in.

INFORMATION can usually be defined as a list of straight forward definites. Who what where when and how in a glorified list format.

INTELLIGENCE is the final product after these definates have been collated, evaluated to establish their relevance, analyzed to show their relationship to each other and reanalyzed to establish significance of any information developed as a result of these relationships. This is then passed to the client in the form of ACTIONABLE INTELLIGENCE outlining the strengths, opportunities, weaknesses and threats regarding their interaction with the subject of the enquiry and so chose a way forward that best suit their needs.

In summary we:

(1) Corroborate the validity of the information,
(2) Understand its importance and linkages with other data,
(3) Develop a plan for action
(4) Use the plan to accomplish a desired goal.

Having the information is in itself insufficient. One needs to understand the implications and potential of that information.

Better get the kettle on, there is a lot of work to be done.

Hotels

I have stayed in some flee pits in my time. Places where you share the room with other residents in possession of far too many legs and eyes. I once woke up to see a bat around half a meter away from my face hanging under the table top. I knew a lady once who had the experience of a bat flying in to the overhead fan and having the remains land on her while she was sleeping! A snake in a toilet, bugs in my shoes and various uninvited rodents have all added to my lack of enthusiasm with hotels.

Luckily these days I am able to upgrade my accommodation a small bit

So as you can see, hotels are not my favourite places in the world. But for those of you heading for Windhoek (hey you never know it might happen!) may I recommend the Safari Hotel by Eros airport. 30 min and 300 Namibian Dollars from the main airport. (you don’t have to worry about how much a Namibian dollar is worth) A fantastic place with great staff decent food and a cheep bar. (Anywhere that serves Jameson’s at $1.95 USD a shot will have a friend in me!)

Shot in the forehead and lives! From Dave Branch's Blog

The news atricle. Jeez! http://www.ohio.com/news/37986589.html

The blog: http://twostorydoublewide.blogspot.com/

Shaken but not Stirred!

So there we are Edward n’ I driving down the road without a care in the world over and above getting the job done quickly and returning back for a good full English breakfast. Unhealthy I know but then I smoke, drink and live in Jo’burg so bacon and eggs now and again is nothing compared to life’s daily dangers.

As you know, if you read the last entry I am in Namibia at the moment and am off to Joes Bar this afternoon for a relaxer and calm down in advance of this evenings happenings what ever they may be.

Anyway I digress, Ed n’ me driving nicely listening to some cool music and BANG!

You ever been in a position where you simply did not know where you were or what just happened?

A small little Japanese car had plowed in to us. Here’s the thing. We were in a quite sizeable Mercedes. You want to have seen the damage!

Well needless to say I was not best impressed. We were in the right and got T’boned by some duffus coming on to the main road. Good job he clipped the back end and not the middle.

He had a spectacular bump on his forehead and a nasty bash of the steering wheel but was otherwise ok.

Cops came (eventually) details exchanged and several arguments quelled in turn by me then Edward then me then Edward. If the other driver wanted to kill himself we would have been a lot happier if he had not chosen to use us as the tool for his suicide.

We all calmed down in the end partly due to the fact that the cops over here carry AK47s (The Chinese variety apparently but still adequate for calming irate car wreck victims)

That’s it really, nothing else to tell you but as there was no-one else to tell here, you get to know all about it.

The news from Namibia

So here I am in a hotel just outside Namibia’s sunny capital.

Taken a small stroll around and it aint too bad. People smile, no rushing around everyone is polite. I do not think however that this place should go in to your list of destinations under the heading “places to go for a massively exciting time.”

Sat in a hotel waiting for a potential client to show, at the bar naturally I have been watching the bar staff. Baldy seems to be the leader, we then have Skinny, Sweaty and Unhappy.

Baldy seems to be on the take if I am not much mistaken. A lot of looking around, reaching down and putting something in his pockets. (Beer I think). Out the door and two minutes later he is back with empty pockets and the process starts al over again.

There’s a guy I know from London that makes very good money working in clubs bars and hotels as a plant watching for scams, fiddles, wrong doing and general scumbagishness. Looks like he could have a good time here a Sweaty has just opened the cigarette machine taken a pack given some to Unhappy and sparked up out side by the pool!

Anyway back to Namibia. Lot of German visitors and speaker as it used to be a colony of theirs. With the exception of a few years in the late 30s early 40s they never really got the hang of the colonialism thing quite as well as the Brits but anyway this was one of theirs.

Was speaking to a lady at the reception area earlier who mistook my basic German for fluency. Don’t have a clue what she was talking about other than it involved a car crash. Anyway she seemed happier after the chat so I cannot have been that appalling in my linguistic skills.

We then have Afrikaans speakers. Now this is a fantastic language and if swearing cannot be surpassed. Sadly swearing is the only level of fluency I have achieved.

If you ever see a National Geographic or similar documentary of Namibia it will show the Herero. This is a tribe whose ladies wear an amazing headdress styled after cow horns. I saw two such ladies at the Airport and was more than a little pleased.

Lastly (in terms of my limited knowledge) we have the San or Bushmen. Now this is a language to learn! It is almost entirely made up of clicks that require you to be able to tie a knot in a cherry stalk with your tounge if you are to be able to even do the basics. A much put upon race of people, they are as near as it comes to the original indigenous people of Southern Africa.

Old stories from the oral traditions of Basuthu (Lesotho) people tell of San people never getting attacked by lions. The Basuthu were eaten in their droves it seems. The two peoples got on and this was discussed. The San are historically nomadic but over a defined area that they knew very well. The knew which lion prides were where and understood lion society.

They would hear or simply know from observations which lionesses were pregnant and keep an eye on them. When they give birth lions make a distinctive noise (mush the same way as humans do I guess). Once the cubs were born after a few days when their eyes were open the San would come along in a big crowd and scare the living excrement out of the poor balls of fluff. They then… ahh…err went to the toilet in that location. For the lions this associated the smell of humans with something best left well alone. Well that’s how the story goes.

Time now to head for the pool bar for sundowners. Work for today is done but there is plenty for tomorrow. Baldy looks set to have a hell of a party this weekend!

A trip out of the office.

Off to Namibia tomorrow for some work sun sea sand and… well more sand. Hot dry and quiet. Had to go anyway but have a client now that needs a photograph of a building to make sure it is there.

Now you would think that it would be relatively easy to confirm whether a building is where it is supposed to be. We have however had a case in the past where a client was paying warehousing fees in Lebanon. The warehouse was empty due to the political climate in the country and the high risk of lead poisoning.

We had an agent go around to find that the warehouse had gone. Well it hadn’t actually gone, it was more a case of it having been reduced to its component parts. This was a bit of an irritation to our client particularly since we confirmed he had been paying substantial rent on a pile of twisted metal, burned timbers only to house a sizeable collection of rodents for nearly a year.

Anyway, time to get packed.

A service you may not associate with PIs

Neighborhood screening is a service that many people regret not having made use of after moving in to a newly rented property or purchased property. That regret is compounded by the fact that having one completed is nothing in terms of cost compared to what you will be paying over the coming years.

When do most people view a property? Midweek or the weekend usually in daylight. When everyone is at work and life seems tranquil.

It is not just the problem of neighbours from hell. Security issues, local refuse collection, schooling, impending local planning of road expansions or liquor licenses and mass of other considerations all play a part in your happiness after moving in.

A typical neighborhood enquiry involves a physical presence in the area over several days at differing times Morning noon and night), interviewing local residents, visitors, shop keepers, tradesmen and police.

A typical report will include a detailed run down of all these points backed up with photographic support.

You could do it yourself but do you really have the time and resources to so?

Although the scope of such enquiries can on occasion be limitless, the sort of questions that are commonly asked include:

What reputation does the local municipal authority have for maintaining the local area?

How transient is the area, are neighbours / tenants moving in and out a little too regularly?

What happens late each Friday and Saturday night? Are the police regular visitors to your neighbours? What do the local shopkeepers think of the area?

What does the local press have to say? What articles have they published regarding the area (you would be surprised what a great resource the local free newspaper can be).

In areas with roving security what do residents think of the company responsible for this? What have locals got to say about break-ins and other security issues?

What about local schools? What do mums have say about their children’s experiences there and in the local area?

What is that bar or club around the corner like at closing time?

In summary a detailed independent report by an investigator that knows what to look for and takes consideration of your particular requirements or interests can save an awful lot of heart ache and hard earned cash.

Misery is an option not something imposed

There are a lot of people out there telling us how to improve our lives. The basic premise of such books and articles is that your life is not what it should be. Ambition is one thing, and a healthy thing. To strive for improvement does not however mean that things are currently in bad shape.

My solution, read “IF” by Rudyard Kipling. (Google it, then live it). But in an attempt to be a little topical here are Colin Powell’s suggestions for making life easy.

1. It ain't as bad as you think. It will look better in the morning.

2. Get mad, then get over it.

3. Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.

4. It can be done!

5. Be careful what you choose. You may get it.

6. Don't let adverse facts stand in the way of a good decision.

7. You can't make someone else's choices. You shouldn't let someone else make yours.

8. Check small things.

9. Share credit.

10. Remain calm. Be kind.

11. Have a vision. Be demanding.

12. Don't take counsel of your fears or naysayers.

13. Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.

Current case list:

Find the boat, attempt to figure out why the two airplanes were purchased in the manner they wore and back up the conclusions, locate the professor, do a bio of a clients potential business partner, see whether the factory is actually in the process of being built, find out where the oil went, find the insolvent foreigner in South Africa so we can tell him all is not lost (money coming his way) see whether the Israeli scamster is still in South Africa and try to locate victims.

Today is figuring out to be busy.

A day in the life of…

I wake up in my luxury pad on a beautiful island retreat, jump in to my Ferrari, meet up with a supermodel client, accept a tasking that requires the use of much fast driving, a tree top helicopter ride, often with the CIA in pursuit, get shot a few times and…

Actually that’s not what happens as a rule. Its far more mundane and to be sometimes a tad geekish. Wake up in my small house in a kinda nice area, put the coffee on, shower, check emails and start on a research job for a client wanting to buy a manufacturing facility in West Africa. He needs to know about competition in the area, together with political and reputational risk.

Spend some time speaking with our partner in the area. (Note to self: purchase a long piece of string and get two tin cans for the purpose of better sound quality in our calls to him)

Look at the case of the missing US professor. Personally I think he is dead. All the other bases have been covered and he was not the type to take care of himself. Call the US Embassy and tackle their number menus. Ask why can’t there be an option “for bi-polar, self medicated, itinerant professors who have walked away from their known world and decided to hobo it around South Africa press 4.” Speak to a vey nice lady that will look up past US deaths and repatriation in South Africa and keep me appraised of future one fitting the professor’s profile.

Call up a client wanting work done in the BVI and bother them to give me the job! Have a “yes I know its expensive but that’s what it costs and I have itemized it for you” type conversation.

More coffee. Walk to my PO box to pick up mail. No work, no letters from friends just invoices, some flyers and something called a parktown prawn. Imagine half cricket half roach and all nastyness. (the single most hideous bug on the face of the planet! Almost impossible to kill but this one is dead. Not something I will choose to investigate. I’ll just be grateful that there is one less of them.

Get back and have a case in my email regarding a lady in the UK who is getting married but has not yet got the final pieces of divorce paperwork from her ex husband who has seemingly vanished. Hmmm could be inconvenient, she is getting married in two weeks. How can you not know that your divorce was not finalised? Never mind I’ll get on to it later after checking its not a potential stalking or otherwise dubious matter.

Send emails to contacts. Call sources chasing up information for leads and hopefully conclusions.

Do invoicing (jeez I hate accounts and thank heaven each day that my bookkeeper / accounts wakes each morning saying “oh goody another excel spreadsheet and unbalanced set of books)

Coffee, change in to smart cloths and off to meet a chap who believes his partner is being unfaithful. I don’t do domestic matters but its for a friend so I give advice and details of a colleague that can help. (Quick tip dear reader, if after a period of one year you think your partner is being unfaithful then there is a 99% chance you are correct. Sad but true)

Back to the office, trace work, report writing coffee and more calls.

Sign off and relax for the day.

At home the laptop speakers are on full so that I hear the “bing bong” of incoming mail and messages. Some might be urgent and need a quick answer. Watch news from around the world and consider something supper shaped.

That’s it, it aint Magnum, more lifestyles of the poor and infamous but I love it.

Introduction

Welcome to my Blog.

So what will you find here? Jeez I’m not too sure, I have an unconventional life and an often bizarre job. There will be background regarding what a PI does, random thoughts and observations, a bit of background on cases we are working, there may be something to make you laugh, think or simply enjoy. Some articles will be long some just a snap shot written on the move.

I hope you find something to attract your attention and invite you to comment on anything you feel the need to.