A private detective is a professional capable to acquire information, remove doubts, solve mysteries and obtain valid evidence in court. To be able to exercise the profession, the private detective must hold an investigative licence issued by the competent Prefecture where the investigative agency is based. Even if the private detective must have a well-defined main office, however, the investigation licence allows him to operate and carry out investigations throughout Italy and, by right of reciprocity, also in a large part of Europe.
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What does a private investigator do? The private investigator works for private individuals, companies and lawyers, seeking the Truth and proving it with valid evidence in Court. The main professional activities of the private detective are:
- surveillance, stakeouts and tailing;
- information gathering through documentary consultations;
- the collection of information through interviews and undocumented conversations;
- undercover investigations;
- security and crime prevention activities.
In detail, the private investigator with his investigations deals with: – marital infidelity; – pre-marital investigations and prevention of romantic scams; – child custody disputes; – parental alienation; – minor children abduction; – child abuse; – domestic violence; – stalking and persecutory acts; – asset investigations for the definition of economic separation agreements; – family members who have moved away from home and missing people; – bullying and cyberbullying; – corporate infidelity; – disputes regarding dismissals or resignations for just cause; – proof of the employee’s aliunde perceptum; – corporate absenteeism and abuse of Law 104 and parental leave; – false injuries at work; – occupational diseases; – theft and shortages in the company; – unfair competition and employee misappropriation; – imitation trademarks and patents; – product counterfeiting; – imitation of the concept store; – theft of intellectual property; – corporate espionage and sabotage; – corporate cybersecurity; – access control and physical security; – untraceable debtors and asset investigations for debt collection; – defensive criminal investigations; – civil party investigations; – criminal investigations; – reopening of court cases and opposition to dismissal; – tracing fugitives on behalf of victims. The areas in which the private detective is required are constantly growing, since Italian law, jurisprudence and, therefore, judicial proceedings increasingly provide for the private initiative of the parties involved in criminal and civil trials in order to defend themselves or prove their accusations. Some investigative agencies advertise their specialization in a certain area among those listed above, however it is an individual choice rather than a real exclusive competence, since all the activities listed are affordable by a private investigator who is skilled in shadowing, patient in stakeouts, able of interact with people and obtain their collaboration, shrewd enough to carry out undercover investigative activities, cultured enough to understand complex documents (from company balance sheets to autopsies, etc.) and correctly interpret reality. In my investigative handbook ‘Detective Agency of the Third Millennium’, published by Greco&Greco in 2014, in chapter 5 ‘Private Investigations and Family Protection’ and in the sub-chapter ‘Please don’t call them horns!’ I wrote: “Colleagues who consider tailing adulterers to be unskilful make me smile. A watched man is difficult to tail regardless of the reason why you monitor him. The risks you consciously take in following a dangerous offender, precisely because they are well known, are never as serious and imponderable as those you might unknowingly take with a suspected adulterer who also leads a double criminal life. While tailing my client’s husband, I discovered not only his frequent use of prostitutes, but also that he was involved with a criminal organisation. This was one of the cases in my career in which I risked the most, since the wife had described her husband as a harmless womanizer, leading me to approach surveillance in a routine manner. Moreover, there are cases in which, behind a bitter marital split, the private investigator is confronted with the criminal plans of the investigated spouse. While surveilling a client’s wife, I revealed in time her plan to numb her husband during a sleeping pill dinner, strangle him and dispose of the corpse with the complicity of a friend. In another case, upon learning that the client’s wife was looking for a hitman to eliminate her husband, I proposed myself as a possible hitman, foiling the woman’s murderous plan. During yet another assignment I uncovered a fake accident staged by a man, who had pretended to be charred in a fatal accident, to defraud the life insurance and disappear with the money, leaving the debts to his wife. Carrying out criminal or industrial counter-espionage investigations is often less complicated than navigating between hurt feelings and family balances, where private investigator’s work affects people’s happiness, even before the procedural outcome and economic repercussions. Furthermore, personal investigations must be planned with more attention from a financial point of view, since the private individual has more limited resources.”
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Who are the private investigator‘s clients? Anyone can contact the private investigator, giving him a mandate to protect a legitimate right through private investigations. Most of the clients are private citizens who, independently or on the advice of consultants, contact the detective. This is followed by lawyers and professional firms who request private investigations in the interests of their clients. Finally, companies and insurance companies use private investigators to protect themselves from internal and external threats. How much does a private investigator cost? The cost of a private investigation is very variable. Consider an hourly rate starting at 60.00 euros. However, the intervention of the private detective should not be seen as a cost but rather as an investment that can save money and stress, avoiding being wronged and living in doubt. Clients who contact the Octopus investigative agency during the first meeting are informed about the best investigative strategy to adopt and the costs involved. Availability and constant updating of customers are two cornerstones of my Octopus detective agency. Why it is better to contact a private investigator rather than investigate on your own. I could ask you the same question about whatever trade or profession you plan to improvise; no matter how brilliant and quick you are to learn, you will never be able to match the experience and skill of those who have been professionally dedicating themselves to private investigations for years or even decades. Even if you were the best private detectives in the world, there are two further reasons why it is better to delegate the investigations to a third-party professional:
- – emotionality and direct involvement play tricks on you, making you lose efficiency and objectivity.
- – Given your involvement, any Judge will look askance at testimony or evidence gathered from you and a relative or friend.
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How to choose the best private investigator for your needs? Having established that it is better not to investigate on your own, let us see how you can choose the best private investigator. Although it is inevitable that you try to discover something firsthand, finding yourself in an advantageous position to do so and also because in certain situations keeping busy helps you not to go crazy and to process the tragedy you are experiencing; so much so that I often entrust the clients of my Octopus detective agency with tasks complementary to my investigations. Choosing the right private investigator for your needs is a crucial step to guarantee the success of the investigation and the protection of your rights. First of all, it is important to verify that the investigator has a regular license issued by the Prefecture and he possesses the necessary professional skills to carry out the investigative activity. But let us see how to recognize the right private investigator for the private enquiry you want to entrust to him:
- He is easily contactable through a direct telephone number and responds promptly.
- He knows the laws, legal procedures and jurisprudence inherent to the case you want to entrust to him.
- He does not push to start a private investigation without first presenting you a convincing intervention plan and the related costs.
- At the end of the investigation, he will hand you a signed investigative report with the relevant video-photographic and documentary evidence attached.
- He is available to testify about the investigative results obtained.
- He is authorised by an investigative license issued by the Prefect to carry out the investigations you ask him to.
- He has proven experience, demonstrable by his online reputation, unpaid journalistic articles, publications of investigative manuals and customer reviews
What can you expect from the private investigator you have hired? The private detective has no special powers. He is like a private citizen who has obtained a licence to trade in information and carry out investigations for third parties. This lack of authority and special powers, which on the surface seems like a weakness, is actually the private detective‘s strength, because he is a professional accustomed to using his brain to get what he wants. You must expect the private investigator to advise you against committing crimes, especially in the acquisition of evidence, as it would undermine their full validity. Therefore, a serious private detective does not lend himself to phone tapping or environmental eavesdropping, intrusion into computer systems, home invasions or other crimes. The Privacy Law has not reduced the investigative potential of private detectives, merely regulating them better with some legal and bureaucratic obligations. In the investigation report that the private detective signs and hands over to you at the end of the assignment, pay attention that
- The date of the assignment you initially signed is indicated.
- There are no written descriptions or photographs or videos obtained in blatant home invasion.
- Faces, license plates and other identifying elements of third parties who inadvertently end up in the private investigator’s frame are obscured.
- Video recordings are without audio.
- Audio or video interceptions between persons present are not carried out in homes or places where the right to privacy prevails or are expressly prohibited.
(+39) 335 77 57 613
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