investigation information

Corporate Fraud: How to protect your business

January 1, 2017 by pdldevv2

With corporate fraud on the rise, it’s crucial to ensure your business is protected in the modern age. Here’s some information on the ways that corporate fraud can operate, and how best to protect yourself.

Consider The Modern World

Arguably – in this modern, technological world – we know more about each other than ever before. However, the flipside to this is that there can be great difficulty verifying information or put simply – knowing what we can believe. We’re also in an age of unprecedented global mobility. These two factors in conjunction mean modern businesses – of all kinds, from sole trader to international corporation – face many challenges.

Internal Fraud

Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for businesses large and small to face the threat of internal corporate fraud – that is to say, fraud from within the organisation itself. The most common forms of this strand of corporate fraud include financial theft, data theft, or overall abuse of a position by an employee or group of employees.

It’s important to remember that by definition it is usually those in positions of trust who are able to commit fraud. A fraudulent individual usually requires some autonomy to be able to act in a fraudulent manner.

We also advise corporate clients concerned about potential internal fraud to be mindful of which employees or partners might be under increased pressure, which is often a major factor in pushing a predisposed individual towards any fraudulent activity. Of course, it’s good practice in general to be trying to alleviate pressure within your organisation where possible.

Background Checks

Background checks are part of essential risk assessment. Before signing important contracts, agreeing to high-stakes deals, or giving job offers, background checks can be both useful and reassuring – whether you have specific concerns, or are simply undertaking thorough due diligence.

As an employer it’s important to establish what it is you need to know before being happy to commit to any agreement of a business-sensitive nature. Read more on our background checking services

Discretion Is Key

At PDL, discretion is key in everything we do. However, the necessity for the utmost discretion is something we often have to remind corporate clients when they’re attempting to uncover and prosecute fraudulent individuals who pose a threat to their business.

In order for any fraudulent individual to be successfully prosecuted – and any assets recovered – it’s essential that evidence is gathered and fraudulent individuals are identified in the most professional and inconspicuous manner.

We are here to advise further on discretion and all other aspects of handling corporate fraud investigation. If you need our assistance, please feel free to contact us.

Ongoing Disputes

Disputes can vary in nature and magnitude, but they all can drain resources and impact upon your ability to manage business as usual. It’s important that any ongoing disputes – including legal issues, partnership disagreements, and so on – are handled professionally throughout, to bring matters to a satisfactory close.

Bespoke Solutions

Remember that every case requires a bespoke solution. Situations should be judged on the evidence, and solutions found with the protection of your business firmly in mind. We don’t give catch-all advice because we prefer to analyse the specifics of a case and deal with its details up-close. You may require data forensics, for example, or vehicle tracking. It might be surveillance, or background checking. The key is that the circumstances themselves indicate the best course of action.

Monitoring, Early Detection, and Process

We’ve worked on many corporate fraud cases in our history, and it has become apparent that by far the most effective way to prevent corporate fraud either from occurring, or from escalating or causing irreparable damage, relates to good monitoring, early detection, and establishing processes to handle any relevant cases.

Of course, what this specifically means is different from company to company, but what doesn’t change is that the first question we’ll ask an organisation concerned about preventing corporate fraud is – what process do you have in place to ensure good monitoring and early detection of any initial warning signs of impending fraud?

To discuss how we can help you prevent or resolve corporate fraud, please call us on:

+44(0)203 747 1865

Who’s Listening In? Why you might want to consider a bug sweeping service

August 9, 2016 by pdldevv2

Corporate espionage and bug sweeping services might seem like the stuff that blockbusters are made of, but while the gun-toting heroes and simpering heroines with a backbone of steel are very much the remit of Hollywood, the fact remains that espionage is a very real threat in today’s business culture. And it’s not just business premises which make the prime targets.

Bugs can be freely purchased at a range of stores; compact and discreet, they can be installed practically anywhere. This means that if you are a target of surveillance for any reason, your office, your home and your car could all be subject to bugging. And you may never even know about it. It’s something of a disturbing thought. Especially when you factor in the advent of high speed internet and the wealth of hardwired solutions which have sprung up around it, hijacking your own technology and using it to relay confidential information to unwelcome sources. It’s hardly surprising then, that the demand for bug sweeping services is on the rise.

So those are the facts, but what can you do if you think that you’ve been bugged?

The first step is to remove yourself from the environment that you’re suspicious of until the bug sweep takes place. If you can’t take yourself completely away, remain alert and ensure that nothing that you would not wish to be openly known is said or done within that vicinity.
Secondly, seek help from a professional. PDL surveillance professionals will visit your premises for a comprehensive bug sweep, employing military-grade training and techniques to search all liable areas. We won’t make a big song and dance about it, waving around bleeping devices and looking concerned; we’ll simply get on with the job quietly and professionally, until all areas of potential threat have been eliminated.
While you’re waiting for the bug sweep to happen, try to avoid using your telephone – landline and mobile. For any private or confidential calls, seek out a local payphone. This is particularly important when reporting your concerns to PDL.

Anyone can become a victim of surveillance for any reason: a business competitor may be seeking the edge with inside information; a spouse (or ex-spouse) may be looking for ammunition to leverage a better divorce deal; a colleague could be trying to cover their own tracks by keeping an account of yours.

Do you need bug sweeping services in London

At PDL we have counter surveillance experts from all fields, and our confidentiality is guaranteed. If you have any concerns about who is listening to you, call us today; we’re ready to help: +44(0)203 747 1865.

Why should I hire a private investigator and what can they do that I can’t?

May 19, 2016 by pdldevv2

At Private Detective London we often get asked what a private investigator does, and why a professional private detective is a better bet than doing your own investigations. Here are some of the questions we answer regularly for our investigation clients.

How do private detectives find out information I can’t find myself?

There are a number of ways this can be done. There are subscription databases not available to the general public, there is the private detective’s own network and contacts who may share information with him or her that they wouldn’t give to others and there is the large role that on-the-ground investigation plays in uncovering facts and exploring leads. Above all though, private investigators have the training and experience to look at information and see a pattern that can be pursued to a successful conclusion.

Why is it better to use a recognised private detective agency?

A professional private investigator with a substantial track record in successful cases will be a real advantage in a number of ways. First, that detective’s evidence-gathering, and if necessary court testimony, will be invaluable. Their reputation will back up your case and support you arguments. Second, a top-class private detective will have a huge network of contacts and colleagues they can call on to support your case. These two reasons alone make it vital to know who is handling your case – inferior agencies outsource their work to private detectives who have little or no training or experience, leading to inadmissible evidence and no ability to investigate your concerns on a professional level. We only work with our in-house team, whose skills are high and whose probity is unmatched.

What can’t my private detective do?

Although we may have the ability to access information not available to the average person and although our surveillance and counter-surveillance skills are exceptional, there are still things we can’t do, even though TV detectives do them all the time!

We can’t:
• Pretend to be policemen or members of the emergency services
• Tap phones
• Obtain phone, bank or computer records by lying or hacking
• Trespass on private property.

Will my investigator just repeat the police investigation?

No. The police have one way of working and private detectives have another. Police officers, for example, may have a number of cases at a time and must divide their hours between them all. An experienced private detective will be working on your case with focus and commitment, not side-tracked to do paperwork or even forced to take annual leave in the middle of a complex investigation or surveillance!

Will my private detective be legal?

Absolutely yes.We ensure that all our investigations comply with the law in every regard in whatever country and jurisdiction our private detectives find themselves in.

Would you like to know why you should chose us? Contact us 0203 7471865.

What a Background Search can Reveal

August 17, 2015 by pdldevv2

The Indian newspapers like to run the same stories over and over. Back in 2010 The Times of India commented on how many Indian origin families chose to use private investigator background check facilities to ensure that prospective marriage partners are all they claim to be. Now the New Indian Express is carrying the same story, with the little twist that now it’s often brides-to-be that are paying the background check fee, rather than their parents.

A large number of London private investigators conduct both discreet surveillance of husbands-to-be and undertake background checks and at Private Detective London we have a specialist team who work with high net worth individuals and their families to discreetly and comprehensively ensure that relationships are based on trust and fact. It can sit uncomfortably with some people to think about investigating a prospective partner but we know that cheats and scammers don’t limit their attentions to business activities – a growing trend of ‘rip-off marriages’ is occurring around the world.

Why might you need a private investigator background check?

Here’s our take on the situation – you wouldn’t hire a nanny or even a dog-walker without running some background checks, businesses ask for an employment history and references to ensure that they are employing good people so why would you put your happiness and wealth in the hands of somebody without doing the same? Romance is great, but facts are a much better basis for a secure, successful relationship.

As private investigator background checks grow in popularity, liars and cheats become more elaborate – we’ve discovered cases where a brother took medicals to convince a potential bride that he was healthy whereas the actual prospective bridegroom had suffered cirrhosis of the liver and also was on record as a drug addict. We’ve seen women with children from previous marriages claim to be virgins (hymen reconstructions are big business on the black market) until we produced documentary evidence proving that they had both ex-husbands and dependant children. There simply isn’t enough room here to talk about all the hidden debt, criminal backgrounds and failed businesses that we’ve found in the past histories of supposedly ‘ideal partners’.

And it’s not just India and Eastern Europe where such scams are rife. Just this month, a Bronx woman has been charged with ten marriages in 11 years, all of them without a single divorce! Liana Barrientos was caught after her most recent marriage in 2010 aroused the suspicions of a detective who investigated further to find that between 1999 and 2010 she had walked down the aisle ten times!

Real life cheating partners

It seems that she used the same social security numbers and parental details on every one of the applications, making it a simple job for any investigator whose suspicions were aroused to discover her behaviour. The most she did to conceal her crime was to change register offices from time to time. Charges so far are two rounds of ‘filing a false instrument’ which doesn’t sound so bad, until you discover that the maximum penalty is four years for each charge!

So far, nobody knows why she did this – when the newspapers got to her home, after the charges were filed, she’d fled. According to a neighbour, she’d moved into a homeless shelter.

The Indiana Jones Element

July 5, 2015 by pdldevv2

If most of our work is specialist but unexciting activities: surveillance for corporate clients who think they are being robbed, embezzled or suffering from commercial or industrial espionage, or seeking out lost relatives, cheating partners or dishonest household staff for private clients, sometimes we get to do something completely out of the ordinary – artefact hunting, for example!

Yes, donning our best Indiana Jones hats but leaving our rawhide whips at home, we’ve been exploring the murky regions of looting and pillaging. Now it might not seem like natural territory for a private detective, but Private Detective London knows that our capital city is the heartland of a rich trade in art, artefacts and archaeology – and that means that there will always be a few rotten apples in the barrel.

UNESCO has actually warned that in Iraq and Syria there is looting on ‘an industrial scale’ and we already know that the so-called Islamic State (IS) is destroying famous heritage sites and priceless works of art in territory it has overrun. What’s not so well known is that IS is financing its activities through the illegal sale of such items and that Roman, Greek, Byzantine and of course Islamic items are on open sale in London. Those buying such items are actually helping fund the fighters who are destroying such sites as Nimrod, in part to remove portable artefacts and sell them illegally.

There is little that can be done about heritage site looting, as Neil Brodie from the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research at Glasgow University points out – because currently there is no international strategy to tackle the problem.

However, the looting – or simple theft – of privately owned objects can be addressed and just as in the case of the Third Reich, which plundered many Jewish art collections, private investigators like us have already begun the process of tracking down priceless family carpets, vases and ceramic items in the hope that accurate identification will mean the pieces can be returned to their owners and – with any luck – the looters, or at least the middlemen who buy from them, will be brought to justice.

It’s definitely not ‘all in a day’s work’ but with our range of international contacts and our on-the-ground knowledge, our London office is well placed to help those who have fled Syria and Iraq to keep a watching brief on specific items they have lost or know were stolen from them. We may not be Indiana Jones, but we know how to help our clients regain what is rightfully theirs!

Private Detectives and Debtor Tracking

March 18, 2015 by pdldevv2

The City of London is known for many things – the Inns of Court, the London Stock Exchange, the Lord Mayor’s Parade.

It’s also known as a hub of finance and that’s a large area of investigation for Private Detective London. Whether we’re talking about the massive fraud conducted by financial institutions or chasing down a debtor who has skipped out on paying the rent, finance is generally one of the key reasons for us to be asked for tracing services.

Oddly enough, when finance is involved, many of our clients seem to feel a kind of shame or embarrassment when they first approach us to discuss how we can help them with trace a missing person. There’s a good reason for this. Most financial fraudsters operate by becoming very close to their victims – a Ponzi scheme depends on the scammer becoming a friend, so that formal evidence of accounting just doesn’t feature in the relationship – so they don’t just steal money, they trade on the basic decency of the people they dupe.

As a private detective London has shown me that there tend to be patterns to many of these schemes. While we work hard to track down fraudsters and bring them to justice, the truth is that the shame our clients feel does go away, when they have the satisfaction of bringing the fraudster to book, and we’re always delighted when we can help put a financial scammer out of business.

So our advice is to watch out for:

Private company letterheads … anybody can create a good logo
Delays in getting your money out of an investment
Vague descriptions of where the money is being invested such as ‘stocks and shares’ or ‘currency trading’.

If you are in any doubt, protect yourself by:

Asking to visit the offices where the company is based – a legitimate organisation will have some centre of operations you can examine, no matter how modest
Demanding the business phone number and calling it without warning – if your ‘top notch’ financial adviser answers the phone rather than a receptionist or secretary, be worried!
Checking people out with reputable trade bodies.

The other kind of financial fraud is much lower key and involves people who don’t pay a couple of months rent then do a moonlight flit, or those who buy something in instalments and don’t finish paying for the goods they’ve had. While this can be a much smaller sum of money, it can still be significant to the person who’s lost out – even more, they can feel a sense of injustice that their good nature has been traded on.

In such circumstances investigation services can help. Working out of a hub in the capital city, we can trace individuals and provide evidence across the UK and abroad. This helps our clients in two ways – first they often get their money back, and second their sense of justice and self esteem is restored because they didn’t allow a petty criminal to get away with it.