Background checking

What a Background Search can Reveal

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.