Private Investigation

Surveillance

When you are at the point of thinking you might want a private investigator, surveillance promptly rings a bell. But if “private investigation” only makes you think of surveillance, you’ve got only a partial picture of what modern investigation is all about. It’s more helpful to think of us as being in the data business. All kinds of data

So yes, surveillance is still an important method, well many methods, actually, we use to gather the information you need. The specifics of your situation always determine which of the many surveillance techniques we will use. That is, two things decide the strategy and tactics we will follow in your case: 

First, there is the question of your data needs. Simply put, you help us identify exactly what information you need to resolve the situation that brings you to us. 

Second, there is the matter of risk. We will first ask if our efforts to gather data for you need to remain unknown to other parties. Sometimes it’s essential that we not reveal our clients’ effort to obtain the information they seek. Sometimes it does not matter. In still other cases, it may be helpful that it become known you have hired a private investigator

Whatever the case may be, you can rest assured that you will receive from us only the most reliable data. And you will know we collected that data in a way that best serves your interests.

For Lawyers and Law Firms

Our investigative services are frequently in demand by officers of the court. We offer data gathering and analysis in support of both prosecutors and defense lawyers.  This work can often be quite exacting. That’s because when working with a court system, you have to pay attention to the rules of evidence. These are the guidelines judges use at trial. They decide whether to admit to trial a piece of evidence, say a recorded phone conversation. 

If a judge decides the investigation that uncovered the evidence violated rules of evidence, he or she won’t admit it. Sometimes, a judge excludes the most important pieces of evidence in a case.  So support for legal investigations often demands a more complex approach. We must follow those rules so that the evidence we wish to provide will actually find its way into trial. 

Despite its complexity, this is a growing area for detective agencies generally. We have the experience you and the Courts need. We have a particular expertise in digital forensics, an ever more common area of legal action.

Unsolved Crime and Cold Cases

Nothing can hang on in our lives with more harmful force than an unsolved crime. This is especially true if the crime has taken from us a loved one. But unfortunately it often happens that a case goes “cold.” This happens for a couple of reasons. First, the case may drag on for a long time. When a homicide case remains unsolved for at least a year, it’s likely that law enforcement will label it “cold.” Second, the original homicide squad may be unable to continue working the case. This may be because of a lack of time, a too heavy workload, and / or a lack of viable leads. 

When these factors come together, law enforcement determines the case to be “Cold.” When it does so, the chances of closing the case fall dramatically.

There is Hope

You probably know that Cold Case investigations are increasingly common. You may not know that key factors that help solve cold cases play in our favor, over traditional law enforcement. One critical factor is how responsive an investigator is to family pressure. That is, police detectives rarely speak to families during the course of an investigation. Thus they don’t always have a clear sense of how important the case is to those personally affected by it. 

Well you’re our client. We know what this means to you. We know because we meet far more often during the investigation than is the case with law enforcement. 

Another known factor associated with success in cold case investigation relates to the actions of the investigators themselves. For example, much depends on an investigator being able, or even willing, to formulate a new theory of the crime. Often a case goes cold because what the police believe to be the motives for the crime is incorrect. Operating on a wrong theory of the crime means wasted time searching for clues and suspects in the wrong places. Unfortunately, detectives are usually quite resistant to questioning, much less changing, their own theory of the crime. 

So why hire a professional detective agency for your Cold Case investigation? 

  1. You employ detectives with greater drive, 
  2. The investigation may face potentially fewer resource constraints, 
  3. We bring a fresh new way of thinking about the crime. 

The bottom line is that you can hope for the peace of mind resolution of the cold case would bring.

Private Security

Do you need the services of a private security team? Not sure? It’s hard to know exactly isn’t it? That uncertainty is why you should leave the first through the last steps of private security to professionals like us. Uncertainty is unavoidable. But you may not appreciate just how much uncertainty there is. This is because uncertainty results from three very different sources:

  1. What you know, or at least, think you know, 
  2. What you don’t know
  3. But most importantly, what you don’t know that you don’t know

Those “unknown unknowns” are the most likely to lead to a poor understanding of the actual security situation you face.  The first step? It’s called “risk assessment.” This is the effort to identify the chances that something unwanted will or could happen.  It’s a simple idea. In reality, it’s a complex process of data analysis. The purpose is to measure the chances of you facing a physical security threat, and the scale of that threat.  In short, how likely are you to confront a security threat? And how serious of a threat might you, or someone in your family, likely face?  

With all the emotions involved, you should not try to tackle risk assessment on your own. And you don’t have to. Let the professionals at Mike Investigations take on that responsibility. You may only need something as limited as an escorted court appearance. Or, you may need something as big as a full time multi-agent protective force. Whatever your needs are, let us empower you to take care of the real responsibility you have. That’s keeping yourself, and your loved ones, out of harm’s way.

Fraud Prevention and Identity Management

As a business man or woman, how can you really know who you’re dealing with, or about to deal with? Is it a trusted customer? Or is it a dangerous and clever fraudster? In truth, knowing for sure which is which is often quite hard.  

To make matters worse, you face a difficult dilemma, actually. One the one hand, you cannot afford to let a fraudster slip into the ranks of your customers. The damage they can do is sometimes fatal to a business. On the other hand, you cannot allow your anti-fraud, identity management practices become overly bothersome. When that happens, they negatively impact the user experience for those who are your actual trusted customers. It’s a dilemma, for sure. The former threatens to ruin your business from potentially massive losses to fraud. But the latter also threatens to ruin, or greatly harm, your business by driving away existing customers to the competition. 

Let us help you crack this difficult nut.  We’ll help you avoid costly financial fraud investigation, by minimizing the risk of being victimized in the first place.

Preventing Fraud while Keeping Customers Happy

The key is to maintain balance. You need effective anti-fraud techniques and practices, alongside an emphasis on maintaining a positive customer experience. If you get this wrong, you run the risk of harm to your business. But how do you find that right balance? Hiring professionals like us is the first step. 

What you need, we offer. You need a complete, near real-time, capacity for risk-of-fraud assessment. This allows you to weed out fraudsters from your trusted customers. You want to prevent loss from fraud, rather than trying to fix the damage already caused by fraudsters. But one must do this in a way that preserves the customers’ quality of experience. 

To help you protect your business, we have established partnerships with leading data management firms. This gives us access to more than 80 billion data records. Analysts gather this data from more than 150 million business transactions at some 30,000+ websites every day. We add to this an Artificial Intelligence capacity and the automation of technology. The result? A 360°, near real-time, view of the threat landscape you must confront. It is an approach that maintains customer satisfaction while safeguarding your business from fraud.

Criminal Background Check

Checking the credentials and obtaining background histories of potential employees has always been an essential part of due-diligence in business.That’s often the lion’s share of the work Human Resources departments do. 

But in a global economy, our customers and our employees are increasingly likely to be nationals of a foreign country. This greatly complicates obtaining a full “3-D” image of your prospective partner or employee. Consult with us about our unique, multi-methods approach to background checks that are always tailored to your specific needs. What you will get in return is the whole story of the person you are considering employing or partnering with.

FAQ

Modern private investigation goes beyond just surveillance. It focuses on data gathering and analysis across various sources to provide comprehensive insights.

Surveillance methods are chosen based on the specific needs of each case and the desired data outcome. The situation and information needed guide the strategy.

The need for secrecy in data gathering depends on the case’s requirements. Sometimes client anonymity is maintained, while in other instances, revealing the investigator’s role can be beneficial.

Private investigators offer data analysis and gathering services that adhere to the rules of evidence. This ensures that the evidence collected can be admitted in court trials.

Private investigators often have more interaction with families and are more responsive to their needs. They also have the flexibility to create new theories and approaches to solve cases.