The PROFILE search is what we call our deep background search. We do lots of research on people, and we have become very aware of the fact that there are times when a cookie cutter approach won’t be enough. We call it a profile search, but in its essence, this search is a collaboration between you and your investigative team.
A typical profile search starts with an in person meeting in our offices, usually with our company’s most senior investigators, Owner Paul Dryman, and Investigations Manager Paul LeGrand. You can come into the office, or, if you prefer, a teleconference with us. This initial meeting is a chance for us to get to know you and for you to get to know us..It’s an opportunity for us to understand the true purpose of your investigations, and propose a plan of action.
Once we clearly understand your needs, we’ll come up with a plan of action, quote you an all-inclusive price to do the job, and let you know how much time is needed to complete the assignment. The profile search is a powerful tool that produces powerful results.
A client who became wary of an investment “opportunity” she went in on, came to us to find the truth about the individual she was doing business with after putting $100,000+ into a questionable real estate deal. After cutting through layers of murky details, we determined the real identity of her investment partner, as well as allegations he was an associate of a specific crime boss, and had laundered millions in drug profits. He had been arrested together with that particular crime boss on the same day 25 years ago, and had gone to federal prison 9 years ago. Now off supervised release and beyond easy reach of the feds, he was an experienced swindler walking the razor’s edge between legitimate high risk investments and outright fraud.
Knowing the whole deal was a scam, we suggested the client approach the swindler using a pretext that he should give her a third of her investment back so she could close a real estate deal, which in turn would enable her to make a much larger investment. The pretext worked, and the client got a decent chunk of her money back. Not exactly successful investing, but the information we developed immediately reduced a potential $100,000 loss into a potential $70,000 loss, and put her in a strong position to get the deal closed out cleanly. That's a pretty good ROI.
Next time she's planning to come to us BEFORE investing.
Example #1
Profile Search of an Investment Partner /The Real Estate Swindle
Example #2
Profile Search of an Individual Making Death Threats
A client came to us after his receptionist had received 18 nuisance calls and a death threat from a male caller in his apparent 40’s or 50’s. The threat was unequivocal, immediate, and specific enough to cause a reasonable person to be in fear of his life. The harassing caller erroneously believed our client was responsible for collection calls he was getting. Since our client’s PBX system had logged the incoming call number, we were able to trace the physical address and the subscriber name associated with the phone the caller made the threat from. The calls originated from a landline telephone in a single family residence. Utility and property records for this address both came back to a 49 year old male. After identifying the name, address & date of birth or our subject, we were able to determine his position and employer, some possible relatives, two email addresses, and several social networking profiles.
How serious & credible was his threat? In this case, the subject turned out to be a married Director of Operations at a supply company. Ironically, we found him using social media to vent his frustrations about electronic privacy, but what was important was what we didn’t find in our research. The subject had no criminal court filings, no family court filings, no arrest logs, no bankruptcies, liens or judgments, no national security watch lists, and no inmate records. In the world of threat management, there is no such thing as a casual threat.
In the world of threat assessment, we see “hunter” behavior, and “howler” behavior. An individual’s past behavior is one of the best pre-incident indicators to use when assessing threat potential. While the client still was advised to maintain certain safety procedures, this individual clearly fell into the “howler” category, and was found to have no prior history of violence. Though "howlers" sometimes do become "hunters," this individual exhibited no "hunter" behavior, lived far away, and had no apparent ties to Southern California where our client’s home and office were located.
