A private investigator also called as a private detective,
inquiry agent or a private eye, is a person responsible for investigatory law
services. To put it in simple words, a PI is basically a person who is hired by
groups or individuals to take on investigatory activities. For example, these
professionals work for attorneys to assist them in civil cases and with defense
personnel’s on criminal defense cases. Additionally, they work for the
insurance companies for investigating any fraud and doubtful claims.
An investor who is looking forward to investing some money
with a fund manager, an investment group or any other high-risk investment
venture or business can also hire the services of a licensed and experienced private investigator to determine the trustworthiness of the latter. This activity is
also called as investigative due diligence. This could save the potential
investor from being a victim of a Ponzi or fraud scheme, since the PI will
bring to light that the investor is risky and contains some red flags in past.
Before the introduction of no-fault divorce, multitudes of
investigators were hired to search for adulterated evidences within a marriage
that were used for establishing grounds for a divorce. But despite of the
decline in demand for such evidences, the task still remains one of the most
rewarding activities for the private eyes because the stakes being fought over now
include high earning factors like alimony, child custody and marital property.
A PI is also required to perform activities that have no
relation with the investigation industry. For example, a PI may be involved in
process serving and personal delivery of subpoenas, summons and other legal
documents to the intended party/parties. Tracing the absconded debtors also
forms a major part of the PIs work load and there are many PI agencies that
deal only in tracing.
Furthermore, there are many investigative agencies that
specialize in a particular field such as electronic counter measures (ECM),
also called as technical surveillance counter measures (TSCM). PIs from this
field are mainly liable for locating and dealing with unnecessary forms of
electronic surveillance, for instance, a bugged meeting room for industrial
spying purposes. There are specially trained private eyes for corporate
investigations and these professionals are known as corporate investigators.
These PIs specialize in tracing corporate frauds including due diligence
investigations, copyright infringement, and computer forensics work, to name a
few. In some cases, the PIs also act as professional witnesses for reporting
any actions, events and lack of them to a court and also gather evidences in
case of anti-social behaviours.
For becoming a PI you are required to attend a law enforcement
academy and attain the necessary education in criminal justice or
administration of criminal justice. After graduating from the academy, you need
to undergo on the job training with a field training officer for a certain
period of time, as specified by the law enforcement academy and also continue
with the work while on a probation period, usually for 1 or 2 years. Once you
are done with this, you need to appear for a competitive exam where your
skills, abilities and knowledge regarding the various investigative, criminal
and court procedures will be evaluated. Based on the results, some or all of
the officers are then promoted to the rank of a detective.
