Detective Diaries - Podcast 'France Investigation'

TRANSCRIPT

France Investigation

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Welcome to Detective Diaries brought to you by Private Detective Answers investigation.

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If you are captivated by the art of deduction, the thrill of something insolvable or the

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enigmatic word of private investigation, you have just found your new favourite podcast.

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Detective Diaries are where secrets are unraveled and the truth is always a clue away.

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Presented by private detective answers investigation each episode contains of bit conversations about

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the real people involved in investigation.

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Enjoy.

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I'm working in Nice this week, South coast of France.

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Not an unfamiliar territory, we do a lot of work in France, various places around.

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I'll get into a few stories later on because I can't actually talk about what I'm doing

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here at the moment, confidentiality of course.

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But there can be a number of reasons.

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Process serving is very common, servicing of documents, applied for in UK courts, finding

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people, tracking them down in France and serving them, whether it be at a property or a business,

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tracing people, finding adopted parents, finding adopted children who again have gone abroad

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and then you get into the other exercises, surveillance, working out corporate entities

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which perhaps have moved away from the UK base into other countries.

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Now there's all may sound romantic but obviously there's quite a lot involved with these

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kind of operations.

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You've got the travel, you've got the equipment, you've got the gear and then you've got

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living with my colleague in an Airbnb for a few days, that can be a little bit troublesome.

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Thanks for that, well I may cause the chaos and as we both know as we have worked together

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for years, it's generally you who clears it up.

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But in my own defence it is me who always goes out and plans it, works it out, works

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up logistics, gets us here and makes the whole job work.

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I don't think in a single time that we have ever worked aboard, we have not succeeded

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in what we're doing.

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It's true, it may seem in the movies quite a slick operation when people go abroad but actually

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there's quite a lot of planning and I know sometimes a lot of stress that goes into planning

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these sorts of operations.

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But yeah quite hopefully today we're going to talk about quite a few things that we've

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done, certainly a few exercises, different cases, some routine and some not so routine.

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So let's share some stories.

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Oh yeah I mean I do remember that you talk about things being planned and going wrong, I'm

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in Hell i can remember sitting on the plane to an airline that I wouldn't mention it

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starts with W for five hours on a tarmac, desperately wanting to be out in Bucharest, I know

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it's not France, yeah we did get there.

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And yes we sorted out even though thank you airline starting with W that we weren't

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mentioned that really really put the Kibosh, nearly put the Kibosh and the whole damn thing.

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Now now don't get sidetracked we're talking about France, come on I know you've done plenty

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of work here.

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Tell us a bit.

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I really can't count the number of times, 20, 25, Paris, Nice, little town on the west coast

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of France which I'm not supposed to talk about all over the place, Seoul, St.

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I love France, I really do, I love being here, I love working here like the chances that get

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free time.

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I mean you know today a little bit of time because it's Saturday and big shout out to my

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old friends down here on the sand who live here and we manage to meet up and have fantastic

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afternoon and that's the things that uplift some of the hard work that we end up putting

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in.

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And let's face it, you get up at what time was it on thursday.

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I think I've got up at four and he turned up in my right place about five, get the airport

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to get out, get through the airport, get the tram, get settled and think, oh great, fine

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we're going to get a work now.

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Yeah, I mean that's the average first working day abroad.

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Yeah, it's basic time and time again.

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But anyway, sorry you wanted to talk about France, what do you want to talk about?

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Well I think the starting point would actually look at the kind of routine aspects.

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I mean as I say before we talked about tracing, we've done some episodes on things like surveillance

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but what an interesting story I think is the whole adoption aspect.

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Now a lot of people obviously are based in the UK but when they're adopted or trying to

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find family members who they haven't met or known for decades and decades they've got

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abroad and we've got to track them down and sometimes that brings us to very common cities,

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Paris and so forth but sometimes it's the unheard of locations.

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So we're working in nice at the moment but there's certainly been some west coasts and

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south coasts of France where we've been to and some unheard of towns and cities tracking

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these people down.

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Yeah, well I know what you mean as people who ever do listen to us know how to do a lot

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of these traces of work and so often that trail will start in the UK, the crimes got

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no real idea where somebody is especially if there's a biological mother and that might

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go back 30, 40, 50 years even and then the trail goes dry because you get up to

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a point either a year, 2002, 2010 and all traces of them is disappeared, you don't know the

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current address, do a bit more research and just perhaps get a whiff that they have gone

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somewhere abroad.

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Very often the next country along the line just of course the channel which happens to

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be france, often the place that people go out to retire or the work here as expats.

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Next question is where are they?

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Again data research tracing and found, getting an address which can't absolutely be certain

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of them so the only way to go and firm it up is to physically be there.

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And I think that the physically be there is important here because unlike the UK you can

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go in doorstep, you can have your resources but there's a whole new language that we're

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dealing with here, right?

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You're going to doorstep or you're potentially going to registry offices where I know you

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speak very good French, my French is pretty awful.

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I would find it very difficult to interact with these people and get the information

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that's needed.

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Oh yeah, I mean I'm not fluent but it's the same as if you go anywhere and you immerse

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yourself and then suddenly one stops trying to translate in your head and then you'll

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linguistically tell you this, you stop translating your head and then you actually start

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talking.

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And somehow the responses come, the questions come in the same way as if you're talking

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your own natural first language.

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It can be really, really quite difficult or maybe you doorstep in or you don't know.

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Exactly where somebody lives.

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A lot of French localities are small and whereas you might know that they live in X, small

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commune somewhere, you don't know exactly where the addressed is so the only way they're

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going to find them is go bang, bang, bang, sorry, not knocking on words, there we go.

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Wait until somebody answers the door and say do you know this person, you know, where they

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are?

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That's led us so often to that exact house and given us a chance to talk to somebody which

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of course is next step because it's all got to be done incredibly discreetly because you

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might be dropping some phenomenal news on somebody that is from their old and past life,

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especially if perhaps it's a child who is adopted.

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Because that is going to be the most new piece of information that again, you know, decades

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and decades of not knowing the situation, not knowing that they did have a child back home

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in the UK.

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And so you're so right, I think a lot of the times it's breaking down those initial barriers

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of language and nuances, mannerisms and so forth, but then getting to the crux of

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information.

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I mean, I remember a particular time when we went to a registry office and again this was

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sort of south coast of France.

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West coast?

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Yeah, yeah, West coast, sorry.

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And we were trying to get into this particular registry office to obtain information about

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property because of course the person had moved away.

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And so getting that specific bit of information took its time, but we got there eventually

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with a bit of translation, bit of writing down, I think as well.

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Well, yeah, it's up to the working because the first response was the absolute slam door

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of GDPR.

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I can't tell you is more on the job is worth, etc, etc.

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Get talking to somebody, get somebody on the other side and maybe they will hopefully

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steer you in the right direction.

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Not a legal, it's just conversation and getting information from somebody who probably

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if you can get them on side, we want to help you because they can see the real reason for

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doing something that it's a good purpose.

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And that's the thing that I've felt the life is that people don't want to help.

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Absolutely.

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And they might not initially understand, but once you explain it to them and provide the

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reasons, and of course we provide the authority as well.

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We have the evidence from the clients stating all reasons and what we're doing.

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We get it across to them.

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And nine times out of 10, it is a case of, yeah, brilliant.

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We find this person, we go and have that conversation, bring them the good news, mediate, make sure

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that obviously all parties are happy and then bring these two people together who again,

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have not seen each other in years and years.

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Yeah, but hey, right, okay, can I just tell you about before you start recording and you

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said to me, don't keep interrupting me when I'm speaking and also stop digressing.

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What we've actually mentioned is digress completely.

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Okay, yeah, right, I work in France, an awful lot.

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And it is things that probably are too interesting to a lot of listeners, you know, with these

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finding somebody, this tracing, this adoption, we can talk about that maybe a little bit later.

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Or that dying use of serving them with legal papers, which is never going to be good news.

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But you've got involved in some fantastic cases in France.

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Why don't you talk?

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Sure.

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So a case comes to mind, which brought us to a coastal town in France.

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We had to track down an individual who actually come from the Caribbean to France.

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It was all about historical sexual abuse claims that a family had brought against this individual.

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They were involved with the family many years ago.

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Now, we thought it was history, but of course these things do resurface.

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So we've backtracked all of the data, obtained all of the interviews and we had to go and

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find this individual.

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So as I say, it brought us to this coastal town, obviously with these types of areas.

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There's not many people around.

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So you have to be a bit careful how you operate.

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Obviously, if you are seen to be a regular, then again, you might find your identity to

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be questioned, but of course you have to be discreet.

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And so we operated in the town.

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We were finding the individual bit of surveillance, bit of vehicle tracking and eventually managed

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to find out where she was.

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I remember that because the first time really when he came out here, it was just adina

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and she's got loads of experience, but she has a wonderful advantage in that she's very

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young looking, which became quite salient because the individual concerned that we were looking

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at, actually worked in the school, which is not great, given what Harry just slipped out

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about a few minutes ago.

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And it was quite easy for adina to actually just be at school gate.

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she didn't look out of place and wonderfully ingratiated herself, especially the fact that

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she has a non-English accent, which helps in the whole thing.

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Having tracked her, having kept her and her firm double exactly where she lived, that

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whole recolossensive of a few days really set the scene for what we were able to do subsequently.

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I should also add at this point as well, as I say, it sounds simple.

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We track her, we find her, we go to the exact location.

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With a unique surname in this instance, there are other family members to consider.

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We have to make sure that we're finding the correct individual.

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Ah, so I remember we're not too as San Jose, we trapped that individual down john Bechewen

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and I were talking to him on his flat door and yeah.

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Yeah, we've done some residential knocking, as I say, it was making sure that we had the

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right individual because of course, yes, you can get commonality.

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We've been over the fact that you get the John Smiths when you're looking at French

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names or sometimes, from the Caribbean side, you can get similarities.

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We need to make sure that they refine the right person, but also be their relatives with family

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members if it's loads and loads of dead ends that have to be explored to eliminate them.

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Exactly, it is that process of elimination, isn't it?

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Once we get to the end, obviously we find the individual and now it's understanding routine.

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One might think if you are going to look at an historical abuse claim that you're simply

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just going to land everything on the doorstep, no, it's not as simple as that.

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You need to understand someone.

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You need to understand their routines, how they act, what they're doing, whether or not

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the behaviour is being represented now.

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Of course, as we just explored this person was working in a school and given those claims

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that obviously raised quite a few eyebrows at the time.

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This isn't simply obtained in one trip.

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It's probably about two or three before we had the entirety, well, at least most of what

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we needed to go back, formulate those case points, take down the witness statements from

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the victims, obtain all of the substantive information so that again, it can be translated

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into French, which is obviously an important aspect here.

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Once we've obtained all of these details, the time was to go back and visit her.

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Of course, this is where the trouble came because a client took a little bit of time to decide

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on the final manoeuvre by this point, the subjects have moved.

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Oh, yeah, yeah, it took half a day to work out there, the house was empty.

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Yeah.

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And then tracking it down again was not the easiest thing.

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But I think, hang on, if I remember it's rightly, we'd had track of a vehicle and it's

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not a big place in where we were spotting and seeing a vehicle would happen to drive past

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it when we would just have a look around and try and get a feel of the whole thing, stuck

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on the vehicle and the vehicle led her to where she was living.

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I'm like, yeah, if I remember that, right?

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Yeah, exactly because the data, because of the move was recent, the data would have available.

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We had to go and physically look at this and all we had at that point in time was we know

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she looks like we had the old dress, but we had the car.

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So we had a good moot around, we found the vehicle and that tracked us down to the property

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once we observed the surrounding area.

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I should stress here, we're not talking about days, weeks, months.

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This is years' worth of case evidence, all culminating in the objective of talking to the

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subjects.

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I'm not sure if the witness statements and claims made against them.

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Now, that's a bit of a tricky thing, isn't it, when you've got to go and land all this

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on someone's doorstep?

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No, certainly, yeah.

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I mean, though the was trying to persecute her, I think the main objective or the initial

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objective was to see what her reaction was, which she was presented with the evidence,

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largely in the form of those witness statements from the alleged, and I have to stress the

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word alleged victims of what had happened 20 years before him.

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We tried to find her when she was out of the house, you know, she sort of routinue visits

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into work, which we did want them into being on because there was a duty of care to an individual.

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You know, her other habitual, well, it's a good word, isn't it?

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Habitual habits were to visit a local tobacco and to buy lottery tickets in a local bar

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and cafe.

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But unfortunately, those opportunities didn't present itself.

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So at the end of the day, myself, with a female colleague, which we thought would take

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the edge of things, simply got into a apartment block and knocked at a door.

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What happened then?

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She slammed the door.

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Right.

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Literally, she slammed the door.

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I can't say this positively.

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She knew.

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She probably knew for years that it was coming.

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It was almost waiting in the back line thinking, have I got away with this because it's so

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long ago?

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And now it all comes to a head on the doorstep.

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And do you know what, so often wonder how many years these things sit or substance sit at the back

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of people's minds?

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You know, I know when we track down some of these biological mother, I know this is moving

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subjects, so many times we reaction, which is nine times that 10 completely favourable,

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but is that the action of one day I knew this day would come?

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And where do you have a perpetrator, I am sure the same happens.

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One day, this day is going to come.

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Yes, and there's no avoiding it.

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You know, we eventually find them, we will get to them.

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How would you say this differs then?

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Because of course, you've done a lot of work like this in the UK to being on foreign

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soil in an unnatural environment.

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That's a good question.

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Of course, it's different being somewhere else, being not in the UK, which is where I was

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born and where I'm familiar.

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But then again, I know France, I know Spain, I know Italy, I know Morocco, and I've got an

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idea of how to feel immersed in the whole environment.

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Where something is happening, literally not necessarily the sort of subject, but others,

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but where something is happening in other parts of the world, massive thing that helps

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is our makeup of people.

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You know, we've got a team, she speaks Romanian, she speaks Italian, she speaks English, we've

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got Spanish speaker, we've got Daria joining us, shortly who speaks fluent Russian.

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Having people around who've got access to that familiarity can really make things an awful

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lot easier.

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I would say this is what makes us differ from the norm.

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We have these people who can blend into different environments, multiple languages, you

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know, making sure that people have the familiarity when actually they're dealing with something

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which may be unfamiliar to them.

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This even applies to other aspects of our work.

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We take a lot of fingerprints abroad, particularly in France for corporations and individuals

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alike and having that familiarity of someone who can speak your language when taking fingerprints

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is quite crucial because they've got to understand the process, how it works.

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And so for businesses and as I say individuals alike, a lot of the times it's making sure

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that their needs are met.

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We're flying directly to them, attending their offices, conducting the prints there and

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then.

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They don't have to go to a police station, they don't have to fly into the UK, we come straight

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to them.

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So where's that taken you in France?

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This compact of France was supposed to be talking about France, not the rest of Europe.

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Very true.

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So where's it taking us?

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Paris, to lose, monaco, nice where we are today in fact.

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So this is for gaming companies who need licenses in the USA, for banking corporations.

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I've got that right.

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Okay.

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And why else just even somebody who needs to get a USA police clearance or Canadian police

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clearance or whatever it is?

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Exactly.

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While the needs may vary, as I say, a lot of corporations, whether it be gambling licenses,

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liquor licenses, wealth management companies for their applications when people are obviously

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working with the United States.

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And then the private clients, a lot of the times is police clearances, United States, South

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Africa, Thailand, Singapore, all the countries that they've visited, worked in and lived for

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some significant amount of time.

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And a lot of these countries, as I say, were obviously talking about France here, but it

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does apply elsewhere.

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There is no provision to do this.

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There isn't really much of a provision in the UK either, but you'll find that these clients

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are simply stuck where they are.

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They obviously can't travel.

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Sometimes they may have relatives who are a bit older.

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I do remember a particular private client where one of their family members required a clearance

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and they were too old to travel.

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So we of course went directly to them.

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But that's all well and interesting.

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I think it deserves another episode talking about the process serving and the fingerprinting,

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as we say in France and other European countries.

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But, Colin, I know you've got plenty more dramatic stories.

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How about the last one before we go?

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Oh what paris.

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Yeah, no, not great.

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supplier client of ours supplied loads of goods to a company in Paris that all seem very

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pucker and proper at the outset.

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But of course they never actually got paid.

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Got us involved to go and find out what was going on.

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I mean, we watched it for two, three days and that was quite enlightening.

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It was if anybody thinks of Paris as romantic, try getting into some areas of it that I

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wouldn't mention. It's not a pleasant environment, not pleasant way to spend a few days.

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It was only about the second day that we realised because we don't think they were there

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on the first.

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They're probably the cartel at the road was local security in National.

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Who also seemed to be observing what was going on and we realised that we had probably

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just dropped into the middle of a police investigation, not surprising because the movements

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that we'd seen were very suggested of something that was symptomatic to the movement.

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Certain substances which are sure are not deemed illegal in most countries.

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Having walked into a police operation unwittingly, of course we backed out the whole thing, did

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contact them, spoke to them, told them what we knew, what we were about and promised that

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we would back off and go away.

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Good part of it, while our client did not get their money paid for them, they did get

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their goods back, which at least was some compensation and then they did not have a total and utter

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loss. Trust me, being in that situation is not something which I really want to go through

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everyday of the week.

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It's been of a demonstration though, I would say, in the sense that we get the case and

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then once exploring the details of it, it opens up into something massive and quite large

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and as you say, you've got to get the authorities involved when it gets to that stage.

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They were very good, they were quite me cooperative and they were actually quite grateful.

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But they did keep saying, please can you not be involved in this?

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It was just saying, yeah, that's absolutely fine by us.

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It's your back.

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We go and do it.

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Leave it to them.

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Well, I think that's kind of all we've got time for at the moment.

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I want to talk about serving legal papers in Paris.

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I want to talk about serving legal papers in several parts of France.

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I want to talk about finding people's mothers in songs, in songs and all the other plays

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in Corsica.

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But we're out of time, is it?

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We're going to have to save it for another episode, my friend, unfortunately.

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Well its your fault you're talking about?

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What me?

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You talked too much.

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Oh, stuff that.

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I want to go and call some chaos.

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Do you want to sign this off, Harry?

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Well, looks like I'm on clean up duty.

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Well, come back and explore our second episode on French Investigations.

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We'll talk a little bit more about the process serving, fingerprinting and more cases that

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we've handled in France.

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Get involved.

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00:23:23,320 --> 00:23:27,240

Detective Diaries is interactive, which involves you, the listener.

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Do you have a case you'd like discussed?

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00:23:29,800 --> 00:23:32,760

A burning question about investigative life?

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00:23:32,760 --> 00:23:36,920

Send an email to podcast@private-detectives.co.uk

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00:23:36,920 --> 00:23:39,120

or reach out via social media.

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You may hear your story featured in an upcoming episode.

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00:23:42,720 --> 00:23:45,120

Don't forget to leave your contact details.

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00:23:45,120 --> 00:23:48,160

The email address is in the show notes.

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Hi, I'm Professor Emma Short, Cyber Psychologist at London Metropolitan University.

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So come and listen to me talk on Detective Diaries.

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00:23:58,600 --> 00:24:04,120

We had an incredible hour talking about the online environment, how it may enable crime,

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00:24:04,120 --> 00:24:07,960

and watching crosses the line and perhaps become snooping.

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And also what happens when the crowd takes control of an investigation.

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00:24:17,760 --> 00:24:23,800

We hope you enjoyed today's podcast brought to you by Answers Investigation and UK fingerprint.

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00:24:23,800 --> 00:24:27,280

If you've enjoyed our conversation and want to learn more about the fascinating world

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00:24:27,280 --> 00:24:32,920

of investigations, be sure to check out Private Detective's Answers Investigation.

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00:24:32,920 --> 00:24:37,760

Our Experienced team offers a wide range of discrete and professional services, helping

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00:24:37,760 --> 00:24:41,880

you find the answers you need with integrity and expertise.

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00:24:41,880 --> 00:24:46,680

If you're interested in fingerprint analysis or require specialist fingerprint services,

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don't miss UK fingerprint.

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As one of the leading fingerprint companies in the UK, they provide everything from identification,

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00:24:54,000 --> 00:24:59,600

to background checks, working with individuals, businesses, financial institutions and gambling

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00:24:59,600 --> 00:25:01,240

companies.

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00:25:01,240 --> 00:25:14,000

To find out more, visit www.private-detectives.co.uk, that's a minus sign, and www.ukfingerprint.co.uk.

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00:25:14,000 --> 00:25:19,400

These are your go-to resources for investigative solutions and fingerprint expertise.

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00:25:19,400 --> 00:25:25,520

You can call their office on 02-0-715-8-0332.

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00:25:25,520 --> 00:25:27,800

Thanks once again for tuning in.

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Until next time, stay curious and keep seeking the truth.

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[MUSIC]

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[BLANK_AUDIO]

Podcast

'Investigation in France'

TRANSCRIPT

France Investigation

"searching the world for answers"