PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR
Private Investigator and Detective Agency - Salgado Investigations offering commercial, corporate and private investigation services (infidelity - cheating husband and wife) specialising in surveillance, fraud investigation, process server, computer forensics and other private detective services worlwide
Our private investigators are fully trained, discreet and follow regular refresher courses on changes to legislation and investigative practices. Your professional private investigator will also use the most up to date surveillance techniques to help reduce consumer fraud, prevent losses and tracing people.
All of our private investigators are professionally trained having come from a military, police or commercial investigative background.
Our private investigators use only the latest techniques and tools and have access to sophisticated equipment including surveillance and observation vans, motorbikes and cars.
Our observation vans are equipped with the latest zoom, pan, tilt CCTV and photographic equipment.
We are one of the few private investigator agencies that have access to both male and female private investigators from a variety of ethnic backgrounds.
What is a Private Investigator?
Private Investigators have been around since time immemorial, whenever someone has needed to find someone, or to watch someone, a private investigator has been used. A private investigator is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigations. MORE?
Should we keep tabs on our staff?
August 25th, 2008
A culture of zero tolerance towards staff theft is sweeping its way through the country’s leading retail firms. Action to stamp out stock theft, theft from tills and growing levels of refund fraud is being taken by leading retailers.
Retailers are losing billions every year through theft, according to figures from the British Retail Consortium and about a third of this sum is attributed to dishonest staff.
As a result, retail companies are turning their attentions to internal problems, says Salgado Investigations’ senior corporate investigator Jorge Salgado-Reyes. A starting point is for companies to improve their vetting procedures during recruitment” he says. “The reality is that every major retailer has internal theft problems”.
New opportunities for staff to commit internal theft have emerged, thanks to the nature of modern retailing. For example, credit card technology gives internal scammers the ability to perform a refund transaction on their own or a friends credit card in‐store and later share the spoils. There is no physical movement of product or cash. And dishonest staff who, according to research, tend to be part‐time workers or those employed with a company for less than 12 months are ‐ searching out new ways of helping themselves. “I have investigated staff who have clocked up loyalty points on their own loyalty cards, when processing a customer’s purchases,” says Jorge Salgado-Reyes.
Retail fraud investigation specialist Jorge Salgado-Reyes says retailers must understand where such problems take place in their store.
“Technological solutions that link CCTV with EPOS or enable data mining of EPOS information to alert managers to till fraud are more common. For example, if a member of staff is carrying out an unusual number of refunds, but the CCTV shows no product being passed back, you can take action.
Similarly, clocking up fewer scans per minute than the average, managers are alerted to watch out for items being passed out for free. You might then use CCTV to investigate further.”
Jorge Salgado-Reyes urges retailers to take a holistic approach to investigations, looking beyond traditional shrinkage, because it often unearths wider operational problems that, when rectified, can save the company significant sums. “Profits may be down, but shrinkage is a constant, so losses take a larger percentage off the bottom line,” he says.
“Implanting a culture of zero tolerance needs to start with company‐wide adherence to robust company procedures,” he says. “It’s no good having woolly guidelines about when tills should be opened and how refunds are processed and recorded, because this plants the seed of opportunity in the minds of the staff. To minimise temptation, all staff need to be aware that procedures are set in stone and any straying from the rules will be investigated.”
Jorge Salgado-Reyes is also a strong advocate of properly supported systems of whistle‐blowing within the company. This involves staff being given an incentive to report suspected dishonest behaviour using a confidential helpline. Zero tolerance means dismissing and prosecuting dishonest employees wherever possible and communicating these actions back to the staff.
To catch a thief
August 25th, 2008
Whether it is customer or staff theft, credit card fraud or products damaged in the supply chain, shrinkage is a major blight on the balance sheet of all retailers.
No doubt technology is the front line in the war on shrinkage, but there is no substitute for strict corporate policies and training staff to be vigilant in the quest to cut shrinkage.
According to Jorge Salgado-Reyes, MD of Archangel Research Limited, an investigative company specialising in corporate investigations, retailers continue to be stung by staff simply dipping their hands in the till or engaging in sweethearting. “Sweethearting is where members of the public and members of staff in retail collude. Typically, one item is scanned and several items are not,” says retail fraud investigator Jorge Salgado-Reyes.
Another major problem is fraudulent refunds of products. Jorge says: “The natural assumption about refunds is that someone is coming back into a store to ask for a cash refund. But when a member of staff fraudulently refunds an item, that staff member is telling the stock control system that one item has come back into stock when in fact nothing has come back in. He then steals the money from the till that the item is worth. The till will balance and it will not be discovered until there is a stock audit.
Ultimately, human nature dictates that retailers will never stamp out all forms of fraudulent activity. What they can do is to keep striving to integrate new technology with a culture of zero tolerance and stringent refund and stock control policies with a method of auditing the same.
Cops Who Started ‘Hackers Are Us’ Service Convicted
August 25th, 2008
Yes, “Hackers Are Us,” a private investigation firm that would illegally install “keyloggers” on anyone’s computer was run by two moonlighting cops. For future reference, though, if you’re setting up a business to do illegal stuff, it’s probably not a good idea to advertise it in your name.
This case was about blatant breaches of the DPA and they were quite rightly convicted.
4Networking magazine: a rare beast
August 18th, 2008
4N magazine - It’s a networking magazine AND it’s a great looking online publication - hats off to the 4N team.The 4Networking ‘4Community’ magazine is a rare beast - a successful blend of good design, good copy and effective online reading technology.
Not least because my article “The Cheaters to Not Getting Caught” appears on page 30.
Colin Stagg gets some compensation
August 17th, 2008
A top UK law forum discusses the legal implications and ethics of using honeytraps.
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