Private Investigator Public Records Internet Search Privacy Reporting - PI Buzz

Wouldn’t it be convenient and a boon to cross-border investigations to be able to search an online index of Mexico court records? An Internet search for a source for these directs you to Westlaw, a collection of legal research and fact-finding databases, costly and beyond the financial reach of most investigators. Searchsystems.net now includes Mexico civil and criminal index filings from Mexican federal and state courts in its collection of premium (fee-based) databases. Anyone can access the service, but Searchsystems subscribers get a discount. A free name search will return the number of records found in the index, but no other details. Once you enter the subject’s name and pay the fee you’ll be able to view all matching records. The detailed results provide party names, jurisdiction, date, court, docket number and, in criminal filings, the charges. A limitation of the Mexico criminal record indexes, unlike most US ones, is that they don’t contain a defendant’s date of birth. Here’s a image from a search result, or view a sample report at Searchsystems.

Do you know of any other Mexico civil or criminal index databases online?

An article by CFO.com reports that a recent Ernst & Young survey of more than 300 corporate-development officers and other finance professionals found that many companies use forensic techniques, including hiring private investigators, to learn more about local market dynamics and the people involved in a potential deal.

This is a great opportunity for investigators to locally market their investigative skills and international contacts to conduct international investigations.

Many private investigators who belong to international PI associations such as WAD - World Association of Detectives, WAPI - World Association of Professional Investigators, CII - Council of International Investigators, WIN - World Investigators Network, and many more. Their members already know the financial benefits of international networking.

Our world has gotten much smaller with the Internet and ease of international travel and trade regulations.

You can learn more about international investigative marketing from Jimmie Mesis at PI Magazine.

The New York Attorney General site, Project Sunlight, makes many New York State public records accessible in one search. Conduct a name search simultaneously through corporation, charities, lobbyist, financial contributions and state contracts databases.

U.S. Passport Applications 1795-1925 have been collected together into one database that can be searched by name or date and other criteria. Ancestry.com has assembled this from U.S. government sources The images of original applications may include photographs, physical descriptions, country of origin, place of residence, travel companions, marriage status and affidavits of relatives.

Search the FamilySearch.org index of international birth, death and marriage records collected by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. ProGenealogists collect links to international vital records that are searchable in online databases.

The International Association of Insurance Fraud Agencies links to state government insurance agencies, insurance fraud associations and international organizations. In the U.S., the same government agency can be responsible for investigating individuals who defraud insurance companies as well as dishonest insurance representatives who steal from or otherwise defraud the consumer. This site covers both types of resources.

The Coalition Against Insurance Fraud delivers consumer fraud alerts and research papers to journalists. The Coalition also has brief summaries of various insurance scams.

The Fraud Prevention Checklist is an interactive guide to assessing a company’s vulnerability to fraud, provided by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners.

Get insurance company financial profiles and data on the types of policies they issue, from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

Consumer education and tips on email scams, mortgage costs, tainted drugs and identity theft prevention are at the federal government Federal Citizen Information Center, Consumer Action Web site. The site also has a complaint form letter and a list of all the federal agencies to which you direct your complaints, with topical indicators (i.e. “Airline Accessibility or Discrimination” or “Telephone Service”)

Some states list enforcement actions at their Web site. The Maryland Insurance Administration regulates Maryland insurance companies and agents. It issues public orders of actions it takes against agents, agencies and brokers, cataloged to 2003. Search all enforcement actions by keyword from the Google search engine using this query but replacing “keyword” with your terms.

keyword site:www.mdinsurance.state.md.us/

The interest in private investigators isn’t limited to just the USA or the UK, as Malaysia introduces television viewers to their own version of a PI.

According to Malaysia’s The Star Online, TV3 has started airing a new action and comedy series Kaber Hero Kaber Zero. This private investigator has super powers and the script takes him on what is best described as weekly zany adventures. The show also includes computer generated graphics to enhance the powers that enables the private investigator to leap off tall buildings, run at high speed and even walk through walls.

Fortunately, the show is so far from reality, one would hope that the average person won’t expect real life private investigators to perform any of these feats. However, there are those that will now expect us to compete with Superman.

This is the sort of topic that those of us in a fairly offbeat line of work, with a twisted sense of the world -which pretty universally applies to private investigators- can appreciate and put to practical use. Let’s start with terrorism, shall we?

The Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT), “a non-profit organization dedicated to preventing terrorism on U.S. soil or mitigating its effects”, maps real-time global terrorist threats and events. MIPT also has resources on terrorism-related court cases and terrorist groups and leaders. See all types of worldwide calamities, suspicious activities and threats on the Global Incident Map.

Global health outbreaks, derived from multiple sources, are tracked on HEALTHMap, a project of John Brownstein, Instructor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and Clark Freifeld, Research Software Developer at the Children’s Hospital Informatics Program. View by disease type, country and recent incidents.

Incident1 is a start-up emergency incidents and crime mapping site. Drawn from law enforcement and highway patrol sources, it aims to be national but is currently limited to a few regions. Search by zip code or the drop-down menu of regions to see recent crime and accidents. IncidentLog covers many local crime, traffic and fire events that aren’t at Incident1. Plot events by type and/or region, state, city or street. IncidentLog also has a running list of the events by selected criteria and provides a link to the source Web site.

A collection of federal agencies collaborated on the live mapping of wildfires, which lists date the fire started and the number of acres involved, as well as a link to the source agency. View fire locations back to 2002. The USDA Forest Service active fires map shows the location of large fires in the US and Canada but seems to have data that is a subset of the wildfires map. Other maps of active fires are found at Geodata.gov.

The new Google My Maps feature enables anyone to easily configure a map with selective features. Google Maps Mania discovered this Google My Maps creation of wildfires in Waycross, Georgia.

Locate recent earthquakes, active volcanoes and tropical storms on the Asia Pacific Natural Hazards and Vulnerabilities Atlas.

Volcanoes, earthquakes, landslides, floods, power outages, epidemics and other unpleasant occurrences are noted on this global map provided by the National Association of Radio-Distress Signalling and Infocommunications, Emergency and Disaster Information Services (EDIS), Budapest Hungary. Scroll beyond the map image for a list of events by date and time.

The National Hurricane Center has lots of live maps of weather patterns.

The International Chamber of Commerce, Commercial Crime Services has a news service of piracy alerts and maps global piracy events. Additional maritime incident data can be gathered from the International Maritime Organization, which provides detailed incident descriptions with free registration.

Even a map of wars and violent conflicts doesn’t cover all disaster events but I wanted to leave room for you to add your own resources!

The laws of conducting surveillance on insurance claimants can vary by state and even by country.

An article appearing in Out-Law.com highlights the potential conflict of British laws that involve government surveillance and verifying the validity of an insurance claim.

In August 2002, the UK police instructed a private detective firm to observe a former sergeant to see if he was doing anything that was inconsistent with his claimed injuries. Nine minutes of video footage showed the ex-policeman mowing the lawn and in his car.

The former policeman wanted the Tribunal to rule against the police force under RIPA, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, but the Tribunal has found that it has no jurisdiction to do so because the filming of the former policeman did not constitute the kind of surveillance that RIPA governs.

The Tribunal is where individuals who think that their rights have been infringed can complain about the actions of public bodies. The Tribunal, though, only has jurisdiction if the surveillance dealt with is “directed surveillance” within the meaning of sections 26 and 48 (1) and (2) of RIPA.
See: The ruling (27-page / 231 KB PDF)

Search the Puerto Rico Sex Offenders Registry in Spanish or English.

The Nevada Appeal News reports…

The Churchill County Recorder’s Office began in August alerting those who do business with the office, such as title companies, that beginning Jan. 1, Social Security numbers would not be allowed on public documents.

New Hampshire courts are slowly implementing a new case tracking system that will link all of the state courts - in about 3 years. The Supreme Court is still debating which personal identifying details will be masked in the Internet site.

It also will improve public access to court records. For the first time, court dockets _ including the names of the parties, the type of case or criminal charges, and the dates of filings, hearings and decisions _ will be publicly available, going as far back as 1988.

But public access won’t improve immediately. That’s because the Supreme Court is still working on rules governing what records should be available only on paper, what information would be on public computers at courthouses, and what would be on the Internet.

A number of local town councils in Australia have reportedly paid thousands of dollars to private investigators to visit brothels in an effort to gather evidence.

“But honey, I was just doing my job…really!” (..now a ‘divorced’ PI)

It’s hard to beleive, but many community leaders have found that hiring private investigators to infiltrate and pose as regular bloks to determine if illegal brothels are operating within their jurisdiction.

Since local police can not “go all the way” to get the evidence to catch these prostitution locations and promoting unprotected sex, PIs have become the latest tool in fighting this growing problem.

However, a member with the Sydney’s Willoughby Council says it is worrying councils have had to pay private investigators to have sex with prostitutes, so they can gather enough evidence to shut down illegal brothels.

Looking for unusual types of assets? Search the Canadian Stallion Directory for pedigree horses by the first initial of the owner or farm.

Ancestors On Board is a database of ship passengers traveling from the British Isles from the years 1890 through 1960. Search by name, port or country.

With ancestorsonboard, you can search for records of individuals or groups of people leaving for destinations including Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, South Africa and USA featuring ports such as Boston, Philadelphia and New York. Passengers include not only immigrants and emigrants, but also businessmen, diplomats and tourists.

Canadian private investigator, Kevin D. Bousquet has an extensive analysis of the detrimental effects of privacy regulation on the public and the everyday work of attorneys. [Thanks: Ca Privacy Law]

The public is in panic over crimes like impersonation, bank fraud, mortgage fraud and insurance fraud all things the private sector investigates every single day. They are the answer to the problem not the cause. All of the tools that hold personal data are needed to investigate but are slowly cutting off the private sector slowly over time.

In Provinces like Quebec and Alberta, PI’s have no access to government motor vehicle information. They can’t even run a license plate to follow an insurance claimant or a driver’s record to see previous driving infractions.

How are we expected to do insurance claim investigation if we have no access to vehicle or driver information? How is a PI supposed to help a person enforce a judgment or child support order when for the most part credit bureaus make it virtually impossible for PIs to have access even if they have a certified copy of a Judgment or Support Order?

The legal is community is in big trouble they just haven’t realized it yet. Sooner or later would be Plaintiffs and the general public are going to realize that when they sue in court attempting to recover their losses even if they win their case if defendant simply refuses to pay there is every likelihood their court ordered judgment or monetary award could be nothing more then a worthless piece of paper.

An International Herald Tribune article is reporting that Asher Weizman, a private investigator employed by the Israel Football Association (IFA) is investigating a match-fixing scandal.

The IFA convened an emergency meeting Monday as two more Israeli soccer players were arrested in a widening soccer scandal. two players from the Hapoel Beersheba team — goalkeeper Assi Rachamim and central defender Oz Yifrach — were arrested Sunday on suspicions that they knew their teammates planned to throw games but didn’t report it. Three Hapoel Beersheba players were arrested last week on suspicions of match-fixing. All five remain in custody.

CBC News is reporting that Michael Robinson, a Saskatoon private investigator has pleaded guilty and agreed to pay a $20,000 fine for unlawfully accessing a police computer system at the Balcarres RCMP detachment.

It seems that this is not the first time Mr. Robinson or his investigative agancy has been the focus of Canadian officials. Four years ago, Robinson’s firm, Robinson Investigations, was at the centre of an extensive privacy investigation involving police and several government departments. Six government and Crown workers were suspended following the probe.

Richard Thomas, the British Information Commissioner, has concluded in his report for Parliament that the means used by a private detective were probably illicit in more than 11,000 of the assignments.

This information was the result of a police raid named Operation Motorman, on a private detective’s home which showed that in three years the detective had been hired by 305 journalists to carry out 13,343 separate inquiries at a cost of hundreds of thousands of pounds.

One paper alone paid the detective £26,000 (about $50k). It also appears that the Commissioner will now expose the names of all the newspaper clients. More can be read on this topic by clicking here.

OpentheGovernment.org lists several new reports released by open government organizations. The National Freedom of Information Coalition (NFOIC) report, Federal Controls on State Information Disclosure:FERPA, HIPAA and DPPA, addresses “barriers to state records that federal legislation erects.”

Also, go to The National Freedom of Information Coalition site for a 50 state resource guide to state public information access laws, FOI advocates, publications and form letters for public record requests. Follow the links at each state site to reach the state organizations that advocate for open records.

The Idaho page has a link to the Idaho Press Club, Open Records Information page, a digest of relevant state laws in a question and answer format. The state page for Iowa lists the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, which cites the state laws on public access to government information but also has explanatory notes. The Iowa Association of Private Investigators is among this organization’s sustaining members, setting an example that all private investigator professional groups should follow with their state Freedom of Information advocates.

The Canadian Newspaper Association recently released its Freedom of Information Audit on the response of federal, municipal and provincial governments to public information requests.

A Times of Malta article is reporting that private investigator Joseph Zahra has been jailed for two years for fabricated a report he submitted involving a government Cabinet official.

Former Finance and Foreign Affairs Minister John Dalli resigned his Cabinet post in July 2004, as a result of this fabricated report. He has always maintained his innocence. The Prime Minister said he will be seeking legal advice as to whether the government has the right to sue for damages.

This Headquarters India.com article states that the Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil recently said that there was need for synergy between public and private security and announced that there will be a new law on private detective agencies.

“The law is to encourage them. The idea is to have as many private security agencies as possible. But, the only thing is that they should be reliable,” he said and assured them that “there shall be no difficulty”.

Pennsylvania’s HB1746, which is now the law, makes law enforcement and criminal court records of a juvenile available to the public if the accused was over 14 years old at the time of the offense, and the crime would have been considered a felony if committed by an adult.

The U.S. Virgin Islands Recorder of Deeds index is online for documents recorded September 1, 1999 through June 14, 2006. Images of the documents can be purchased at the site.

The First Amendment Center carried an AP report that the New Mexico State Police have changed their policy on public access to arrest logs.

The New Mexico State Police office in Santa Fe has stopped providing the names and charges of those arrested in a daily log for public review.

Capt. Manny Gutierrez, commander of the district that includes Santa Fe, San Miguel, Los Alamos and Sandoval counties, said an arrest log isn’t required by law, and his staff is too busy to provide it.

“Within the last few months, we’ve decided that we are not going to provide that information. … All we’re really required to do is provide access to the desk logs,” Gutierrez said.

Neither the arrest log — a list of people arrested — nor the desk log — a chronological account of the date, officer, location and disposition of each police call — are required by the state Inspection of Public Records Act.

From Atlanta to Australia, Lady PI’s Insure You Get “Busted”

In a world where everyone tries to find a niche business opportunity, the lady private investigators of “Busted” have become internationally recognized as the all-female private eye agency based out of Marietta, Georgia metro area.

Stacy Fandos, a former airline stewardess, is the latest Busted recruit working on a case in Australia. The 41 year old mother of three doesn’t look like a typical private investigator, yet she is amongst a fast growing trend in female PI’s.

Busted was the brain child of Jeanene Weiner, 43, a mother of two. While it wasn’t her intention to start an all-woman investigative agency, it soon became obvious that her clients found it to be extremely beneficial.

“While there are no formal statistics as to the exact number of female investigators in the United States, there has been has been an obvious increase of women entering the investigative profession,” states Jimmie Mesis the Editor-in-Chief of PI Magazine. “I would estimate that women represent approximately 15% of all the private investigators in the US.”

The Ontario Provincial Police Web site houses the Missing Persons and Unidentified Bodies/Remains database, which is searchable by blocks of years. The Unidentified Persons database is a collection of photographs. The Missing Persons List includes images and personal information. It is organized by date but doesn’t appear to be searchable by name.

Hong Kong - Joseph Tsang is a Hong Kong-based private investigator who specializes in identifying the manufacturer and sellers of fake goods for many global companies. His main target area for counterfeit goods focuses on the sprawling outdoor markets of China’s Shanghai and the hundreds of sellers at the Xiangyang market. This area is world-renowned for fake Rolex watches, Callaway golf clubs and Louis Vuitton bags.

Tsang said his company performs 50 to 100 investigations a month with about one-third of those result in some enforcement action.
Another private investigator “Wang” searches the electronic and software markets to spot pirated products. His investigative reports have helped Microsoft pursue several successful cases against violators. “Wang” doesn’t disclose his first name to protect his livelihood. He visits the Zhongguancun district, China’s Silicon Valley, on the lookout for a high-end enterprise software that Microsoft markets to companies.