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During the past ten years, we have had several occasions to bask in the media spotlight, mostly related to our detective business or a specific case that we worked on. Our most horrific case involved a missing college co-ed who’s strangled body was discovered in a country south of the  U.S. Because the case has not been solved, we will refrain from further comment. I will tell you that we did receive some incredible media coverage during our investigation. However, If I could turn back the hands of time, I would never have taken the case!

There was the Valentines Day media blitz of 2007. For some reason the news agencies suddenly realized that this “Hallmark holiday” had the potential to expose the unfaithful. Duh! I was interviewed by a local network affiliate who was interested in any spikes in our surveillance business around February 14th. “Of course” I stated, ” cheaters get careless when it comes to matters of the heart”. Let’s see, who do I take to dinner or buy flowers for?  If you have a wife and a mistress, somebody is going to get the short end of the stick on Valentines Day. Most cheaters leave a paper trail forgetting that they paid for flowers, hotel rooms and other flag raising items with their personal credit card. One idiot forgot to hide his half empty bottle of Viagra. I guess there was no blood left in the common sense portion of his brain. 

I took full advantage of the snowball effect that resulted in that initial interview. I made three additional live televison appearances that week, including a segment on the Neil Cavuto show in New York. This would have been the ultimate interview if not for the fact that I shared the segment with Dr. Ruth, the neanderthal love troll. She contradicted every statistic I related to infidelity and dominated what was supposed to be my shining moment. Neil was very gracious in his hand written thank you note where he wrote, “Mark, Well, between you and Dr. Ruth, we had a great T.V. segment! Fantastic job, Really enjoyed having you. The Best, Neil.

The Marty Levin Con artist case, featured in my July 2, 2008 blog THE STING,  was an incredible event in my career. If you haven’t read that story, I recommend that you check it out. There have also been a host of newspaper articles written about our business. Each article can be seen in their custom frames (thanks to my wife’s expensive taste) lining the halls of our office hallway. We have been blessed.

Just this week, a reporter from our local Fox affiliate phoned to ask if we were interested in taking part in their weekly “Zip Trip” live broadcast on Friday August 1st. They video taped the inside and outside of our shop on Tuesday and requested that I take part in a live interview at 8:00 am on Friday. “This is a great opportunity to promote your business” the reporter added as we finalized our plans for the live interview.

The Fox 2 morning crew set up for their Zip Trip live broadcast just outside our city park next to the city offices. It was a blazing hot morning in Rochester. My interview went live at 8:44 am where I did a 2 1/2 minute dog and pony show highlighting several spy gadgets for kids and adults. When I got to work, there were two people waiting for me, “I saw you on T.V. this morning, I just had to see your store”.  “Me too”, replied the other eager shopper. The power of media at it’s very best. You can’t buy this level of advertising. Thank you Fox 2 Detroit!

 

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SCHOOL INVASIONS

In the summer of 2006 there were a rash of break-ins taking place in several schools within one of Michigan’s largest school districts. Grade schools, middle schools and high schools were burglarized randomly and often. In every case, the burglars were out to steal as many Epson projectors as possible before our security patrol officers were able to respond to the alarm. The projectors have a street value around $500.00 each. That summer 29 projectors were taken.

Because of our long standing security contract with the school district, I was asked to assist the local law enforcement agency with the investigation. All of the break-ins took place in the wee hours of the morning. On two occasions, our security officers were able to catch a glimpse of the culprits making their get-away. Unfortunately the bad guys were 300 yards away, much too far to make an apprehension or get a good enough look to make a positive identification.

We interviewed teachers, Principals, contractors, administrators and maintenance workers in an attempt to gather enough evidence to establish a motive and ultimately identify the bandit or bandits. After the interviews and visits to the local pawn shops, we were getting nowhere fast. And then I remembered a similar case where we offered a cash reward for any information that would lead to an arrest and conviction. Bingo,  we put the word on the street that there was a $500.00 reward offered for information that would help us with this case. The tip could also be anonymous.

The day after the announcement of the reward, we had two identical tips that led us to a gang of high school boys who were at the center of the break-ins. They were all charged with larceny more than $1,000.00, a felony in Michigan.

Here is the most confusing part of this crime. Every one of the high school boys charged in this case came from a wealthy family. They lived in 5,000 sq. ft. or bigger homes and drove expensive cars. They had it all. Or did they? Another interesting fact, most of these future tycoons didn’t work and had never worked. How could they possible have a work ethic when their parents provided everything. Everything except discipline, respect for others and common sense. Were these punks desperate people doing desperate things? I think not, they are desperate to be parented and in need of a tincture of 2X4.

HOME INVASIONS

 Just this morning I received a phone call from a local resident who had the front door of his plush condominium kicked in late last evening. Fortunately his home alarm scared the would-be burglar away. I could hear the sound of the contractor repairing his door as we talked on the phone. He lives in a neighborhood that is often the target of similar crimes due to its proximity and easy access to the I-75 freeway. I had my car stolen from a restaurant parking lot a short distance from his condo complex. He just left our store where he purchased a wireless system that will alert him when anyone approaches his residence. Could it happen again?

Desperate people do desperate things! It’s no secret that Michigan’s economy has gone so far south that most of us have southern accents. “The Big Three” used to mean something in this region. GM, Ford and Chrysler are in serious trouble. They remain a fraction of what they were in the glory days. Tens of thousands of blue and white collar workers have been pink-slipped over the past few years, leaving a gaping black hole in our economy.  

So who’s breaking in to all of our homes? Displaced auto workers, teenage thugs, career criminals. Or could these crimes be the work of a former auto executive or factory worker desperate to feed their family or prevent a home foreclosure? The answer is yes to all of the options.

Earlier this year an unemployed automotive engineer decided to rob a bank. He didn’t have as much as a speeding ticket on his spotless record. Desperate people do desperate things! He is now serving time as a convicted felon. Bad choice buddy!

Conversely, an old friend of mine faced his darkest day two years ago when he was let go due to a corporate restructuring. He didn’t break into anyone’s home or rob a bank, he did however send out hundreds of resumes and networked around the clock. For a while it looked mighty grim for my pal. And then he landed a job 300 miles away in Indiana. Not an ideal move given that he and his wife had just moved into a home in town. For now he travels to his job in Indiana every week and returns home on weekends. Two displaced auto engineers with two choices and two drastically different results. Desperate people do desperate things. Amen!

 

Last year our County Executive championed a tax revolution to eliminate our state’s ancient Small Business Tax (SBT). Enough signatures were gathered to put it to a vote of the people of the state of Michigan. As a small business owner, I was eager to see this nonsensical tax disappear, and much to the dismay of Governor Granholm,  “we the people” voted it out!  With out missing a heart beat, our Governor and her gang of legislative thieves concocted a new tax that would replace the tax dollars formerly generated by the SBT. Are you with me so far?

The new and improved Michigan Business Tax (MBT) was railroaded through the Michigan House and Senate literally at the 11th hour. I was expecting some relief with the new tax only to find that my little company would see an increase of over 300% from the former SBT. In my humble opinion, this new tax is borderline unconstitutional. This is exactly what our nations founding fathers fought against 232 years ago. Taxation without representation is a crime! Who do these criminals in Lansing think they are?

And so, last week I made our second quarterly MBT payment to the State. You see, there is no recourse for a small business owner like me, no way to challenge the system. I suppose that I could protest at the State House or start a anti-MBT tax organization. I can’t because I’m working my tail off to support 40 employees and their families. The bottom line,  I either pay up or face criminal charges. Isn’t that just lovely?

There is one organization who’s mission is to expose the injustice of the corrupt cowards in Lansing. Leon Drolet, pictured in this blog,  is the Chair of www.mitaxpayers.org. This privately funded organization is determined to show the true colors of the legislators who supported (voted in) the new tax. Did you know that our Michigan legislators are among the highest paid law makers in our country. They don’t own or operate small businesses, they just take and spend our money!

If your interested in taking a good look at the House members who voted to put the screws to businesses like ours, check out www.michiganrecalls.com. What puzzles me the most is that these clueless politicians will probably get reelected. Wake up People!

 

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Owning a retail store has some tremendous benefits, I just can’t think of any at this moment. There are however a laundry list of disadvantages to owning and operating a retail store. Where do I begin? First of all, there are the incredible amount of hours that the owner, (yours truly) spends in the shop. In our case, the Rochester Spy Shop. We are fortunate to have a good management team to watch over the day to day operations. However, with our Private Detective-Security Guard Agency located in the same building, I quite ofter fall prey to a host of time wasting retail questions. Then there are the ongoing, unannounced visits by friends and acquaintances who assume that I am always available for coffee-talk. Being rather bold natured, I have no problem communicating the “can’t you see that I’m busy” body language to unwanted guests. Although I’m never rude about it, at least I don’t think so.

The Crown Jewel of retail events in our city is the annual “Sidewalk Sale”. This years theme was a “Circus” atmosphere, literally. Our DDA marketing and promotions committee came up with the circus concept because of comments made by shoppers who said “shopping at the sidewalk sale was like a circus”. Cute huh?

Why is always 95 degrees with 95% humidity during this event? This year was no exception. The circus sidewalk sale ran Thursday, Friday and Saturday. We worked 14 hour days and kept smiles on our faces the whole time. Especially Jenna, our high energy, teenage super sales person. This kid made everyone else look like amateurs. She was fearless in her sales approach, nobody escaped her polsihed pitch during her shift. She worked the crowd like a professional Barker outside of a nightclub in San Francisco.

The net result of our three day sales marathon was incredible. We sold a lot of outdated merchandise, made some new friends and tested our patience and physical stamina. Next event, “Dancing in the Streets”, bring it on!

Pictured above are Jenna and her sister Whitney, they rock!

 

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Unless you have been living under a rock for the past 20 years, you know that anything you do on your computer, even if you erase it, is still there. We work closely with several forensic accountants and fraud examiners in our investigation business. Many of our cases require the services of a forensic accountant to sift through personal and corporate financial documents. My buddy Bruce, featured in an earlier blog, is one of the top forensic accountants in Metro Detroit.

We also work closely with Techmotives, a local firm specializing in computer and cell phone data recovery and investigations. They can capture Internet activity, email and other instant messaging data, analyze chat log files as well as provide sophisticated filtering products for their corporate customers. Check out www.techmotives.com or contact jcarter@techmotives.com.

For the concerned parents and or suspicious spouse, we offer some low-tech products in our spy shop to monitor computer activity as well as a few cell phone date recovery products. We sell basic key loggers, covert software that will allow you to have all data forwarded to a private file or email address and a few sim recovery gadgets that will capture incoming and outgoing phone numbers.

On a much less serious note, one of my favorite products in the store is the SpoofCard. This product will allow the caller to enter any phone number they want to show up on the caller I.D. of the person they are calling. In addition, the caller can change their voice from man to woman, woman to man etc. This is cheap entertainment that can also be used in an investigation, enough said.

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Welcome Doug Van Slembrouck, the new kid on the blog. Doug’s company redpawn has set up shop in our building in Rochester. redpawn offers three distinct services for small to medium businesses. They are,  Website design and management, application development and visual thinking. Think about that! Check out www.redpawn.net or email doug@redpawn.net.

I met Doug through Chip and Lisa St. Clair, he was helping out at one our fund raisers. He is the ultimate techie whose talents are endless and he is always willing to pitch in and lend a hand. We have worked together on a few projects and he is currently giving a much needed tune up to one of my web sites.

Doug’s generation, (he’s a twenty-something) amazes me. When I was in my twenties, I depended on my parents for information, support and knowledge. I don’t think that I ever taught my folks anything. Okay, maybe I taught them a thing or two, but not much. Doug is the same age as my oldest son Matthew, who had to set up my I-phone, my Mac book and everything else that baby boomers are clueless about. I remember how frustrating it was to try to load music on to my I-phone, I was getting nowhere. Matthew showed up, bam! in less than 5 minutes, had 450 songs downloaded on the phone. You’ve got to hand it to their generation.

It seems that 2008 is turning out to be filled with much more change than I initially anticipated. Our decision to start The St. Clair Butterfly Foundation and locate the offices in our building, combined with Doug and redpawn moving in, have given us much to be thankful for this year.

There a few basic tools required when working in the world of Private Investigations. Sam Spade and the likes always had a wanna-be Investigator sidekick who’s job was to take photos of unsuspecting cheating spouses. There was usually a gum chewing blond secretary who made appointments, coffee, and plenty of excuses.

One of my favorite “private detective movie scenes” was from “The Firm”with Tom Cruise. Gary Busey plays a stereotypical gumshoe. Holly Hunter plays his dumb like a fox secretary, who escapes death by being in the right place at the right time.

Our business is so high tech that it scares me, the surveillance equipment that is used today is remarkable. My theory is simple, when you see a gadget in a James Bond film, it should be available within a few years of the film’s release. Micro spy-cameras have been replaced by wireless pinhole cameras that can be hidden in buttons, hats, ties, pens, you name it. A few years ago, 8mm digital video camcorders were the cat’s meow. They were a “must have” for your surveillance gear bag. Mine is sitting in our storage room covered with dust. Anything that used a tape to record an image is long gone. Most of us remember when the VCR was slowly replaced by the DVR. Similarly, most video cameras have gone the way of digital. My Investigators have the ability to shoot video, download that video and integrate it into their report while sitting in their surveillance vehicle, and email their report to the office.

 I still use my ancient Bushnell binoculars, they will never lose their value for surveillance. For a quick photo, I use a Nikon digital camera with a variety of lens options. These two tools are always in the  back seat of my vehicle along with other nifty gadgets like a ready to go GPS tracking unit. Sounds crazy doesn’t it?

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There are only a hand full of events that have taken place in my 57 years that are what I consider to be branding experiences. In 1964  I was a chubby 13 year old kid struggling with what all 13 year old boys face. Acne, testosterone, girls and just trying to figure out where I fit in consumed much of my adolescence. In 1964 we had NBC, CBS, ABC and Channel 50 in Windsor, Ontario. There were no cell phones,  Al Gore had not invented the internet, and the Pong video game was 15 years in the future. What on earth did we do with our time?

And then there were the Beatles. I can vividly recall the first time I heard the “Meet The Beatles” album at my friend John Barrett’s house. We played the album continuously until we figured out all the lyrics from every song. My love affair with music had begun.

MEMORABLE BRANDING EXPERIENCE

On September 6, 1964 my brother, two of his friends and I were sitting in the 20th row on the main floor at Olympia Stadium in downtown Detroit when John, Paul, George and Ringo took the stage for what seemed like an instant. The screaming girls and boys, combined with a totally inadequate sound system, made it impossible to hear a single note of music. But I was there! The concert tickets were compliments of a Detroit Police officer who grew up with my Dad in Detroit. They cost $5.00 each.

Jump ahead to 2006. Sir Paul McCartney is touring the U.S. He is performing at the Palace of Auburn Hills, Michigan, home of the Detroit Pistons. The former Beatle and his band will be staying at the Royal Park Hotel in Rochester, Michigan. The hotel was informed of  the band’s security requirements that included six armed plain-clothed security specialists to stand post at various positions in and around the hotel property. You guessed it, we got the job. Without sounding like a complete groupie, I was pretty darn excited to meet Paul. My moment came when two of us were escorting him to the elevator and down to a private party in the hotel restaurant. I wanted to tell him that I was there in the 20th row in 1964. Bad Idea I thought, just do your job.  The elevator ride went too quickly, he smiled and nodded. That was enough for me.

Michelle made an appointment to see me regarding a possible surveillance. That’s all I knew when she walked into my office last week. As always, I greeted her with a smile and asked how I could help her. As her eyes began to swell up, I knew that this would be another case of “the other woman”. Bingo, Michelle presented an all to typical scenario. She and her husband of 15 years, have 3 young children, live in a nicer subdivision in town and attend church regularly.

Like thousands of families in Metro Detroit, Michelle and her husband Tom are part of the erroding automotive industry that is slowly dragging down our economy. He works for one of the “Big Three” as an engineer, she is a stay-at-home mom.

It seems that Tom is passionate about staying fit. He loves to go to the company fitness center in the wee hours of the morning before starting his 12 hour day. Unfortunately his other passion is spending time with a single female co-worker from his engineering department. You can see where this is going.

Tom’s behaviour is not foreign to Michelle. You see, he got caught with another woman less than three years ago. He repented of his transgressions and gave Michelle his word that he would never stray again. Just so you know where I stand on the forgiveness issue, I do believe that marriages can be restored after infidelity. It takes hard work and a commitment to be held accountable. However when it comes to infidelity, unlike baseball, two strikes and your out!

Like dozens of scorned spouses, Michelle did her own private investigating. She researched phone records that helped identify the other woman, that also assisted in finding out her address, etc. She did all of the ground work for us. Unfortunately she wanted a surveillance done on Tom that evening. I explained that all of our investigators were already assigned to cases. She explained that all three of their children were away at camp for the week and that Tom had taken extra clothes to work that morning because he was spending the night near a supplier in northern Ohio.”How much more proof do you need”? I asked. “Your kids are away, he takes extra clothes to work because he is staying at a hotel 90 miles south of town, what was your first clue”?

More tears began to flow down Michelle’s cheeks, I was a goner. I told her that I would do a courtesy drive-by the apartment of the alleged mistress that evening. As it turns out, I did three drive-by’s that evening, as well as two of the parking lot of the health club where he works out. No Tom. I phoned her with the results.

At approximately 11:30 pm my cell phone rang. “His car is parked in front of her apartment, she wept, what should I do”? “Go home Michelle, you don’t need to do anything more, you have all the proof that you need”. I told her to phone me in the morning and we could figure out what to do next. Michelle was alone on the night that her worst fears became a harsh reality.

Bless you Michelle!

AS ALWAYS, THE NAMES AND OTHER DETAILS IN THIS BLOG HAVE BEEN CHANGED TO PROTECT THE PRIVACY OF OUR CLIENT.

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We relocated our spy shop to its current site nearly two years ago. Our original shop was located two blocks away on a side street. We weren’t sure that this retail gig would work so we rented an ancient two story building on the alley side behind Main Street. Our store quickly became the talk of the town. “A Spy Shop, what on earth do you sell”? I would love to have a nickle for every time I was asked that question. Better yet, for those who were not paying attention or have a minor hearing loss, I would get this question. “What kind of a spa do you own”?

A bit of Michigan trivia, Rochester has the distinct honor of having more salon and spa facilities per capita that any other city in Michigan, I think the number is around 40 or so. Why on earth would I want to open another one! Another disturbing fact. Rochester does not have one (1) men’s store in town. The only store that has any testosterone is ours.

When we relocated to Main Street, there was a “pseudo” locksmith/safe retailer four buildings south of our store. The locksmith store was slowly going out of business and it was clear that their days were numbered. I think it was about 18 months ago that they closed up shop. Ever since they closed their doors, we have seen a steady stream of dazed and confused people who think we are in the key making business.

I remind you that our store is clearly not a locksmith shop. The sign on our building says SPY SHOP, not locksmith or Keys R Us. There are no visible signs of anything that resembles a lock and key shop.  And yet without fail, there isn’t a day that goes by without some moron strolling up to our counter babbling about being locked out of their house. “can you make this key”? they ask. At first we would chuckle and recommend that they visit our friend Joe at Superior Lock & Key. “this isn’t the key place”? they would ask. Trying not to seem to sarcastic I usually reply, “does this look like the key place”? And then with my charming wit, I hand them one of Joe’s business cards and point them in the right direction. I think we give out more of his business cards than our own. I’m thinking of buying a key making machine.

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