Private detective, volunteer. Velikiy Novgorod. Search for missing people. (Children and adults).

[Alexander Konovalenko.]

Another article about the work of private detectives. PART-2.

It is harder to search for a missing person than a fraudster, because it is usually necessary to scrupulously check a large number of versions, including mutually exclusive ones. For example, the missing person could have deliberately disappeared, or he could have become a victim of a crime — both of which the detective should keep in mind as a possible scenario. At the same time, a person usually disappears without a trace, unlike a fraudster. With a fraudster, "everything is clear": he is deliberately hiding somewhere and trying to cover his tracks. The detective needs to check fewer versions, and this makes the work easier.
Relatively stable prices exist only for "breakouts", because "all detectives understand that it costs about so much to look at a phone in the database or get a recording from street video cameras," Golovin notes. As a result, a dossier on a person can be collected for 35,000-55,000 rubles.

Golovin and other detectives, with whom the "Secret of the Firm" communicated, refused to disclose the details of how exactly the search for information is going on and what technologies are used by private detectives.

"I do not use illegally merged databases and illegal methods of information penetration," says Ekaterina Shumyakina. - There are a lot of technologies with which you can find out a lot of things legally, why complicate your life? I'm acting within the law. But I can't tell you exactly what technologies we use. Moreover, you can not do with technologies alone. It is important for a private investigator to have the skills of operational investigative work, to master logic and the method of deduction. For example, you need to find out how long ago a person came home. You go to the hood of his car, put your hand and evaluate whether the engine is hot or already cold. Here is the simplest example of how the deduction method works."
What prevents detectives from becoming bounty hunters
The legislation quite severely restricts the activities of private detectives, says Ekaterina Shumyakina, "in fact, nothing is possible." Detectives can search for information for business negotiations and evidence in civil and criminal cases, search for disappeared people (including debtors) and property, check applicants ' questionnaires with their consent, but it is impossible to follow someone if the person did not agree to it. Wiretapping, installing bugs and other techniques from films about Sherlock Holmes are also illegal.
In private investigation, there is a great risk of running into serious trouble. And it's not just about problems with the law. They can simply "banal give on the head in a dark alley," explains Vadim Golovin. His colleague Maria Ignatova notes that she receives threats regularly, so when they call from unfamiliar numbers, she does not pick up the phone just in case.
"There was a funny case when I received a call allegedly from the police department. They said that they were calling me to the investigator so-and-so, they opened a criminal case against me under article 159.4 (Fraud-approx. "Secret"), - says Ignatova. — We found out that there is no such investigator, and looked at the numbers who called. We found out that this is one of the debtors."
The main problem that private detectives face is not threats, but difficulties in their work. First of all, detectives need a license. Without it, the detective's activity is illegal. It is quite easy to get a license, says Maria Ignatova. The detective must meet the following criteria:

have a higher legal education or work experience in law enforcement agencies or take special detective courses in accredited schools;
have no criminal record;
do not be registered in drug treatment and psychiatric dispensaries.
"You also need to undergo fingerprinting by a local criminologist at the district Department of Internal Affairs, then hand over all the documents to the LRO (licensing and licensing department) Rosgvardiya at the place of residence, and then to the central one. They also accept documents through Public Services, " Maria explains.
The license is issued for 5 years, plus detectives must submit certificates from psychiatric and drug dispensaries every year that they are still not registered there. "If you work without a license, they can bring you to justice, you will pay a fine," Ignatova says. - And it is more efficient to work with a license, and patent taxation (the minimum tax is 3%), and it is easier to interact with law enforcement agencies."

But so far there are problems with this. "The nuts have recently become very tight," explains Golovin. - State control has increased. After all, a detective has no right to get into any bases, especially to kindly ask his friends from law enforcement agencies about it. This is punishable by law and is called the word "corruption". Meanwhile, detectives could be a serious help to the police and play the role of some bounty hunters, Ekaterina Shumyakina laments.
"We could create, for example, a register of private detectives, introduce exams for them, and then establish cooperation between the private detective and the police," says the detective. — We would exchange information, help find suspects, catch criminals. It is customary to scold the police for inaction, but in fact, we have a very serious burden on one police officer, law enforcement officers are being reduced all the time, and there are no fewer cases. So if private detectives were brought in as assistants, it would help to reduce the burden on the security forces and make the work of both detectives and police officers more effective."Other interlocutors of the "Secret" also dream that the state is interested in detectives and gives them greater powers, so that they do not have to balance on the edge of the law while doing their work.

 

[Остапович Дмитрий]

I would gladly be a "bounty hunter" if it was paid as in the USA (the offender leaves a bail; if he is hiding from the investigation, the amount of this bail is paid to the "hunter" who found him, arrested him and brought him to the police station).

But ... not in our countries and not at this time, it seems. It's a pity....

 

[Частный детектив. Армения. Ереван.]

Another article about the work of private detectives. PART 1.

«Игра, прямо скажем, грязная». Как работают частные детективы в России

Частных сыщиков в России становится больше — как и проблем, с которыми они сталкиваются. В реальном мире российские Шерлоки Холмсы не борются с королями преступности вроде профессора Мориарти, а вынуждены лавировать между запретами и выполнять странные и порой даже «грязные» заказы.

secretmag.ru

"The game is, frankly, dirty." How private detectives work in Russia
They dream of becoming bounty hunters, but they themselves teeter on the edge of the law.
Anna Cavalli
August 2, 2021

There are more and more private investigators in Russia, as well as the problems they face. In the real world, Russian Sherlock Holmes do not fight kings of crime like Professor Moriarty, but are forced to maneuver between prohibitions and carry out strange and sometimes even “dirty” orders.
_ "The Secret of the Firm" talked to representatives of this market and found out how private detectives become almost the last hope of citizens deceived by fraudsters and why modern Holmes are afraid to participate in high-profile investigations._
How many private detectives are there in Russia and who are they?
According to Rosstat, in recent years the number of private detectives and detective agencies grows .

The statistics sees only officially registered and licensed private detectives. But not everyone is in a hurry to fall under the control of the state - many remain working in the shadows.
The detectives interviewed by Sekret Firmy do not feel that competition in the market has increased in recent years, and there are significantly more (or fewer) colleagues. Perhaps the fact is that the detectives are not a close-knit community, but mostly loners working for themselves.
As a rule, former police officers, investigators, FSB officers and other security officials begin to engage in private investigation - for them this is a better option than being guards in Pyaterochka and Magnitogorsk, shared private detective Vadim Golovin, author of the Noir in the Big City podcast ". Unlike most, Vadim came to the profession from journalism: for many years he worked as a crime reporter.
“I have seen a lot of human grief, different destinies,” says the detective. Once Vadim arrived as part of a film crew at the place of the death of a woman. The contents of the head of the deceased appeared on the pavement. The birds have flown. One of them grabbed a piece of the brain and carried it somewhere, but did not hold the load. As a result, a particle of the deceased literally fell on Vadim's head.
After such stories, it was difficult to switch to another activity due to professional deformation - like for law enforcement officers, Vadim says. He was also attracted to private investigation for another reason: Golovin "remained the need to help," he claims. “Often, people who needed protection and support turned to the editorial office,” the detective says. The state and society turned their backs on them. They came to us simply even with the aim of expressing their pain. The same people come to detectives.”

What clients need​

People come to the detectives with strange requests. For example, they ask to find a lost dog or help deal with neighbors who allegedly poison a potential client in some sophisticated way, says Ekaterina Shumyakina, head of the Two Lives detective agency. Such requests, according to her, are about 10% of the total number of requests.
“Just today, a person wrote to us at the agency who offered to “restore the right to freedom of Alexei Navalny.” I am outside of politics, and such matters are outside my competence, so such requests seem strange to me, ”says Shumyakina.
Meanwhile, in the top of the most popular queries related to adultery. According to detective Maria Ignatova from the Janus agency, the list of the most requested services also includes:

• collection of information about debtors;
• collection of information for civil and criminal cases;
• search for vehicles and cargo;
• financial investigations.

These are traditional requests. And the trend of recent years in the market of detective services is the collection of compromising evidence, adds Vadim Golovin. “Digging for someone has become extremely popular. Many people do this - from businessmen to bandits, ”the detective explains. It happens that people from the media turn to private detectives for help in collecting compromising evidence. Moreover, sometimes they try to use them “in the dark.” “The point is: such people often turn to detectives under the guise of ordinary clients, asking for the address, passport details or other information about some person,” explains Golovin. “For example, they ask detectives to find out where a certain person has flown. Give his data. The detective begins to find out, and then another FBK investigation comes out (an extremist organization banned in the Russian Federation, recognized as a foreign agent - approx. "The Secret of the Firm"), which is based on his information. Data is sought both by opposition media and resources, but also by loyal authorities.
Golovin claims that he has always refused to work with the media because such work is a "huge risk." If the detective will "dig under someone serious", then he may suffer a deplorable fate. “They will file a case, conduct a search and find everything they need,” says Golovin. - In the country, various revelations began to be taken much more seriously. So it’s more expensive for a detective to get involved in politics.”

Another trend in the field of private investigation is inquiries from clients who have suffered from various kinds of fraudulent schemes. According to Ekaterina Shumyakina, now her agency has “an influx of requests from clients” who have become victims of fraudulent tricks. “This is a real boom, this has never happened before,” she notes.
Maria Ignatova agrees with this point of view. According to her, there are really a lot of scammers. According to Shumyakina, this is due to the fact that "scammers have recently become both smarter and more inventive." For example, the following scheme has appeared: scammers call, introduce themselves as prosecutors or officials, and offer subsidies from the state. And in order to receive these supposedly existing subsidies, people are told that they have to pay a certain amount.
According to Shumyakina and Ignatova, you can find almost any scammer. However, in the end, not all of them end up in the dock. Once, clients turned to Shumyakina: the healer tricked their relative into giving 7 million rubles. The healer promised the woman that in return she would perform special rituals and save her loved one, who was dying of cancer. Shumyakina also found other victims of the healer's fraudulent schemes and convinced one of the victims to file a police report. But law enforcement officials to initiate a case refused .
Not all detectives experience this attitude from the police. Detective Ignatova talks about the positive experience of communicating with the police. “If you clearly and clearly convey the facts of fraud, the authorities respond very effectively,” she assures.
Among the customers there are representatives of business, detectives say. For example, to check a candidate for top positions.
“It happens that a person has to be admitted to financial documents, respectively, they want to know everything about him. We can, of course, find out much more than HR,” explains Shumyakina. Her colleague Maria Ignatova says that one day the director of one company asked her to “find out the mindset of her tops, understand their loyalty to the company, find out if there are any thoughts about leaving the organization in the near future.”
In addition, business through detectives sometimes collects "compromising evidence on competitors, opponents, debtors," adds Vadim Golovin. For example, an entrepreneur may not be satisfied with the new caustic audit director who joined the team of his counterparty. He walks around the facility, “inspects everything, asks unnecessary questions” and eventually concludes: “The office is gray, the workers are all on fake contracts, this is not so, this is not so.”
“The businessman understands that now he will simply be merged on formal grounds, and decides to get rid of this auditor. If in the 90s he would have hired killers, today they don’t work like that anymore. Businessmen prefer to eliminate competitors through compromising evidence. This is a relatively safe way. The game, frankly, is dirty, ”Golovin notes.
10 years ago, other requests were much more in demand, says Ekaterina Shumyakina, for example, entrepreneurs asked to check the premises for illegally installed listening devices. Also, the collection of information for business negotiations used to be very popular. According to the expert, now these requests have faded into the background. The detective does not have an exact answer why client preferences have changed.

“It’s not easy to earn decent money here”​

Many go to a private detective, thinking that “now they will make good money, but the fact is that it’s really very difficult to earn decent money here,” detective Golovin notes. “Good money is not given to anyone today. You need to create a name for yourself, engage in image, he explains. “This is hard work that takes more time than investigations. If you are boring, do not know how to speak beautifully, do not expect money.
The range of prices for the services of private detectives is large. This is due to the fact that detectives evaluate their work differently. And there are no uniform evaluation criteria. At the same time, market players interviewed by The Secret complain about dumping. It leads to a growing number of unscrupulous performers who take a tiny advance and leave, sometimes without even starting to fulfill the order, says Maria Ignatova.
“The customer then refuses to pay more advances to other detectives, referring to the experience of working with unscrupulous performers. It can be insulting to hear: “Here you are asking for an advance, I have already paid others, there is no result. Therefore, I am ready to pay you only upon completion of the work,” she says.
Meanwhile, detectives have to spend money on transport and take on other expenses, so an advance is necessary. Its size, as well as the average cost of a particular service, is difficult to name in advance if the detective is not familiar with the case of a particular client, Ekaterina Shumyakina notes. Many factors influence the formation of value.

“The search for a fraudster, for example, is much cheaper than the search for a missing person,” says the detective. - If for the search for a fraudster, you can take, say, 50,000 rubles , then for the search for the missing, this amount will increase significantly. In general, investigating a disappearance without a trace is one of the most difficult tasks. Therefore, in my agency prices are negotiable, I do not have average prices for detective services. Once, after a successful case, the client paid a fee and a bonus, and all together it turned out to be a million rubles ".

Interesting post!

 

[Детективное агентство Израиль.]

Another article about the work of private detectives. PART 1.

«Игра, прямо скажем, грязная». Как работают частные детективы в России

Частных сыщиков в России становится больше — как и проблем, с которыми они сталкиваются. В реальном мире российские Шерлоки Холмсы не борются с королями преступности вроде профессора Мориарти, а вынуждены лавировать между запретами и выполнять странные и порой даже «грязные» заказы.

secretmag.ru

"The game is, frankly, dirty." How private detectives work in Russia
They dream of becoming bounty hunters, but they themselves teeter on the edge of the law.
Anna Cavalli
August 2, 2021

There are more and more private investigators in Russia, as well as the problems they face. In the real world, Russian Sherlock Holmes do not fight kings of crime like Professor Moriarty, but are forced to maneuver between prohibitions and carry out strange and sometimes even “dirty” orders.
_ "The Secret of the Firm" talked to representatives of this market and found out how private detectives become almost the last hope of citizens deceived by fraudsters and why modern Holmes are afraid to participate in high-profile investigations._
How many private detectives are there in Russia and who are they?
According to Rosstat, in recent years the number of private detectives and detective agencies grows .

The statistics sees only officially registered and licensed private detectives. But not everyone is in a hurry to fall under the control of the state - many remain working in the shadows.
The detectives interviewed by Sekret Firmy do not feel that competition in the market has increased in recent years, and there are significantly more (or fewer) colleagues. Perhaps the fact is that the detectives are not a close-knit community, but mostly loners working for themselves.
As a rule, former police officers, investigators, FSB officers and other security officials begin to engage in private investigation - for them this is a better option than being guards in Pyaterochka and Magnitogorsk, shared private detective Vadim Golovin, author of the Noir in the Big City podcast ". Unlike most, Vadim came to the profession from journalism: for many years he worked as a crime reporter.
“I have seen a lot of human grief, different destinies,” says the detective. Once Vadim arrived as part of a film crew at the place of the death of a woman. The contents of the head of the deceased appeared on the pavement. The birds have flown. One of them grabbed a piece of the brain and carried it somewhere, but did not hold the load. As a result, a particle of the deceased literally fell on Vadim's head.
After such stories, it was difficult to switch to another activity due to professional deformation - like for law enforcement officers, Vadim says. He was also attracted to private investigation for another reason: Golovin "remained the need to help," he claims. “Often, people who needed protection and support turned to the editorial office,” the detective says. The state and society turned their backs on them. They came to us simply even with the aim of expressing their pain. The same people come to detectives.”

What clients need​

People come to the detectives with strange requests. For example, they ask to find a lost dog or help deal with neighbors who allegedly poison a potential client in some sophisticated way, says Ekaterina Shumyakina, head of the Two Lives detective agency. Such requests, according to her, are about 10% of the total number of requests.
“Just today, a person wrote to us at the agency who offered to “restore the right to freedom of Alexei Navalny.” I am outside of politics, and such matters are outside my competence, so such requests seem strange to me, ”says Shumyakina.
Meanwhile, in the top of the most popular queries related to adultery. According to detective Maria Ignatova from the Janus agency, the list of the most requested services also includes:

• collection of information about debtors;
• collection of information for civil and criminal cases;
• search for vehicles and cargo;
• financial investigations.

These are traditional requests. And the trend of recent years in the market of detective services is the collection of compromising evidence, adds Vadim Golovin. “Digging for someone has become extremely popular. Many people do this - from businessmen to bandits, ”the detective explains. It happens that people from the media turn to private detectives for help in collecting compromising evidence. Moreover, sometimes they try to use them “in the dark.” “The point is: such people often turn to detectives under the guise of ordinary clients, asking for the address, passport details or other information about some person,” explains Golovin. “For example, they ask detectives to find out where a certain person has flown. Give his data. The detective begins to find out, and then another FBK investigation comes out (an extremist organization banned in the Russian Federation, recognized as a foreign agent - approx. "The Secret of the Firm"), which is based on his information. Data is sought both by opposition media and resources, but also by loyal authorities.
Golovin claims that he has always refused to work with the media because such work is a "huge risk." If the detective will "dig under someone serious", then he may suffer a deplorable fate. “They will file a case, conduct a search and find everything they need,” says Golovin. - In the country, various revelations began to be taken much more seriously. So it’s more expensive for a detective to get involved in politics.”

Another trend in the field of private investigation is inquiries from clients who have suffered from various kinds of fraudulent schemes. According to Ekaterina Shumyakina, now her agency has “an influx of requests from clients” who have become victims of fraudulent tricks. “This is a real boom, this has never happened before,” she notes.
Maria Ignatova agrees with this point of view. According to her, there are really a lot of scammers. According to Shumyakina, this is due to the fact that "scammers have recently become both smarter and more inventive." For example, the following scheme has appeared: scammers call, introduce themselves as prosecutors or officials, and offer subsidies from the state. And in order to receive these supposedly existing subsidies, people are told that they have to pay a certain amount.
According to Shumyakina and Ignatova, you can find almost any scammer. However, in the end, not all of them end up in the dock. Once, clients turned to Shumyakina: the healer tricked their relative into giving 7 million rubles. The healer promised the woman that in return she would perform special rituals and save her loved one, who was dying of cancer. Shumyakina found other victims of the healer's fraudulent schemes and convinced one of the victims to file a police report. But law enforcement officials to initiate a case refused .
Not all detectives experience this attitude from the police. Detective Ignatova talks about the positive experience of communicating with the police. “If you clearly and clearly convey the facts of fraud, the authorities respond very effectively,” she assures.
Among the customers there are representatives of business, detectives say. For example, to check a candidate for top positions.
“It happens that a person has to be admitted to financial documents, respectively, they want to know everything about him. We can, of course, find out much more than HR,” explains Shumyakina. Her colleague Maria Ignatova says that one day the director of one company asked her to “find out the mindset of her tops, understand their loyalty to the company, find out if there are any thoughts about leaving the organization in the near future.”
In addition, business through detectives sometimes collects "compromising evidence on competitors, opponents, debtors," adds Vadim Golovin. For example, an entrepreneur may not be satisfied with the new caustic audit director who joined the team of his counterparty. He walks around the facility, “inspects everything, asks unnecessary questions” and eventually concludes: “The office is gray, the workers are all on fake contracts, this is not so, this is not so.”
“The businessman understands that now he will simply be merged on formal grounds, and decides to get rid of this auditor. If in the 90s he would have hired killers, today they don’t work like that anymore. Businessmen prefer to eliminate competitors through compromising evidence. This is a relatively safe way. The game, frankly, is dirty, ”Golovin notes.
10 years ago, other requests were much more in demand, says Ekaterina Shumyakina, for example, entrepreneurs asked to check the premises for illegally installed listening devices. Also, the collection of information for business negotiations used to be very popular. According to the expert, now these requests have faded into the background. The detective does not have an exact answer why client preferences have changed.

“It’s not easy to earn decent money here”​

Many go to a private detective, thinking that “now they will make good money, but the fact is that it’s really very difficult to earn decent money here,” detective Golovin notes. “Good money is not given to anyone today. You need to create a name for yourself, engage in image, he explains. “This is hard work that takes more time than investigations. If you are boring, do not know how to speak beautifully, do not expect money.
The range of prices for the services of private detectives is large. This is due to the fact that detectives evaluate their work differently. And there are no uniform evaluation criteria. At the same time, market players interviewed by The Secret complain about dumping. It leads to a growing number of unscrupulous performers who take a tiny advance and leave, sometimes without even starting to fulfill the order, says Maria Ignatova.
“The customer then refuses to pay more advances to other detectives, referring to the experience of working with unscrupulous performers. It can be insulting to hear: “Here you are asking for an advance, I have already paid others, there is no result. Therefore, I am ready to pay you only upon completion of the work,” she says.
Meanwhile, detectives have to spend money on transport and take on other expenses, so an advance is necessary. Its size, as well as the average cost of a particular service, is difficult to name in advance if the detective is not familiar with the case of a particular client, Ekaterina Shumyakina notes. Many factors influence the formation of value.

“The search for a fraudster, for example, is much cheaper than the search for a missing person,” says the detective. - If for the search for a fraudster, you can take, say, 50,000 rubles , then for the search for the missing, this amount will increase significantly. In general, investigating a disappearance without a trace is one of the most difficult tasks. Therefore, in my agency prices are negotiable, I do not have average prices for detective services. Once, after a successful case, the client paid a fee and a bonus, and all together it turned out to be a million rubles ".

Interesting post! It was helpful!

 

[Turdubaev Dastan]

Another article about the work of private detectives. PART 1.

«Игра, прямо скажем, грязная». Как работают частные детективы в России

Частных сыщиков в России становится больше — как и проблем, с которыми они сталкиваются. В реальном мире российские Шерлоки Холмсы не борются с королями преступности вроде профессора Мориарти, а вынуждены лавировать между запретами и выполнять странные и порой даже «грязные» заказы.

secretmag.ru

"The game is, frankly, dirty." How private detectives work in Russia
They dream of becoming bounty hunters, but they themselves teeter on the edge of the law.
Anna Cavalli
August 2, 2021

There are more and more private investigators in Russia, as well as the problems they face. In the real world, Russian Sherlock Holmes do not fight kings of crime like Professor Moriarty, but are forced to maneuver between prohibitions and carry out strange and sometimes even “dirty” orders.
_ "The Secret of the Firm" talked to representatives of this market and found out how private detectives become almost the last hope of citizens deceived by fraudsters and why modern Holmes are afraid to participate in high-profile investigations._
How many private detectives are there in Russia and who are they?
According to Rosstat, in recent years the number of private detectives and detective agencies grows .

The statistics sees only officially registered and licensed private detectives. But not everyone is in a hurry to fall under the control of the state - many remain working in the shadows.
The detectives interviewed by Sekret Firmy do not feel that competition in the market has increased in recent years, and there are significantly more (or fewer) colleagues. Perhaps the fact is that the detectives are not a close-knit community, but mostly loners working for themselves.
As a rule, former police officers, investigators, FSB officers and other security officials begin to engage in private investigation - for them this is a better option than being guards in Pyaterochka and Magnitogorsk, shared private detective Vadim Golovin, author of the Noir in the Big City podcast ". Unlike most, Vadim came to the profession from journalism: for many years he worked as a crime reporter.
“I have seen a lot of human grief, different destinies,” says the detective. Once Vadim arrived as part of a film crew at the place of the death of a woman. The contents of the head of the deceased appeared on the pavement. The birds have flown. One of them grabbed a piece of the brain and carried it somewhere, but did not hold the load. As a result, a particle of the deceased literally fell on Vadim's head.
After such stories, it was difficult to switch to another activity due to professional deformation - like for law enforcement officers, Vadim says. He was also attracted to private investigation for another reason: Golovin "remained the need to help," he claims. “Often, people who needed protection and support turned to the editorial office,” the detective says. The state and society turned their backs on them. They came to us simply even with the aim of expressing their pain. The same people come to detectives.”

What clients need​

People come to the detectives with strange requests. For example, they ask to find a lost dog or help deal with neighbors who allegedly poison a potential client in some sophisticated way, says Ekaterina Shumyakina, head of the Two Lives detective agency. Such requests, according to her, are about 10% of the total number of requests.
“Just today, a person wrote to us at the agency who offered to “restore the right to freedom of Alexei Navalny.” I am outside of politics, and such matters are outside my competence, so such requests seem strange to me, ”says Shumyakina.
Meanwhile, in the top of the most popular queries related to adultery. According to detective Maria Ignatova from the Janus agency, the list of the most requested services also includes:

• collection of information about debtors;
• collection of information for civil and criminal cases;
• search for vehicles and cargo;
• financial investigations.

These are traditional requests. And the trend of recent years in the market of detective services is the collection of compromising evidence, adds Vadim Golovin. “Digging for someone has become extremely popular. Many people do this - from businessmen to bandits, ”the detective explains. It happens that people from the media turn to private detectives for help in collecting compromising evidence. Moreover, sometimes they try to use them “in the dark.” “The point is: such people often turn to detectives under the guise of ordinary clients, asking for the address, passport details or other information about some person,” explains Golovin. “For example, they ask detectives to find out where a certain person has flown. Give his data. The detective begins to find out, and then another FBK investigation comes out (an extremist organization banned in the Russian Federation, recognized as a foreign agent - approx. "The Secret of the Firm"), which is based on his information. Data is sought both by opposition media and resources, but also by loyal authorities.
Golovin claims that he has always refused to work with the media because such work is a "huge risk." If the detective will "dig under someone serious", then he may suffer a deplorable fate. “They will file a case, conduct a search and find everything they need,” says Golovin. - In the country, various revelations began to be taken much more seriously. So it’s more expensive for a detective to get involved in politics.”

Another trend in the field of private investigation is inquiries from clients who have suffered from various kinds of fraudulent schemes. According to Ekaterina Shumyakina, now her agency has “an influx of requests from clients” who have become victims of fraudulent tricks. “This is a real boom, this has never happened before,” she notes.
Maria Ignatova agrees with this point of view. According to her, there are really a lot of scammers. According to Shumyakina, this is due to the fact that "scammers have recently become both smarter and more inventive." For example, the following scheme has appeared: scammers call, introduce themselves as prosecutors or officials, and offer subsidies from the state. And in order to receive these supposedly existing subsidies, people are told that they have to pay a certain amount.
According to Shumyakina and Ignatova, you can find almost any scammer. However, in the end, not all of them end up in the dock. Once, clients turned to Shumyakina: the healer tricked their relative into giving 7 million rubles. The healer promised the woman that in return she would perform special rituals and save her loved one, who was dying of cancer. Shumyakina also found other victims of the healer's fraudulent schemes and convinced one of the victims to file a police report. But law enforcement officials to initiate a case refused .
Not all detectives experience this attitude from the police. Detective Ignatova talks about the positive experience of communicating with the police. “If you clearly and clearly convey the facts of fraud, the authorities respond very effectively,” she assures.
Among the customers there are representatives of business, detectives say. For example, to check a candidate for top positions.
“It happens that a person has to be admitted to financial documents, respectively, they want to know everything about him. We can, of course, find out much more than HR,” explains Shumyakina. Her colleague Maria Ignatova says that one day the director of one company asked her to “find out the mindset of her tops, understand their loyalty to the company, find out if there are any thoughts about leaving the organization in the near future.”
In addition, business through detectives sometimes collects "compromising evidence on competitors, opponents, debtors," adds Vadim Golovin. For example, an entrepreneur may not be satisfied with the new caustic audit director who joined the team of his counterparty. He walks around the facility, “inspects everything, asks unnecessary questions” and eventually concludes: “The office is gray, the workers are all on fake contracts, this is not so, this is not so.”
“The businessman understands that now he will simply be merged on formal grounds, and decides to get rid of this auditor. If in the 90s he would have hired killers, today they don’t work like that anymore. Businessmen prefer to eliminate competitors through compromising evidence. This is a relatively safe way. The game, frankly, is dirty, ”Golovin notes.
10 years ago, other requests were much more in demand, says Ekaterina Shumyakina, for example, entrepreneurs asked to check the premises for illegally installed listening devices. Also, the collection of information for business negotiations used to be very popular. According to the expert, now these requests have faded into the background. The detective does not have an exact answer why client preferences have changed.

“It’s not easy to earn decent money here”​

Many go to a private detective, thinking that “now they will make good money, but the fact is that it’s really very difficult to earn decent money here,” detective Golovin notes. “Good money is not given to anyone today. You need to create a name for yourself, engage in image, he explains. “This is hard work that takes more time than investigations. If you are boring, do not know how to speak beautifully, do not expect money.
The range of prices for the services of private detectives is large. This is due to the fact that detectives evaluate their work differently. And there are no uniform evaluation criteria. At the same time, market players interviewed by The Secret complain about dumping. It leads to a growing number of unscrupulous performers who take a tiny advance and leave, sometimes without even starting to fulfill the order, says Maria Ignatova.
“The customer then refuses to pay more advances to other detectives, referring to the experience of working with unscrupulous performers. It can be insulting to hear: “Here you are asking for an advance, I have already paid others, there is no result. Therefore, I am ready to pay you only upon completion of the work,” she says.
Meanwhile, detectives have to spend money on transport and take on other expenses, so an advance is necessary. Its size, as well as the average cost of a particular service, is difficult to name in advance if the detective is not familiar with the case of a particular client, Ekaterina Shumyakina notes. Many factors influence the formation of value.

“The search for a fraudster, for example, is much cheaper than the search for a missing person,” says the detective. - If for the search for a fraudster, you can take, say, 50,000 rubles , then for the search for the missing, this amount will increase significantly. In general, investigating a disappearance without a trace is one of the most difficult tasks. Therefore, in my agency prices are negotiable, I do not have average prices for detective services. Once, after a successful case, the client paid a fee and a bonus, and all together it turned out to be a million rubles ".

It was interesting to know. Thanks!

 

[poles1469]

Блок на кредит: как не стать жертвой мошенников

Россияне могут получить право заранее отказываться от любых займов

news.ru

Block for credit: how not to become a victim of scammers​

Russians can get the right to refuse any loans in advance.
Natalya Petrova
May 11, 2021

Sergey Lantyukhov/NEWS.ru
The State Duma is preparing a bill that should protect Russians from obtaining loans without their knowledge. Through a personal account on the portal of public services, at the bank, probably, and at the MFC, it will be possible to establish a ban on issuing a loan. If the agreement is nevertheless concluded, creditors will not be able to demand payment of the debt or sell it to collectors. The mechanism of a voluntary ban on loans will solve the problem of "foreign debts", but only in part, experts say.
State Duma deputies are developing a bill that gives the Russians the right to refuse in advance any loans and loans that can be issued in their name. The document should provide protection against increasing cases of fraud, writes RBC .
In particular, amendments are expected to be made to the Civil Code, the laws “On Consumer Credit” and “On Credit Histories”. If they are accepted, a citizen will be able to prohibit himself from taking loans of any nature through his personal account at the State Services or with the help of banks. This condition will be written in the credit history.
The channels for accepting applications can be expanded - applications could be submitted through multifunctional centers (MFCs) or credit history bureaus (CHBs).
Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on the Financial Market Anton Guetta said that the relevant departments are currently considering the mechanism for a voluntary ban on loans. He did not name the terms for submitting the draft law to the State Duma, but the source of the publication believes that this will happen during the spring session.
According to the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, in the first quarter of 2020, the number of cyber crimes increased by 84% compared to the same period last year. There are no more recent figures yet, but it is unlikely that the situation has changed much for the better. Banks themselves have repeatedly reported a surge in fraud related directly to loans.
Swindlers increasingly began to issue loans to citizens who are unaware of this. You can become a victim of scammers after losing your mobile phone or passport, as well as leaking personal data. In addition, Russians can be tricked into taking a loan with the help of so-called social engineering and transferring funds to the accounts of scammers. It is practically impossible to return such money through the court, Guetta noted.
If a citizen forbids himself to take a loan in advance, then even if an agreement is concluded, creditors will not be able to demand payment of the debt. The ban can be lifted within ten days after the appeal.


According to experts, the law will be able to close individual cases of fraud, but they consider it right to introduce additional opportunities for the borrower.

In general, the initiative is not bad, since it can save you from problems in the form of loans issued in microfinance organizations for lost documents, says Aleksey Krichevsky, an expert at the Academy of Financial and Investment Management. At the same time, he does not see a full-fledged ban on issuing loans as a more effective solution, but a ban on issuing credit products without personal presence, as well as notifying citizens about requests for credit histories.


Associate Professor of the Department of Civil Law Disciplines of the PRUE GV Plekhanova Natalia Svechnikova considers the initiative under development "deserving attention". According to her, this can provide additional opportunities for protecting the rights and interests of citizens. Another question is that the mechanism of such protection is still unclear.


That is why the ability to set a "block" on loans can only partially solve the problem.

More interesting in this regard, Krichevsky sees the Central Bank's project to block the stolen amounts on the accounts of fraudsters and return them. Even though this will transfer some of the cases from criminal to civil, it will allow citizens to stay with the money, since the detection and recovery rates currently do not exceed 15%, he says. Banks will be able to quickly block accounts and return funds to victims, the expert adds.

Interesting post!

 

[Alexander Konovalenko.]

The law on finding people by geolocation does not work.​

Oleg Leonov, the curator of the search projects for missing people "LizaAlert", appealed to the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in an unusual way — with the help of advertising structures, as in the film"Three billboards on the border of Ebbing, Missouri". On the Garden Ring in Moscow, he posted car platforms with the inscriptions: "6000 missing people die every year with their phone turned on", "The law on geolocation has been adopted, but still does not work", " What do you say, sheriff?"

As explained by Leonov, he has repeatedly appealed to the Minister of the Interior officially, through the media, as well as with the help of a single picket, demanding compliance with the law on the search for missing people by geolocation. This law came into force on July 1, 2021, it provides security forces with access to geolocation data on the phones of missing citizens. Operators are required to provide this data to law enforcement agencies immediately after receiving a missing person report, and police officers can transfer them to volunteers who are engaged in searching for people.
In fact, this law does not work, volunteer organizations require the police to provide data on the geolocation of the missing, but the police do not apply to telecom operators for this data. As a result, those people who could be quickly found do not receive help in time and die.

---

iGuides в Telegram — t.me/igmedia
iGuides в Яндекс.Дзен

 

[Частный детектив Донецк]

Another article about the work of private detectives. PART 1.

«Игра, прямо скажем, грязная». Как работают частные детективы в России

Частных сыщиков в России становится больше — как и проблем, с которыми они сталкиваются. В реальном мире российские Шерлоки Холмсы не борются с королями преступности вроде профессора Мориарти, а вынуждены лавировать между запретами и выполнять странные и порой даже «грязные» заказы.

secretmag.ru

"The game is, frankly, dirty." How private detectives work in Russia
They dream of becoming bounty hunters, but they themselves teeter on the edge of the law.
Anna Cavalli
August 2, 2021

There are more and more private investigators in Russia, as well as the problems they face. In the real world, Russian Sherlock Holmes do not fight kings of crime like Professor Moriarty, but are forced to maneuver between prohibitions and carry out strange and sometimes even “dirty” orders.
_ "The Secret of the Firm" talked to representatives of this market and found out how private detectives become almost the last hope of citizens deceived by fraudsters and why modern Holmes are afraid to participate in high-profile investigations._
How many private detectives are there in Russia and who are they?
According to Rosstat, in recent years the number of private detectives and detective agencies grows .

The statistics sees only officially registered and licensed private detectives. But not everyone is in a hurry to fall under the control of the state - many remain working in the shadows.
The detectives interviewed by Sekret Firmy do not feel that competition in the market has increased in recent years, and there are significantly more (or fewer) colleagues. Perhaps the fact is that the detectives are not a close-knit community, but mostly loners working for themselves.
As a rule, former police officers, investigators, FSB officers and other security officials begin to engage in private investigation - for them this is a better option than being guards in Pyaterochka and Magnitogorsk, shared private detective Vadim Golovin, author of the Noir in the Big City podcast ". Unlike most, Vadim came to the profession from journalism: for many years he worked as a crime reporter.
“I have seen a lot of human grief, different destinies,” says the detective. Once Vadim arrived as part of a film crew at the place of the death of a woman. The contents of the head of the deceased appeared on the pavement. The birds have flown. One of them grabbed a piece of the brain and carried it somewhere, but did not hold the load. As a result, a particle of the deceased literally fell on Vadim's head.
After such stories, it was difficult to switch to another activity due to professional deformation - like for law enforcement officers, Vadim says. He was also attracted to private investigation for another reason: Golovin "remained the need to help," he claims. “Often, people who needed protection and support turned to the editorial office,” the detective says. The state and society turned their backs on them. They came to us simply even with the aim of expressing their pain. The same people come to detectives.”

What clients need​

People come to the detectives with strange requests. For example, they ask to find a lost dog or help deal with neighbors who allegedly poison a potential client in some sophisticated way, says Ekaterina Shumyakina, head of the Two Lives detective agency. Such requests, according to her, are about 10% of the total number of requests.
“Just today, a person wrote to us at the agency who offered to “restore the right to freedom of Alexei Navalny.” I am outside of politics, and such matters are outside my competence, so such requests seem strange to me, ”says Shumyakina.
Meanwhile, in the top of the most popular queries related to adultery. According to detective Maria Ignatova from the Janus agency, the list of the most requested services also includes:

• collection of information about debtors;
• collection of information for civil and criminal cases;
• search for vehicles and cargo;
• financial investigations.

These are traditional requests. And the trend of recent years in the market of detective services is the collection of compromising evidence, adds Vadim Golovin. “Digging for someone has become extremely popular. Many people do this - from businessmen to bandits, ”the detective explains. It happens that people from the media turn to private detectives for help in collecting compromising evidence. Moreover, sometimes they try to use them “in the dark.” “The point is: such people often turn to detectives under the guise of ordinary clients, asking for the address, passport details or other information about some person,” explains Golovin. “For example, they ask detectives to find out where a certain person has flown. Give his data. The detective begins to find out, and then another FBK investigation comes out (an extremist organization banned in the Russian Federation, recognized as a foreign agent - approx. "The Secret of the Firm"), which is based on his information. Data is sought both by opposition media and resources, but also by loyal authorities.
Golovin claims that he has always refused to work with the media because such work is a "huge risk." If the detective will "dig under someone serious", then he may suffer a deplorable fate. “They will file a case, conduct a search and find everything they need,” says Golovin. - In the country, various revelations began to be taken much more seriously. So it’s more expensive for a detective to get involved in politics.”

Another trend in the field of private investigation is inquiries from clients who have suffered from various kinds of fraudulent schemes. According to Ekaterina Shumyakina, now her agency has “an influx of requests from clients” who have become victims of fraudulent tricks. “This is a real boom, this has never happened before,” she notes.
Maria Ignatova agrees with this point of view. According to her, there are really a lot of scammers. According to Shumyakina, this is due to the fact that "scammers have recently become both smarter and more inventive." For example, the following scheme has appeared: scammers call, introduce themselves as prosecutors or officials, and offer subsidies from the state. And in order to receive these supposedly existing subsidies, people are told that they have to pay a certain amount.
According to Shumyakina and Ignatova, you can find almost any scammer. However, in the end, not all of them end up in the dock. Once, clients turned to Shumyakina: the healer tricked their relative into giving 7 million rubles. The healer promised the woman that in return she would perform special rituals and save her loved one, who was dying of cancer. Shumyakina found other victims of the healer's fraudulent schemes and convinced one of the victims to file a police report. But law enforcement officials to initiate a case refused .
Not all detectives experience this attitude from the police. Detective Ignatova talks about the positive experience of communicating with the police. “If you clearly and clearly convey the facts of fraud, the authorities respond very effectively,” she assures.
Among the customers there are representatives of business, detectives say. For example, to check a candidate for top positions.
“It happens that a person has to be admitted to financial documents, respectively, they want to know everything about him. We can, of course, find out much more than HR,” explains Shumyakina. Her colleague Maria Ignatova says that one day the director of one company asked her to “find out the mindset of her tops, understand their loyalty to the company, find out if there are any thoughts about leaving the organization in the near future.”
In addition, business through detectives sometimes collects "compromising evidence on competitors, opponents, debtors," adds Vadim Golovin. For example, an entrepreneur may not be satisfied with the new caustic audit director who joined the team of his counterparty. He walks around the facility, “inspects everything, asks unnecessary questions” and eventually concludes: “The office is gray, the workers are all on fake contracts, this is not so, this is not so.”
“The businessman understands that now he will simply be merged on formal grounds, and decides to get rid of this auditor. If in the 90s he would have hired killers, today they don’t work like that anymore. Businessmen prefer to eliminate competitors through compromising evidence. This is a relatively safe way. The game, frankly, is dirty, ”Golovin notes.
10 years ago, other requests were much more in demand, says Ekaterina Shumyakina, for example, entrepreneurs asked to check the premises for illegally installed listening devices. Also, the collection of information for business negotiations used to be very popular. According to the expert, now these requests have faded into the background. The detective does not have an exact answer why client preferences have changed.

“It’s not easy to earn decent money here”​

Many go to a private detective, thinking that “now they will make good money, but the fact is that it’s really very difficult to earn decent money here,” detective Golovin notes. “Good money is not given to anyone today. You need to create a name for yourself, engage in image, he explains. “This is hard work that takes more time than investigations. If you are boring, do not know how to speak beautifully, do not expect money.
The range of prices for the services of private detectives is large. This is due to the fact that detectives evaluate their work differently. And there are no uniform evaluation criteria. At the same time, market players interviewed by The Secret complain about dumping. It leads to a growing number of unscrupulous performers who take a tiny advance and leave, sometimes without even starting to fulfill the order, says Maria Ignatova.
“The customer then refuses to pay more advances to other detectives, referring to the experience of working with unscrupulous performers. It can be insulting to hear: “Here you are asking for an advance, I have already paid others, there is no result. Therefore, I am ready to pay you only upon completion of the work,” she says.
Meanwhile, detectives have to spend money on transport and take on other expenses, so an advance is necessary. Its size, as well as the average cost of a particular service, is difficult to name in advance if the detective is not familiar with the case of a particular client, Ekaterina Shumyakina notes. Many factors influence the formation of value.

“The search for a fraudster, for example, is much cheaper than the search for a missing person,” says the detective. - If for the search for a fraudster, you can take, say, 50,000 rubles , then for the search for the missing, this amount will increase significantly. In general, investigating a disappearance without a trace is one of the most difficult tasks. Therefore, in my agency prices are negotiable, I do not have average prices for detective services. Once, after a successful case, the client paid a fee and a bonus, and all together it turned out to be a million rubles ".

It turned out interesting!

 

[Alexander Konovalenko.]

How private detectives work in Russia-part-1.

There are several hundred specialists without a license for one official detective. The fact is that detectives have no special rights — they have continuous duties. Nevertheless, they manage to earn quite a lot. Nikita Aronov found out how.
"Do you know what identity theft is?" asks Sergey Lyubimenko, a young man in glasses, a jacket and a red tie. On his desk is a bronze statuette of an archetypal detective, thin, wearing a hat and a raincoat with the collar turned up. But the owner of the office himself is more like a bodyguard with the squariness of his shoulders. Pennants of various law enforcement agencies, including the now-defunct Federal Drug Control Service, where Lyubimenko himself once worked, are hung on the walls of the room. In 2011, he left drug control, became a private detective and now runs the Top Secret agency. He also heads the public organization "Association of Private Detectives of Russia" and the Association of Detective Professionals.
The story of identity theft looks like this. A person bought an apartment through realtors, with viewing and checking, paid more than 60 million rubles for it, and when he arrived to move in, he met a real owner there, whose identity was stolen by an imaginary seller.
"It turned out that he settled in the apartment under the guise of a tenant. After that, I made myself a fake passport in the name of the real owner. With this passport, I ordered duplicates of all apartment documents for myself and made a deal on them — " says Sergey Lyubimenko. - The deceived buyer wrote a statement to the police. Only the law enforcement officers in this particular case did not show themselves from the best side. Many of our colleagues in law enforcement agencies are competent specialists who are ready to help, but, unfortunately, not all of them are like that. In general, the case was initiated for almost three weeks, during which time we ourselves identified the criminal and localized him."
The victim personally organized the departure of the police for the detention. And then the unexpected happened.
"The first time the law enforcement officers were late, and the fraudster was no longer in place. The second time, when his location was established again, the police cordoned off the apartment, but the fraudster climbed over the balcony and disappeared while the valiant guards opened the door. The fact is that not very experienced employees came to the detention yet, who simply did not take into account that this is potentially possible. Four years have passed since then. The villain didn't seem to be caught."
It turns out that the client not only lost 60 million rubles. on the purchase of an apartment, but also spent more than a million on detective services. And all in vain.
The investigation is being conducted.
It's a good thing that the police generally began to cooperate with private detectives. They do not always do this.
"In my practice, there is not a single example when a fraudster would get a term for something. Even criminal cases usually do not happen, — says the head of the detective agency Two Lives Ekaterina Shumyakina. - Now scammers feel completely safe, because the police simply refuse to consider such cases. They call it a civil-legal relationship and send the victims to court. Although criminal intent is usually evident. And it is quite possible to qualify the case, if not under article 159 (fraud), then under Article 165 (causing property damage by deception or abuse of trust)."
An illustrative example: an 83-year-old grandmother came to Ekaterina, from whom crooked lawyers lured all her savings — about 700 thousand rubles. Her son died, barely having time to pay the mortgage, but the bank lost its license. And it was quite easy to finally close the mortgage issue. But the lawyers, to whom the woman initially turned for help, simply pulled money, scaring that otherwise she would lose her home altogether. Ekaterina helped her to go to court and win it (she also works as a lawyer in the courts), her grandmother was awarded 716 thousand rubles.
"But she did not receive this money, because the company that deceived her has since been re-registered. And no criminal case was initiated against the fraudsters."

Another example. The healer pulled 7 million rubles from a relative of a person dying of cancer for certain rituals designed to prolong his life. When the rest of the relatives found out about this, they turned to a detective. Shumyakina quickly found three more victims and even convinced one of them to file a police report. There were two victims, the amount of fraud is huge, but the police did not have any progress and there is no progress.
"The police write a refusal to initiate a case, we cancel it through the prosecutor's office, the police close the case again, we cancel [the refusal] again. And so on indefinitely, " says Ekaterina Shumyakina.
She is one of the most media-oriented Russian detectives. He willingly appears on television, conducts safety lessons for schoolchildren. The popularity reached the point that somehow Ekaterina was recognized in a restaurant, they greeted her and asked who she had come to track down today. Now the detective works only in a wig, which turns her from a brown-haired woman into a highlighted blonde.
Her biography is interesting. Once Ekaterina stubbornly sought to become a police operative: this work was considered purely male. I have achieved it. In the 2000s, she caught a famous Moscow maniac, and in December 2010, with a scandal, she put a statement on the table. It happened after Shumyakina for a long time proved the innocence of the defendant, who was accused of sexual violence against his daughter. And two years later, investigators from the prosecutor's office resuscitated the already closed case and did everything to put the man away.
"I realized that I no longer want to work in a system whose task is to plant, not to establish the truth. Six months after my dismissal, I was in despair, and in the summer of 2011, I decided to become a private detective, " says Ekaterina.
Now she is one of the few representatives of this profession who openly talk about the problems of the police. The rest prefer allegories — they still have to work and work with people in uniform.
"Now the law does not even imply the cooperation of a detective and an investigation. This leads to the fact that the detective brings evidence to the investigator in a criminal case, and he says: "What do you want from me?" and often does not attach them. Then the detective can go to court at the request of the client. But the judge does not owe him anything, he can attach evidence at his discretion. If the detective is from the defense side, he often does not attach it," explains another female detective Natalia Kovaleva. Unlike Ekaterina Shumyakina, she never takes pictures and usually does not give interviews. Therefore, he can still work without a wig.
Natalia is a rare example of a detective who has never served in the law enforcement agencies. A psychologist by training, in 2000 she came as an assistant to a detective firm. Now Natalia has her own agency called "Nat Pinkerton", where mostly former operas work. In general, detectives love beautiful literary stamps. The Puaro agency was opened in Voronezh, and Agatha Christie was opened in Magnitogorsk. And Sherlock Holmes in a branded cap with two visors is depicted on the sign of every second detective office, including Nat Pinkerton.
One of Natalia Kovaleva's specializations is just collecting evidence in criminal cases. Seven years ago, her subordinates helped to investigate a high-profile Moscow attempt on the businesswoman Nadezhda Naberezhnye Chelny.
"We were the first to prove with the help of a psychological and psychiatric examination that her driver and security guard Vadim Kotov was involved in the case. A blurry video from the entrance security camera led to his trail. There it was noticeable that two huge men who attacked a woman did not react at all to the driver, who was at arm's length from them. It said only one thing: these people are familiar, - Natalia Kovaleva recalls. — To my great happiness, the judge attached our evidence, the Cat was given 14 years."
Of course, it is not necessary to be either Holmes or Pinkerton to notice this, but official investigators often do not do this either. And if the case is high-profile, and the detective helps to put the criminal away, then the evidence collected by private detectives is used.
"Of course, if law enforcement officers have the opportunity and time, they will meet you halfway. They do not need an extra "capercaillie", — says Sergey Lyubimenko. — The problem is that the police, of course, have the ability to conduct operational and investigative actions, but often there is simply no time. Unfortunately, there is a very large shortage of personnel, the processes are bureaucratic, so everything is complicated and not fast."
Outlawed.
According to the law "On private detective and security activities", the possibilities of private detectives are limited to only eight points. They have the right to collect evidence in civil and criminal cases, search for missing citizens and lost property, protect trademarks and trade secrets, collect information for business negotiations, check the personal data of applicants with their written consent. Plus, since 2011, detectives have been allowed to search for debtors, their property and children hidden from their mother or father by another parent within the framework of enforcement proceedings.

You can't do anything else. For example, it is allowed to monitor a person only with his written consent. It is even more forbidden to listen to phones and view correspondence. Again, detectives have no right to request information from the police and other official bodies. But in Russia there is a black market of databases and all sorts of services for "punching" phones. But this is all illegal. Therefore, detectives almost do not talk publicly about their methods. How, for example, did they find the criminal who first stole the identity, and then ran away through the balcony? "Thanks to the experience of operational investigative activities, motivation and desire," Sergey Lyubimenko answers vaguely.
Detectives are ready to openly discuss the methods of work only anonymously.
"Everything we do is more or less illegal," explains one of the private detectives. — For example, I have a bot in Telegram, a subscription for a month costs 2.5 thousand rubles. By the number of the car or phone, it gives out data about the person and his photo. Very convenient. I myself have been working for a long time, but I haven't taken a license for 15 years. What for? With a license, only the penalty is higher. If you, for example, follow someone, you will get off with a fine. And the detective will be put in jail for the same thing."
"Today, a detective's license, in addition to the opportunity to officially work with legal entities, practically does not give any advantages in comparison with an ordinary citizen. It only creates a lot of difficulties: this is an additional criminal and administrative responsibility, a tax burden, " Lyubimenko agrees.
So now about 900 detectives are registered throughout the country. A few years ago, it was twice as much. But in reality, a huge mass of people work in this area. They call themselves financial or economic intelligence, provide legal advice or are listed in the security services of corporations, and sometimes they work just by themselves, without contracts. Sergey Lyubimenko believes that this is a total of about 100 thousand people.
"It is certainly important for the state to restore order in this industry, to bring these people out of the shadows, at least in order to understand who these people are and how many of them there are," he is sure.
A nice bonus could be the opportunity to receive some not very secret data from the authorities.
"For example, a man came to me. He wants to find the mother of his common-law wife. But I can't go to the police and make a request about her last place of residence. Since the woman did not go missing, the police will not look for her themselves, nor will the Ministry of Emergency Situations. And who will be there? Only a private detective. Why such secrecy is unclear. You have all my data. My fingerprints. You know why I need this information, that I'm not going to expose Petrov and Boshirov. If, God forbid, something happens, you know who to blame. Finally, make this request for 300, for 500 rubles. Everything will be a penny in the budget, " says detective Oleg Pytov emotionally.
This small, bald-shaven man with quick dark eyes specializes in adultery and searching for relatives. On his left forearm is an army tattoo with the name of his beloved girl, because of which he was once almost denied a job in the police. But then they still took the SVAO to the criminal investigation department. And then the story is banal. A child was born, it became crowded in the odnushka, Pytov began to ask for an office apartment. The bosses replied that he was a Muscovite, and there was not enough housing even for visiting employees. Pytov was offended and went into private investigation.
However, the situation may change, because Anatoly Vyborny, a State Duma deputy from former prosecutors, has developed a draft of a new law on detective activity. The document is currently being actively discussed on various platforms, but has not yet been submitted anywhere. The main innovations are expected to be four. First, allow detectives to submit requests to the authorities, and the authorities will have to respond to these requests in due time. Secondly, it is planned to introduce the concept of a detective secret in the manner of a lawyer's secret, so that a private investigator has the right not to disclose information received from a client to anyone. Thirdly, detectives want to be allowed to visit and interview suspects, accused and detained in places of deprivation of liberty. Finally, the concept of a detective organization is being revived. The fact is that now, according to the law, they do not exist, and a detective can only be an individual entrepreneur, which did not prevent either Lyubimenko, Kovaleva, Shumyakina, or dozens of other detectives from opening their own agencies. "If the law is adopted by at least 30%, it will significantly make my life easier as a practitioner," Natalia Kovaleva is sure.

 

[Alexander Konovalenko.]

An old article from November-2019. - maybe someone has already read it-but I think it is interesting. PART-2.

Love, sclerosis and checking applicants: how private detectives work in Russia.​

There are several hundred specialists without a license for one official detective. The fact is that detectives have no special rights — they have continuous duties. Nevertheless, they manage to earn quite a lot. Nikita Aronov found out how.

"He will eat something, but who will give it to him!" -Sergey Lyubimenko quotes an old joke skeptically. — It is completely unclear what the bill will look like in the third reading. The opinion of the regulator — Rosgvardiya-is very important here. According to my information, she has a different point of view on the development of the industry."
The patriarch of the investigation.
However, not all members of the detective community rely on the new law. Many people are satisfied with the current state of affairs. Among them is Oleg Zimin, who worked as a private detective, even when there was no law about them at all. In 1989, the first private detective bureau "Alex"appeared in the USSR. Zimin, who had just left the criminal investigation department near Moscow, hurried to get a job there.
"I remember my first case. My grandmother called from the nomenclature house on Kutuzovsky, the one where Brezhnev lived. She wanted to find out how her 17-year-old granddaughter spends her time, whether she has fallen into bad company. We agreed that 250 rubles will be expenses and 250 rubles-a fee. For understanding: 250 rubles is my monthly salary in the criminal investigation department, - says Oleg Zimin. — I was 24 years old at the time. I spent the day in their yard, talked to the girls and guys and received extremely positive characteristics about my granddaughter. Satisfied with my work, I called my client and arranged to meet with her the next day. At the meeting, I was carefully listened to, they said thank you, but my grandmother refused to pay the fee, saying that I fulfilled her instructions too quickly."
, Then in 1992, the law on private detective and security activities was adopted, the same one that they finally want to replace now. About a year later, they started issuing licenses. And Zimin got one of the first. After that, he founded his own agency ZOV.

Oleg is a man of frankly operatic appearance: short-cropped graying hair, an open coat, a blue sweater under it. On Petrovka, it looks to the place. But we are not going to the house No. 38, but to the building of the Institute of Typology and Experimental Design, where Oleg Zimin rents a small office. The name of the main police street makes a magical impression on him and his customers. It is here that he always holds his first meetings with them, despite the fact that he lives in Balashikha. Detective Zimin generally tries not to lose touch with the authorities.
"While the Day of Criminal Investigation was officially celebrated, every year I found out from the head of the criminal police of the Balashikha Department of Internal Affairs how many young operas had entered the service, and at the banquet, I and the head of the ESD of the Balashikha Department of Internal Affairs solemnly handed over the operational holsters I bought to each of the newcomers," says the detective.
His idol, of course, is Sherlock Holmes. Also-Soviet "experts". But Zimin does not like modern police serials: they depict law enforcement officers too negatively. Surely someone is involved in corruption.
Oleg Zimin is not only the patriarch of the industry, but also the first vice-president of the Association of Russian Detectives (ARD), which, of course, competes with the organization of Sergey Lyubimenko. Both of them dislike each other.
Twice a year, the ARD holds conferences, which bring together detectives from all over the country, as well as famous foreign detectives. The most important thing is to look at each other, because detectives often involve colleagues from other cities in the investigation.
"The first day we have a check-in and a board. The scientific and practical part takes the whole second day — " says Oleg Zimin. — The third day is a closed part of the conference, only for ARD members: we decide on the admission of new members, discuss our internal issues, in the evening there is a solemn banquet. The fourth day is a cultural program. Last November we had an interesting excursion to the MOORE Museum, and this year we are meeting in St. Petersburg, we will visit Tsarskoye Selo."
How much the services of a detective cost, none of them will clearly say. Zimin is no exception here. According to him, he once earned more than 3 million rubles for one case. It was a search for a kidnapped entrepreneur.
The earnings of detectives vary. Oleg Pytov talks about an average income of 100 thousand rubles. Sergey Lyubimenko calls the figure 150-250 thousand rubles. Natalia Kovaleva claims that her subordinates receive 50-100 thousand rubles a month, and Ekaterina Shumyakina assures that she herself earned 1.6 million rubles last year.
Fake office and fake lamps.
The nature of the work of Russian detectives is changing over the years.
"Five or seven years ago, we had to look for runaway children much more often, now there are fewer of them. I think this is due to the fact that guardianship has become better, " says Natalia Kovaleva. — There are fewer black realtors who, by threats or deception, forced a person to rewrite an apartment, and then tried to remove him away from Moscow, to a village or a small town. And we were looking for these people there. The peak of such crimes occurred in 2009-2010. But now we have much more corporate orders."
There are even new ways of fraud.
"Over the past two years, several people have already come to us with the same scheme of artificial bankruptcy of the company," says Kovaleva. - Fraudsters forge documents of an outsourced accounting department. Bankruptcy is carried out on behalf of shell companies, registered for random people, often homeless people. And the scammers themselves act on powers of attorney, often fake."
Here the task of the detective is to find the nominal owner, the homeless person, and bring him to law enforcement agencies, to the department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, for example, so that he explains that he is not related to criminals. Natalia and her subordinates are looking for them and finding them. Usually this is done by a squad of five or seven detectives who comb the flophouses and station squares.
"And not long ago, an unusual case occurred with one of our large corporate clients," Natalia continues. — He was invited to negotiate in a chic office and promised to assist in concluding the tender. Everything was perfect: well-made documents, knowledgeable employees. But our client is an analyst. He was attentive and noticed that the owner of the office could not find the switch in the meeting room the first time. Then he suspected something was wrong and turned to us."
Detectives quickly found out that this office is rented for daily rent and it was rented for three days specifically to deceive their client.
"We used to investigate a lot of fraud cases, now there are more internal corporate stories," says Oleg Zimin. - For example, such. An unidentified person wrote off 16 million rubles from the company's account. The victims were lucky: they managed to cancel the operation and return the money. My task was to find out who did it. Initially, it was necessary to understand where the penetration came from, from outside or from inside. The invited technical specialists came to the unequivocal conclusion that the enemy is inside the company. The training of personnel — current and former — has begun, and hard, painstaking work has begun."

The detective found out that the company fired the sysadmin eight months ago. He also came under suspicion, Zimin began to inquire about his previous jobs. It turned out that there were similar attempts of theft in four companies out of five. And in one of them, he was even caught by the hand, but quietly fired. The management of the injured company transferred the collected material to the police for initiating a criminal case. The fate of his detective, however, is unknown.
Often firms attract detectives to combat counterfeit goods. For example, you need to find manufacturers of fake printer cartridges or find out where fake fluorescent lamps appeared at a music school in one of the small towns of the Arkhangelsk region. Oleg Zimin loves such investigations very much.

Fake diplomas and wayward children.
Even if state law enforcement agencies start working like clockwork and independently catch fraudsters and search for murderers, detectives will not remain idle. There are entire industries that no one, except private owners, claims to.
"There are always tasks when a person, for example, suspects his household members of stealing from a safe. We can take their fingerprints, check the fingerprints inside and establish that no one got in there and my grandfather has sclerosis, " says Natalia Kovaleva. "Although there have been cases when theft from the safe was confirmed."
A stable source of income for many detective agencies is checking applicants for companies. The price is 1.5-2.5 thousand rubles per questionnaire. The frames are usually checked using open sources. For example, in the database of bailiffs. If it is clear that a person has huge debts, and he goes to a very modest salary, the employer should be warned about this: there is a risk that the employee will start stealing or taking kickbacks. Detectives also write requests to universities to check whether the applicant really received the education that he indicated in the diploma. Although no one is obliged to answer the inquiries of detectives, educational institutions usually give an answer. Oleg Pytov somehow identified a fake doctor in this way.
However, Pytov himself believes that the main thing is family affairs.
"As long as there is love, unfaithful husbands and wives, children who are not traveling and old pensioners who have lost their minds, a private detective will have something to eat," he likes to repeat.
,By the way, in about 30-40% of cases, clients ' suspicions about their spouses turn out to be unfounded.
"Here is an example from my practice," Pytov recalls. — The man began to stay at work often. He came home tired, exhausted, as if he had been plowed. Well, of course-a mistress. They began to observe. Two days of work — home. Then we see that the object goes to the Dynamo stadium and goes to tennis. I thought I'd found someone there. But no, there are only men in the classes. It turned out that his wife and all their friends play tennis very well, and he was ashamed. So he went to study in secret from his wife."
Another case: the husband had a son from his first marriage, he periodically went to him, and the wife thought — to her mistress. But in general, Oleg Pytov has a lot of unpleasant stories in stock. And about elderly parents who are addicted to gambling, and about a 13-year-old girl with whom an adult woman has an affair. This case was managed to unravel thanks to correspondence in VKontakte.
New technologies simplify the life of detectives. The same Pytov now conducts most of his investigations from a working computer.
"Probably, any detective, as well as an investigator, is grateful to the creators of social networks. After all, nowadays a huge block of information about people is in the public domain, " Natalia Kovaleva shares.
But unfaithful husbands and wives are actively using carsharing these days, which greatly complicates surveillance. And Oleg Pytov was recently approached with a case of real cyber-blackmail.
"The boyfriend of a Ukrainian webcam model came to me. It turned out that a special website posted photos and videos of the girl and links to her pages on social networks, — says the detective. — They started writing to her, extorting $500. The client asked me to delete this information from the network. But I don't have such an opportunity. The only thing I advised is not to pay extortionists."
In many cases, frequent detectives are powerless. But the conversation with Oleg Pytov has to be finished quickly, because a new client has come, a plump black-haired lady with sad eyes. Yesterday she called the detective, and today she flew from abroad for a consultation. While people are jealous of each other and are looking for a job, a detective will definitely not remain idle.