Thank you for joining me today for part two of our government undercover operations case. We'll be sharing some of our trade craft on setting up an undercover case. And you are watching or listening to the Private Investigator Experience Podcast. I'm your host, Phil Little. This is your first time with me. I work my cases through the lens of my military, law enforcement, intelligence service and global security background. Then I add just a touch of my biblical worldview to come up with solutions for our clients. After 102 years of operations at West Coast Detectives, now we have learned a thing or two. I'm continuing From episode 60, as I laid out and set up, I'll wait for the client contacting us, the first steps to going operational. To close to that episode, I was out of state, up in the Northwest, for a meeting with the clients at their location at a joint military complex where one of its functions was to overhaul the space shuttle after flights. Thursday morning, 8am. As I approached the main gate of the complex, I observed a typical military police function with uniformed officers, with lines for cars, with stickers, and the line for guests. As I observed the cars in front of me, I was also watching the line for the base personnel to see how tight the security was on the pre approved cars. I noted that the cars were being stopped and badges being checked. And some cars were having their trunks opened for inspection. Seems to be an effective security operation, not lax, as I've been told that security was at the base. This was a good indication that at least at the front gate they were being observant. When I pulled up to the gate, the officer asked for my ID and checked it out against my face and went inside and a few minutes came back with a pass and told me to go through the gate, pull to the left of the line, and then And someone would come to lead me to the administration office, I soon, in a conference room, with a team that had come to Los Angeles with two other individuals. They told me the backgrounds. They prepared all the four people who did the interviews. For the new hires and to let them know if I had any questions, they briefed me on the duties for the three agents on the shifts and breakdown of the personnel working there now, including ethnics, backgrounds, male, female, etc. And that's very important when we send in undercover agents, we want to make sure the person we send in fits into the force. And as an example, if we had an all male workforce, we wouldn't send a female agent in, or vice versa. So, we want to make sure that we knew everything we needed to know. And This would be given to my team when I got back to L. A. so they could use that in the selection of the agent's process. My next step for being there was to survey the whole physical location of the base. It was large. It was going to take several hours. It was laid out with buildings and hangars and test areas. It was all over the place. And there was some spacecraft standing up in the air, laying down on the ground as they were being worked on in all kinds of areas. So there was lots of places to look for security breaches. They gave me a guide who would go with me to deal with anyone who might question, what are you doing there? And I'd had that happen on other assignments. If they included all the details on developing this case, it would be a book. So I'm just going to have to give you some highlights over the next few hours. I saw many areas that were not covered with cameras or good lighting and hidden areas where people could hide out and do drugs or other illegal activities. So I observed that the employees were free to move around out of their work areas where there wasn't any restrictions or anybody paying attention. And this could be a problem because there was areas that there were classified documents in So around the shuttle and engines and other functions of the operation. After a notebook full of my survey notes, many photos, and I was able to go up to one of the spacecrafts, which had been to places beyond, just returned from outer space. I touched it and, Immediately, my imagination went to soaring into the heavens, and of course, I was at controls. I soon snapped back to my Earth life as my guide asked if, Do you have everything you need? And we went back to the office. Picked up the reports. Some maps and drawings of the base and headed to the airport and home as I briefed my team on what I had learned, so they could factor it into their agent briefing material, my mind was racing through our procedures. What had we missed? Was there a hole someplace that could cause us problems? Selecting an cover agent is one of the most important in our team members. Due to their being out on the road, unsupervised, they So if they went rogue, or acted like a lone ranger, that could prove disastrous for us and the client. Over the years, we've developed a selection process with full psychological training. All kinds of tests that we can think of, adding additional things for a specific assignment. And things we've learned from past mistakes. One I'll never forget. We had an agent. The past flying colors, all the background, polygraph, psychological testing, was a week on the assignment. I got a call from him saying, I have a problem. What's that? And he said, well, I'm getting acquainted with the people here. They're becoming my friends. I don't think I could report on them if they did illegal activities. And I said, you said what? I reminded them of their. They had taken it to do the job. And to report they were there as an undercover agent. So we pulled the person out, put in a new agent, and then immediately what I did was sit down with our psychiatrist, Dr. Bruce Dantle, and we reworked our psychological testing. Putting in some things that would help alert us to someone that might have this trait, tendency in the future. And we also use it with our interviewing, trying to find out if people might have that situation of not being able to, uh, do their jobs and their coverage because they were looking at them as friends. Then the last step we would do is a polygraph, making sure we had everything covered with them, there wasn't something we needed to know about their background. And then, when they come off the assignment, we would do an exit polygraph, just to make sure there wasn't something that had gone on that could affect us later with the client or with agents. Another of our trade crafts was to use the agent on the inside, the undercover agent, only to gather information. And then if criminal activities was found, we would build the case with that information, with outside investigators, so the agent can be pulled out of the insignment without having to testify and anyone knowing they were there. This made the client very happy, so they didn't have to deal with the fallout using UC. And we can then use the agents in new assignments. You know, even in an area as big as Los Angeles, it was amazing how agents would run into someone they had met on a past assignment. Now I'm going to summarize the next six months. We had two in house agents who fit into the profile, one having military experience. The third agent we recruited by the second week. And we were able to get all three briefed and did the role play and they set up to go to the location. We set up the living quarters and had rental cars waiting for the agents. At this point, they still didn't know each other. The agent set up their own interviews at the client location and all three, due to their preparation, And all of the hours spent in role play passed with flying colors, and we're all hired within three days. That's what preparation does in an undercover assignment. Now, they all needed security clearance, if they had them, they had to be updated. And this process takes about six months with the backlog and all. So they had no issues with that because the assignment would be over probably by that time, so there wasn't even any questions come up. part of our training with the agents when they go in. become an employee. They're not a secret agent. They're not there to start asking questions, hiding around corners, looking around, trying to see what they can find because that would give them away. The best agent, really an undercover agent, is not a seasoned investigator because they don't have traits, how they look, how they act, how they stand even, that a streetwise person can pick them out as a So the best agent is not someone Who's been a police officer necessarily, or a lot of police work. They have common sense. They understand the undercover role and how they're to operate. So we tell the agents, if it takes a week or a month, don't do anything. It's going to give yourself away. Be an employee, get involved, get to know the people. Then, after you have the trust, you can start reporting. And that really works effectively. And interesting enough in this assignment, the agent with the military background was on the swing ship. Within 30 days, he was promoted to the ship supervisor. That was great for the client, made us look good, and also the agent was doing a great job. And that gave him a lot more mobility to move around, get into a lot of other areas and see what might be going on. Both of the other agents on the assignment on the day and in the night shift. We're in areas that they could move around a lot. We weren't this isolated. Sometimes an employee would be working in one small area and because of the workload, they couldn't get out. We didn't want our agents placed in a position like that. Over the next six months. We developed over 50 employees who were involved in using drugs, some selling, some using, other illegal activities taking parts or equipment out getting it off base each was documented and evid evidenced and built by outside investigators during surveillance and other techniques and then that would allow us to bring in the local police at the end of the assignment to press charges when that was required. We also documented security breaches and recommended fixes for them, which would be done at the end of the assignment. This investigation, about three months into it, Two of our agents reported two employees to be working together. It seemed that they were trying to hide their connection. They were seen observing and talking in areas they shouldn't have been in and what appeared to be taking photos with a small cameras after I was alerted by that, by two of our agents. Agents who didn't know each other, went up to the location and had a meeting with all three of our agents, introduced them, then put together a plan to work on the two subjects, with our agents still a normal work relation inside. So they wouldn't be seen as as good friends. The two subjects were seen making notes, taking photos with small cameras, and they were moving around in all kinds of areas where it wasn't cameras or security people. And they both had access to the spacecraft, as well as the engine, other components where the parts were at, and in offices where there were diagrams, drawings, and other plans. We set up surveillance on the subjects. They went separately. Didn't have any outside obvious connections, it seemed. The break came after a few weeks on the assignment. That they were both followed independently to a diner about 10 miles from the base. One of our agents went inside and observed the other table with a third man at the restaurant. They were talking in hushed tones and looking around a lot. It was another red flag that something was going on. When they left the diner, the two employees came out first and about five minutes later, The man they met came out. Our agents were able to get many phonographs, be able to identify him, got his fire license number. Both of the surveillance agents followed him very discreetly. It wasn't long that the subject did actions that suggested he was looking to see if he was being tailed. Fortunately, I had set up a local helicopter service in the event we needed air support. and when I was notified. At this diner meeting, when it started, I alerted the service to get the chopper in the air and go to the location where the agents were at. Fortunately, the chopper got there in time, still had plenty of fuel to follow the suspect. When they left the diner and saw as soon as something started to do these tail checks, the agents backed off and the chopper took over, followed him to his location and then directed the agents to that location. Once the agents got there, they gathered all the details they could to the local area, from the house to neighbors to what was going on. They sent all their data into the office. Within hours, we found this man didn't exist. There was nothing on him. The social security number came back to a dead person. Red flags all over the place. We checked with the client and found that the two employees were fairly new hires, and their security checks were in progress, but there was a backlog like the ones with our agents, so nothing had come up yet in HR. I had had our research team do a deep dive on the two, and what they had put on their applications could not be verified. It was time to get the FBI involved in these three. I prepared a complete package with all the data, videos, information from the surveillance and the backgrounds, and Then I went up to the client's location and the client rep and myself met with the FBI off site, handed them over the file with all the data, photographs, surveillance information, answered their questions, and now it was in their hands. This was one that I didn't have to worry about any further. we were approaching the end of six months and decided to wind down the investigation. Well, at the end of an undercover operation, we would go in with interrogation teams. And I, I, I think an approach was a suspect when I was interviewing them. I took the low key, I got acquainted with them, I asked them how they liked their job, how long they'd been there, their family, about their kids, because I already knew all about their families, I would ask them about, oh, how do you like this place you live in, and they would kind of, oh, how did you know that? And then, I would get Into it. If they're relaxed and calm, Oh, this isn't going to be so bad. Then I would say, you know, we've been putting you to bed and waking you up for the last few months. And I've got all the data right here. I have this file in front of me. But we know pretty much everything you've been through. So let's start from the beginning. Why don't you just fill me in? And you know, most of the time they would. And give me all the facts they thought it was from the outside surveillance. They didn't have any idea. It could have been an undercover, which was now this approach worked extremely well. Now, if we had people where we're going to be prosecuted. We would have the local police there. And after we got through our interviews and had signed statements, we turned the bullet to the locals for prosecution. If there was just company violations, you know how serious we would either give them warnings or terminate them and have set up with HR. I had learned over the years, and I did this a few times, when I had a suspect employee that did some things in violation of the company, after meeting with that person. Talking to them, analyzing, sitting with them a couple hours. You know, I really felt, you know, this person should be given a second chance. Every time I did that, it wasn't often, but I did, I remember finding out later, maybe a year later, that that person had become one of the best employees that they have. So I wasn't the hard nosed cop that everybody was going to jail. There was a time that you needed to have some common sense and some compassion and use it in a, in a very After we had finished all the interrogations, then we had a report we prepared for the client, it's about 150 pages in this case, and everything in there, we found out hundreds of reports from our agents, the three agents were there for six months, and then after the client reviewed the report, we would usually go in and help get the security system up to date, changes made, and And so that they wouldn't be calling us back in a year to do the same thing over again. The agents resigned, came back to LA, now we were able to put them in another assignment. You know, I welcome your comments on any of the platforms, or you can send me an email directly at plittlepi777 at gmail. com. Now, if you've had undercover experience or you've been a company that's used undercover, what do you think about it? Any comments about any of the case work you would like to find out in the kind of things we do? Also, would you help me by liking? Sharing, subscribing, and you know the drill, that notification bell for future posts. Also, I've met people and they tell me, Oh, you know, I had this problem a year ago. I didn't know a PI could help me with that. So if you're one of those that maybe you have a problem in your family or business and you say, if a PI could help. Well. Send me the background on the information, what you have, what's going on to P little P I 777 at gmail. com and I'll get back to you after I review it possible solutions. Remember, be safe. May God bless you, your family. May God bless America.