PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR EXPERIENCE: Episode 111

This post is about one of my experiences in Paris, France when I was building our Intelligence gathering operation around the world. Thank you for liking, sharing and subscribing. 

Transcript

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Thank you for joining me today on the Private Investigator Experience Podcast. I'm your host, Phil Little, and on this channel I talked about the cases in life of a international private investigator, as well as a look at events out around the world that could affect us here at home, particularly in relation to our security and protection of our families. I look at all the cases I work on or the events that I analyze through the lens of my military law enforcement intelligence service, and global security background. Then I just add some biblical worldview be to get an understanding of how that can affect us today in the time we live in now, almost November, 2025. My hasn't this year gone fast. I've got a sweater on. It's cool. It was in the low forties here last night. Great. I'm excited about that. The humidity's gone. So it's a great time to be alive and if you're out working cases anywhere, it sure makes it a lot nicer sitting in a car if you're on surveillance or moving around. It's much different than having the hot, humid weather. So anyway, now that we've got that way, I've had. The privilege of working out around the world. It's a little different than just the local pi. A lot of magazines and articles that were written about me in television shows I did over the years called me the Protector to the Stars because we had a lot of celebrity clients studios that went all the way back to our founding in the 1920s. Taking over the agency in 1977, I took the approach to build our international operation along with the national operation that we had. So I set out starting in Paris with a family friend who was a French national police to build a human. Driven organization on the ground that I would be able to get information out on a timely basis if I had interest in that particular country or I had clients that were interested in that country. Harris was where I started. Now, another advantage I enjoyed when the type of work I'm in, that I had local people in each country. Went to all over the world and I didn't go as a tourist because I had a local. Operative there who lived there, and I went with him and blended in, like in France in those days, I guess it's still somewhat today, but really the face of the ugly American in France was not, was it to be American, they thought. And I saw some situations with Americans traveling, how they treated others. And I was, I would cringe it when I would see this. No wonder we have a reputation and if you were American and the French know, they would never talk to you in English. Even if they knew it, they would make you stumble around. So I had the benefit of going around that though, I, even though I didn't speak French, I had people with me that did, that lived there. So we went to the places that Earth would never go down. Little, the back alleys into. Little hole in the wall, family restaurants that were only French people in there, in Paris, and that happened all over the world where I would go. I enjoyed that, seeing the real flavor of a country, and you get to know and understand the people much different than this going on a tourist trip occasionally. Paris was the first station that I set up and that happened because of the friend at French National Police, a family friend. That ultimately introduced me to others contacts across Europe. But John Bear was at that time at the French National Police and he was working counter-terrorism and international crime, and he had an interesting job at that time. The first time I went there and went to French National Police Headquarters I saw his desk and all the files on it, but beside the desk there was a stack of files. Brown files neatly stacked and configured, probably four feet high, three to four feet high, and it was all on Carlos, the jackal, and I know I'm dating some people here, but this, in the sixties, seventies, eighties, Carlos de Jackal was a Venezuelan that was become famous or infamous. For his terrorist activities. And it turned out as time went on, he was credited with killing a lot of people that he'd get. He was an assassin and they made a mo a movie about him. If you could watch, check that out. That's in the archives someplace. He is on the internet. I would imagine harmless to jackal and I was fascinated. I would look through those files. Some of it was in French, there would be English stuff. But just looking at the photos, looking at all of the work that had gone in and they had worked for years. He was so elusive. He wasn't really known. There was not a good picture of him. And it was a it was a real f and dagger type of work that went on around Carlos de Jackals. So I become exposed to several events there. The French national police and what was going on. I also was acquainted with Interpol when they were still in Paris at that time, outside of Paris. They moved later down the Wyoming, down south, and I was able to go there and visit Interpol, meet with the director, and actually I gave him one of our badges. At that time, the director was an Englishman who was the from Scotland Yard, who was the director of Interpol. And I had some interesting operations in Paris over the last 50 years that I've operated there. Starting in those early days, one of the first things that happened on one of the first trips that I went there, I was with French national police guys. And they were showing me around and they said, oh, we'll take you out to the special park we have. And we went out to this park. I know I didn't say that I blot that, but B-O-U-L-O-G-N-E art, and it was out in the west side of Paris. And when you went out there, particularly at night, but even the daytime, but the winter, in the middle of winter, there would be these rows of, they were plant ides, a lot of'em Brazilian. They looked. Like beautiful women and they would have these fur coats on in the wintertime and you would be driving around, they'd open up their fur coat. They didn't have anything on their top and they had breasts and everything. And, but it was wild. And you saw this and it was like, I'm a foreign boy from Missouri church going bible belt place. And what is this? What kind of evil is going on? And, but there would be cars. Driving around there, honking their horns, and you and you got on this, you get in this line, and it was quite an experience of being exposed to the French way of life. Obvious. There, there also, I remember one at a times I was we were there and my son, my youngest son, I think it was with my wife and they were around the, a hotel. Pool and sitting out there, and a woman, just a young girl or younger woman, just came out and just undressed and changed the bathing suit by the pool. All common stuff, a little different from far more from Missouri understand what's going on. But as the events unfolded, one event that I'll never forget, and if I. I get to going and I could talk about a lot of'em, but a lot of'em I won't talk about. But this one was interesting and a little fun. They took me out to a club, the French National Police College, and it was a place when it was dancing and it was open. It wasn't like a upscale dinner co and all that. There was eating and tables, but it was more of a club for entertainment and dancing and there was all kinds of music and just dancing going on. And we were standing over the side and I was, we were loose, we weren't really close together. And I saw this couple dancing and she had rings on and, a couple. I said they were married. Which they were, I found out. And I don't, I know she was wa looking, the crowd, watching the crowd. And this went on for some time and I was standing a little bit off of myself and suddenly this woman came up and said, dance with me. And I was pulled onto the dance floor and, you never wanna. Unkind to a beautiful woman. And so we started dancing and she it was more of a slow dance and she got in close, started whispering in my ear. We watched into come with us and this accent in English come and go with us tonight to to our home. And I what. I like You are married. What's old? That's okay. My husband likes to a group and she went on and on, almost nibbling on my ear and and inducing me that this was, the only thing to do, right? So I broke away from her and thought, oh, this is not right, this is trouble. And went back to. Police guys, French National Police guys are with me. And one of'em said you know who that is, don't you? And I said, no. He said they're cu Cuban agents, and they're known to us here. And they operate openly sometimes. So it's just, it's a good chance. That you didn't go with them because I'm not sure you'd be coming back, but they were always looking to target Americans for their their work, so to speak. That was a little more than a honey trap and I'm not sure what you would call that, but I had many experiences over my time in Paris and on being out with the. Police guys on chases and red light and siren runs and working various crimes observing. I wasn't working them. And I learned a lot on those early days working with intelligence there. And one of the experiences that I had, one of the times I was there John Barrett told me, he said, Hey there's an FBI. American Embassy that wants to come and meet you. And I said, oh really? What have I done? And I done well. And so this guy came over, he introduced himself and said, we're trying to figure out who you are because they're, the French are doing things for you, telling you things they're not telling us. And we were just trying to figure out, what's really going on. So we had a good conversation. And talked about things going on in the world and I just said, oh, I got some friends here. I'm just hanging out. And not telling him that we were getting reports and writing down everything that we got. So those were the early days. And from Paris, then it spread out across Europe and into the four East and Latin America. I'll be talking about some of those things. There was a particular case that I'll deal with in my next video. It involved the bombing of PanAm Flight 1 0 3 and that was in 1980. 80 80. 80 80. Let me look here. I have lost an 89 88. 1988. It's been, that was a while ago though. My memory's a little hazy. In fact. Yeah. My memory has, is not as good as it used to. I used to pride myself on being able to, if somebody asked me about a case we had 15 years ago, I said, oh, that was sold so and so even though we had thousands of cases, but I can't do that anymore, but I'm on that one was sad. Because Pan Am Fight 1 0 3. Could have been avoided, could have been prevented. And I'll share some things about that, why I believe that and what information I have. But we do comments. We talk about this life. Many of you maybe have had experiences. Maybe you've been in the military or intelligence service or some form special forces or whatever. Lemme know what's your some of the things that you've done. I'd love to hear about them and maybe we can talk about them sometime. So read those on any of the platforms. So you can email me at e little pi77@gmail.com. And remember would you share or subscribe and you know the drill, hit the notification bell for future post. We'll be talking again. May God bless you. God bless your family and may God bless America. Stay safe.