EP 142 Across Borders & Behind the Truth, Global Eyes, Local Impact: Mike LaCorte on Global Investigations

“In private investigation, every case is different — but the human stories, the scams, the vulnerabilities, remind us why raising professional standards has never mattered more.”

BIO

With over 25 years of experience in the private sector, I am an accomplished international investigator and business leader with a proven track record in managing complex international investigations. My expertise spans a wide range of high-stakes cases, including fraud investigations, litigation support, risk management, and asset tracing.

I am privileged to serve as President of the Association of British Investigators (ABI) and hold a distinguished position as Past President of the World Association of Detectives (WAD), where I made history by being elected Chairman for three consecutive terms. Throughout my career, I have been recognized for my contributions to the industry, including receiving the WAD Investigator of the Year Award (2016) and The Richard-Jacques Turner Award for Excellence (2019).

As Co-Founder and CEO of Conflict International, I successfully merged two London-based investigation agencies in 2008, positioning the company as a global leader in intelligence and international investigations. With offices in London, the US, Spain, and Cyprus, Conflict International provides comprehensive investigative services tailored to meet the complex needs of clients worldwide.

I am regularly invited to speak at global conferences, where I share insights on best practices, strategies, and emerging trends in the investigative field. Known for my hands-on, approachable style, I also contribute as an expert to international media outlets, providing analysis on a wide range of issues within the investigations sector.

* Key Areas of Expertise:

* International Investigations & Intelligence

* Asset Tracing & Recovery

* Global Surveillance Operations

* Risk Management & Mitigation

* Litigation Support

* Fraud Investigations & Due Diligence

* Background Checks & Pre-Employment Screening

* OSINT/HUMINT/SOCMINT Investigations

* Blackmail & Harassment Investigations

* M&A Due Diligence & Corporate Intelligence

* Tracing Difficult-to-Locate Individuals

Security Circle ⭕️ is an IFPOD production for IFPO the International Foundation of Protection Officers

Transcript

0:01

If you enjoy the security circle podcast, please like share and comment or even better. Leave us a fab review We can be found on all podcast platforms. Be sure to subscribe. The security circle every Thursday. We love Thursdays. Hi, I'm Yolanda And welcome to the Security Circle Podcast, produced in association with IFPO, the International Foundation for Protection Officers. This podcast is all about connection, bringing you closer to the greatest minds, boldest thinkers, trailblazers, and change makers across the security industry. Whether you are here to grow your network, spark new ideas, or simply feel more connected to the world of protection and risk, you are in the right place wherever you are listening from. Thank you for being a part of the Security Circle journey...

Yoyo: 1:04

Well, I have with me a very special guest. I laugh, uh, really Mike, because I say that all the time. Spears 500 expert, President, Association of British Investigators, former WAD president and global advisor I will ask a lot about this, but first of all, Mike, thank you so much for joining us on the Security Circle Podcast. How you doing?

Mike: 1:26

I'm fine. Thank you, Yolanda, for having me.

Yoyo: 1:28

You travel a lot for work, don't you? Do you wake up in the morning sometimes and wonder what country you're in?

Mike: 1:34

You're right. I do travel a lot for work. I travel probably 50 to 60 percent of the year. It's just the way my Career has ended up being carved into my USP, which is international work. There's not many International say private sector investigators that actually do work in more than one jurisdiction simultaneously. So that's The nature of what I do, and that's what's dragged me around to some weird and wonderful locations around the world.

Yoyo: 2:04

That's a bit of a USP, isn't it, for the business, really, in terms of investigatory work. Tends to be very legislatively tied, doesn't it? Country to country, state to state. How have you decided to diversify so successfully?

Mike: 2:19

Well, I think it was my journey through the World Association of Detectives, which is a association of almost 1, 000 members in more than 80 countries around the world. So I got exposed into this group and contributed regularly, got voted onto the board, and then was elected to run for office. And that's a five year commitment. and in that I ended up networking with some of the brightest minds in the, in private sector investigation work. And then from that became the person to know, to provide support in countries around the world. I even now, Mike, do you know anyone in Singapore? Mike, do you know anyone in wherever I get it? All the time, which is great, and I've ended up you position yourself accordingly to the client base. You attract and with the industry changing over the years, it's become more global. Everyone is connecting globally. More individuals have a global footprint now, and we've just evolved investigations in the private sector that way.

Yoyo: 3:25

I ask a lot of CEOs this, they don't always know they want to be CEOs when they start out in their career. At what, because I want to go back to the sort of origins of where you started out in investigatory work, but when did you realize, hell, I'm going to be a CEO, I'm going to do it this way?

Mike: 3:44

Two companies merged that created Conflict. And to make it a lot more basic than it sounds, it was, I had a small company. My, co founder had a small company and we put our two companies in one pot and we called it a merger. So it was a strategic join forces. We were working a lot together, crossover, and in our industry, because it's. So labor demanding and intensive, you know, clients, it's a distress purchase for clients that no one books us in like a holiday. They come to us when they've got a problem. So when you were, when I was traveling for my own free time and holidaying with my family and same with my co director, you're never really off work, you're always on. So we decided, right, let's just join forces and take the weight off each other. And that's what happened to Conflict 2008. And then we grew quite quickly from then. And then we pulled in a non exec director who said, right, guys, you need some sort of structure here because everyone was doing everything. And we needed to divide roles, responsibilities, and Create a proper company. Not that it wasn't a proper company. It was a proper operational company But then it needed to be structured like a proper company and that's when we needed someone to be the ceo So back back then I was in the shadows now i'm all over you can find me very easily online. So That's the decision that we made one of us needed to be the sort of face, but then you've got the other guys that operate still. So there's a lot of decisions, a lot of discussion points, a lot of out of my comfort zone. But now I feel quite comfortable where I am. And I think in order to grow and in order to maybe take that next step up, you need to push yourself into a, into 100 percent comfortable in.

Yoyo: 5:29

I've always said to young professionals, you know, don't be afraid of being out of your comfort zone. It's when your body is performing at the best, your brain is optimal. You know, you hear about people being bored at work. Are they challenging themselves enough? Are they learning and studying, developing? I think it's a very normal thing for CEOs to be out of their comfort zones more often than they thought they were going to be.

Mike: 5:54

I agree. you are pushed out of your comfort zone when you're a CEO, without any, sometimes without any control of your own, because you're put into situations that you can't plan for. So during the process, when we were dividing roles, I knew that I had to. be the public face of conflict. I knew I had to step up and go and speak in front of 200 people. I knew I had to be out there to, you know, just be more available and be more public., but as you continue your journey, you are put into situations that you can't prepare for. And I think that what you said there, when you put into situations that you can't prepare for, it's when you either deal with it and you work your way through it, or you find a way forward. You find a plan.

Yoyo: 6:40

What would you say to your younger self then prior to taking on that big step and prior to the merger? What would you say to yourself now if you had the opportunity to Mike?

Mike: 6:51

Seek a mentor that you that has similar experience or that has gone through a similar journey because I think I wasted a lot of time in, in rabbit holes that I didn't need to go down. And I now look to try and help the younger guys coming out into the industry. We're in a very closed, protected. industry where people develop unique skill sets and try and keep that for themselves. I'm not like that now. I try and keep pushing out, advice and sharing. I'm actually putting together, I'm a third through a book and a mentor in the industry told me to do this two years ago. I was speaking at an event in Orlando and he said to me, Mike, write a book because the way you tackle international private sector investigation work. is quite unique and there's nothing out there on the market that prepares the smaller investigator who's got their small, let's say, local state or country's or local state or area that they're investigating the usual cases that they do when something international comes across their desk because it will do like you're trying to trace someone that's now left the UK or you're trying to you're investigating someone's assets and they've got a footprint outside of their jurisdiction they've done about to tackle it properly so i'm a third of the way into a 75, 000 word, apparently that's the optimum word count book and it's taken me two years. So whoever writes books, I take my hat off to them because that is a massive piece of work. I sort of digressed in my line of answering your question, but I would say seek a mentor and a mentor that doesn't want anything from you, and those are the hard to find, but if you seek, you will save going down rabbit holes. but sometimes you need to go down those sort of rabbit holes to learn and develop.

Yoyo: 8:38

I think it's really good that you said that because there is a perception sometimes I think that, you know, CEOs maybe think they're above mentorship. And I don't mean that derogatively. It's like you've reached a pinnacle of your career. There isn't anyone higher that you need to bow down to other than stakeholders. So, you know, who needs to teach me what I need to know. And I love it. That humbleness that you have in terms of the value that a mentor can still offer now, and the best entrepreneurs and professionals, will tell you that mentorship is key. And it's something we talk an awful lot about on the security circle podcast. And I do think that they are, they're like carers in the sense of, you have to be a very special person to be a carer, right? Not everyone can do it. It's a very small part of a human brain and heart that can cope with that. In the same way that being a detective or being the police or a nurse. And I think, yeah, being a mentor is a certain type of person. They are just giving, and they just want to share almost the kind of like the bullet holes they've had. They're like, Hey, let me tell you where those bullet holes come from because I've got plenty. I love the way you went down the rabbit. hole with the book because I ask everybody who's written a book, Mike, I say, was it the book that you intended to write? And some of my closest pals who've written books, they're like, no, it's not. It's, you know, I went down a hell of a journey and A lot of people say it's very cathartic. It isn't easy. But don't you think that's just because it requires you to really shut everything else down and focus singularly, which is a very different type of skill set to what you're normally doing as a CEO and juggling lots of plates.

Mike: 10:19

You're right. And yes, you need to find the time and not just time as in time, you need clear time. So uninterrupted time to put your brain in that space where you can tackle what you want to. You know, put on paper or on a keyboard, you know, I found my best thinking is on long flights and that sounds, weird, but if I've got a long flight without Wi Fi after the anxiety has gone through my bloodstream thinking, Oh my God, I'm not connected for the next 10 hours. What am I going to land to? I now put myself in, right, where, what, how can I maximize my time? Um, and I will always do, I've been quite, how can I put it? Productive on non connected time periods, to write in the book. And I've done most of my work on airplanes.

Yoyo: 11:08

Really? Well, I'll share a secret with you. I don't go on the sunbed very often because it's quite harmful to go on it very often. But sometimes I'll just take a break and I'll go on the sunbed and it'll be 10 minutes. And it's kind of like something that I'm like, Oh, squeeze it in. I can then go and do that on the way home. And it's always. in conjunction with something else. And I've made huge mistakes doing that. Cause I stood in the sunbed and it's just, it's the only time I'm literally there going, dum, dum, dum, dum, this, what on earth am I just taking? And I come up with my best ideas. Stood there with no phones, nothing to look at. No TV, no radio, no podcast, nothing, just 10 minutes. And all the great ideas come to me. so I'm hoping that I'm going to be successful in Brown. Bit like yourself really, Mike. Ha ha ha ha! Cos we were saying before, weren't we, how you've got a tan from your holiday. Oh boy, but at least I won't be pale and successful. Oh gosh, ghastly. But now, isn't it important to learn that lesson? That it's so important to switch off and just give yourself that time. Cos that's when the best things come to us.

Mike: 12:20

Talk about lightbulb moments, and I've done a short video on that. A few months ago, and I, like you, I had my best light bulb moment when I tackle my brain by doing something else. So I train for events, I do triathlon events. And when I'm on a long early morning hard cycle where I have to exert quite a bit of effort doing one thing that's taken up a lot of my mind space. At that point my mind I drift and then I will the case that i've tried to crack that the no stone unturned sort of methodology, I thought i'll think about ah, what about that or The next idea and that's where I get mine when I put myself under Pressure that's got nothing to do with work. So like either a run or a cycle or a swim or something like that. That's where I get my light bulb moment. And people are different, people, I think you need to get into your mind and move the levers that will make your creative brain cells tick. And what. If you can work out how to put yourself in that state, that's where your lightbulb moments come.

Yoyo: 13:30

Yeah. And I think it's important to realise that and even stumble across it accidentally like I have and think, okay, there's something in this. Sometimes it's worth just going and laying down for 10 minutes and just, you know, breathing. Yes. How often do we treat ourselves to just a bit of breathing? Um, so tell me, how did the investigatory world attract you from a younger age, Mike?

Mike: 13:59

I was always intrigued in, in finding this path. I'll tell you how I first got involved. I initially done a close protection course and I was appointed as a part of a RST team, for a Prominent family, an address, and, all I would do was patrols. It was relatively boring, but it was my door into this world. and one of our, one of my tasks was to make sure that the ground floor windows were completely locked, closed all the time. Uh, because they had an issue with the cutlery being stolen. So, um, the cutlery was like silver, quite high value, and there was an issue there. And on one of my patrols, I saw one of the windows, like two or three inches open. I thought that's a bit odd. What? Why is that O open? And with three or four sets of cutlery on the window sill straight outside the window, I sat there watching, trying to understand what was going on. I reported it to you, had to back then, I had a line sort of manager said, you know, this is what this is going on. He said, well, you know, don't worry internally, we'll close it and make sure. I was still a little bit intrigued, you know, what, why is someone putting cutlery outside on the windshield? You know, it's just a bit odd anyway, later transcribed that there were three or four people working together. You'd had a maid, a cleaner would come in, put the cutlery outside. One of the friends would come in with a bag on arriving for shift work, put the cutlery in the bag and then go to work with the cutlery. So it didn't take it off. So it was like, anyway, it was three or four people working on this. Sifting scam of removing these higher value cutlery items. And I just, got myself involved in trying to understand who, what, where, why, how. And the people above me dealt with it anyway. But that's when it opened up to me that there was a guy on the team that done investigation work. And I connected with, you know, that. And I got explored into this world of intelligence and investigation. I met some incredible people along the way, you know. So that was. My, maybe initial contact with the investigation world. And then I found out more about it, joined the ABI, upskilled myself with what you can do in the private sector and, developed a career like that.

Yoyo: 16:17

I think that's a great start because that definitely aroused your curiosity because you learned then that you were the person that needed to understand the why. behind things. And that's what I enjoyed about learning how to be a detective in the British police force. I remember once, this is such a cool story. We were rookie cops. We just started in the job six months. We're in the canteen and we get to sit next to a seasoned, big dog. detective. And we were like, are you like a proper detective? And he was like, yeah, yeah, I am. He was like a very senior, very senior detective. Like he would manage a murder incident, for example, an SIO. And we were like, Oh God, have you seen dead bodies? And he's like, yeah, I've seen loads of dead bodies. I was like, loads of blood. And he was like, yeah, loads of blood. We're in the canteen. Like I said, horses for courses, certain people do these jobs. And we weren't certainly put off by, talking about blood. blood splattered walls, you know, whilst we were having lunch, where some people would find that utterly repellent. And he said, do you want to come back and see some photos? And we're like, yeah. So we went back and he showed us these murder scene photos where somebody had been killed., and he said, see, see, that's that blood splatter up in that particular kind of way. He said, that means that there's a blunt force. and so we were learning the why behind a scene and why it looked a certain way. And I tell you, we never went back. We never went back to the innocence of, you know, not understanding. And I think it captures you. Needing to know the why, which is why, isn't it, whenever there's a social media, high profile, missing person, for example, we all feel like we're going to be detectives because we've all seen drama programs on TV, but being a proper investigator is about following the truth. It's about following a process. It's about integrity of the investigation and the evidence. It's more than just, getting to the end, isn't it?

Mike: 18:14

Yeah, completely. you do follow a stepped process, obviously, depending on what type of investigation you're doing and the objective and, you know, a few other factors. But then, you do come to decision making points as well during that journey. There may be something that you found that will potentially affect. the outcome will potentially affect the direction your client's case will go in. Don't forget. We work in the private sector. So we're obviously different than public sector where we're not upholding the law, even though what we do is lawful, where we're investigating a matter because There's an interest, a legitimate interest, a decision making process thereafter, or gathering evidence that's going to be presented in a court case. So there are implications to the way we conduct an investigation that may be scrutinized by a third party, or that the clients will make decisions based upon our reports. So there will be. During that journey, whilst we follow a process, it can, as an investigator, as you know, you do then sometimes pivot and make your own decisions.

Yoyo: 19:19

So what is it that you're asked to share a story with us? What is it that you're asked to find most often? Is it property? Is it money? Or is it people?

Mike: 19:30

Well, I mean, every, every case is different. we generally service three groups. The biggest group of clients that we service are litigators and lawyers. And that's usually on behalf, well, it's definitely on behalf of their clients. Usually when a matter's either going to go to court, is in court and there's judgments issued, or there's some type of negotiation mediation process where maybe the evidence that we found would help. Make a decision either way, the second group is the corporates where they've got, it could be internal issues. It could be that they're investing in other companies and they need some research done. And then the third group are sometimes the most interesting group are the family offices because you sometimes not. You don't know what you're going to get, and then we're asked to do a wide, wide range of things, whether it's tracing individuals, tracing assets, conducting background and KYC reports, surveillance teams on the ground, collecting evidence and information, sweeps, looking, or reactive stuff, where there's been an incident where someone's been scammed, fraud, insider threat, leaked confidential data, or, you know, there's, there's that. So we're coming in afterwards. So it just depends really.

Yoyo: 20:44

What's your favourite?

Mike: 20:47

I think the most I get most satisfaction out of dealing with anything that's got a bit of a personal connection. For example, you know, we had, I mean, I've done a few of these where you've got a child, maybe 18, that's gone off to a different country without sort of, not parent consent, but parent authorization. And then, you know, there's maybe some sort of. vulnerability issue there and we find, we find that the child is in good health and we've located and we've connected them back with the family that anything. that's got a personal connection rather than tracing down assets for a big litigation case. I think the human element for me is most successful because you're dealing with, real people and real incidences rather than court cases and legal documentation. So that for me, I think is, or someone that's been scammed, you know, rather than a big corporate scam, like the private individual that's had their, I don't know, Because they've clicked on a link that they shouldn't have or they've been caught up in a pig butchering stroke romance scam and Sent a load of money to someone that they anything like that. We've try and get a result for the person That for me is, because you're building a relationship with the client over a period of time and you get to know them really well. So, and you want to try and connect the dots for them and uncover what's happened. So that for me is, those are the best cases.

Yoyo: 22:12

Yeah, because there's an increase isn't there in those pig butchering scams? Uh, and that's what they're called by the perpetrators. a mark to, to target for ex, ex, Extortion, basically, that people don't know about. and fraud is now becoming so much more common. And it's, it frustrates the hell out of me really. And it must be something that you can see is on the increase as well in terms of how vulnerable just individuals can be and how easily exploitable they are.

Mike: 22:40

Completely. It is getting, Increasingly worse and the tools out there for these criminal gangs and networks to use have made global accessibility very easy. So a lot of AI, a lot of deep fake, a lot of mass targeting. So you're spreading your net so, so wide, but also spreading your net wide with understanding the targets a lot more, whereas before, you know, the old 419 scams that you've won the lottery, you've got to pay an advance fee of. 400 people don't fall for that anymore. You know, the awareness out there has, and there are some good industry leaders out there that are putting a lot of awareness out about pig butchering scams and romance scams. But I think that once the public become more aware, hopefully not going to get so caught out. But I've seen some of these scams that are based on layered type fraud where The individuals that are receiving the scam, they have no idea where the truth line is. You know, the criminal networks are super clever and connect on a basis with their targets to go through this layered process to put their victim in a false sense of security that they don't know where they are in terms of truth.

Yoyo: 23:53

Yeah. And the media's pretty cruel in this space as well. It talks about how people fell for the con, how people were stupid, didn't see the signs, and it ridicules victims instead of really, highlighting the perpetrator and the wickedness, that they deploy, which is something, I don't know if you've heard of. Becky Holmes, but she's written a book that's very successful around romance for just really lifting the lid on the kind of the intricacies in the background called, Keanu Reeves is not in love with you. And I think, she's getting a lot of global interest in it as well. She's always looking to speak to incredibly credible people to get good source information for her next book that she's going to write, that she's been commissioned for. So I'll make sure I introduce you to her., What else are you seeing on the increase? I'm thinking about following the money now. What about the cryptocurrency sextortion piece? Are you finding an increase there, especially with your high net worth market? Yeah, so we've,

Mike: 24:55

we've had a lot more inquiries for crypto work. You're right. And there, there has been a lot more appetite for some of the sort of higher net worth. family offices to invest and move money in crypto. It's very easy. And, they're, you know, holding money in crypto. I mean, some jurisdictions you can buy property now with cryptocurrency. So the KYC and checks and balances aren't as rigorous in, as the same as, you know, other financial transactions. But, and with that, what happens is that there, there comes the opportunities, right, there comes the fraud, there comes the scams. But I, I'm not a crypto expert. We do have someone in-house that is, I understand that with cryptocurrency there is, um, in terms of tracing crypto assets, because it's all on a digital blockchain, a platform, there is addresses to it. So as difficult and complicated sometimes may seem, if you are not. You know, uh, skilled in understanding crypto, there is digital footprints that it creates. So yes, we're finding a lot more inquiries there. The other area is all of the, traded data. A lot of data is being leaked on deep and dark net and being misused and interpreted in terms of identity fraud. That's on the rise. So there's a lot more data now. not only that we have access to, but there's been pumped out daily and it's managing that as well. I think that's a huge problem for, individuals, corporates, you name it. There's with so much data being flying around and just that's only going to increase.

Yoyo: 26:33

When you go out to events and meet people for the first time, what do you tell them about what you do? do you have to tailor what you say you do because it just invites too many questions?

Mike: 26:46

It depends on the event. If you're at a drinks reception, right, that's slightly different than a professional event. It, you know, what do you do for a living? My wife always says that, you know, what are you, what are you going to say? it's, you're right. It can open up a huge conversation. And the perception of what people think you do to what you really do is so huge. Oh, wow. Oh, you must see, you know, and you start thinking about, right. It's not like a real James Bond spy movie. Five or ten percent of the things we do potentially could be interpreted like that. But most of what we do is, investigate. So I just said I'm a private sector international investigator, which is. That's really what I do. and then it opens up the question, well, what do you mean? And then you go down the line of, you know, providing investigative services in the private sector to individuals and corporates and companies and lawyers that require those on a daily basis.

Yoyo: 27:39

I think there is a sense of powerlessness for big corporate. You know, when they have a, potentially an employee that's gone rogue that's stolen money. And they've left the country. there's a lot of organizations out there, Mike, that wouldn't know what to do, where to go. What sort of advice would you give? And have you got a case study of something like that, that you've worked on that typical corporate faces?

Mike: 28:03

So the corporates, yes, and usually they have in house legal or an in house risk director or advisor or head of legal internally. If they don't, they generally have a relationship with the law firm and that's usually where we would get the instruction. But on occasion they have come directly to us and the ones that we've seen is in the gardening. Type space or in where what I mean by gardening is someone leaves the company's on put on gardening leave and during that period, they're not allowed to meet clients or anything like that. And that happens in certain sectors, especially in the sort of fund manager type sectors where fund managers are running quite big books of clients and they'll leave one fund go to another and then try and take some business with them. That's there's some sort of, you know, there's some contracts in place that stops. The employees doing that, but some do, which is there's quite a bit of money at stake so that we see that and then the insider threat, the industry espionage cases where. You've got employees that are at a particular company, maybe setting up something on their own privately with support or not, and copying intellectual property and moving and setting up something that's very similar happens as well.

Yoyo: 29:17

Yeah. I can see that now, talking about that. you've also won a couple of awards actually, quite stunning awards, I would say. The WAD Investigator of the Year Award and the Richard Jack Turner Award for Excellence. What do you have to do to win those awards, Mike?

Mike: 29:34

So the investigator of the year award at WAD was every year, the association looks for, cases that members have worked on. There's a thousand members there. And that case, was for a black male case in the UK. Someone was quite well known as being blackmailed. It went to the RCJ, the Royal Courts of Justice and whatever else. It was quite a big case. It hit the press as well under one of those anonymized orders. And that, I won that award for that. But I have to say that, um, I didn't do that investigation by myself, right? No one does an investigation from start to finish on their own. And you need to have a team of skilled people that cover an investigation. So whilst, yes, I did with, I did spearhead that investigation, but I can't take 100 percent credit for the award. So I just wanted to make that clear, you know, but yeah, that was the investigator of the year award. The Richard Jacks Turner Award for Excellence was an ABI award, which is the Association of British Investigators Award. I think that was in 2019, if I remember. And that's just years of giving back to the industry, to be honest with you. I was quite honoured to be recognised for that. Richard Jacks Turner must be in his Late eighties now, another huge industry figure, well respected and that award was named after him. So, um, was quite honored to have that. And that award is not given out every year. It's quite a difficult one. I didn't even realize I was nominated for it. I was at the, the Gardner dinner and, they announced the award. And I thought, I didn't even know I was nominated for it. And that was, you know, quite, quite an honor to receive that in front of my peers, which is to be recognized in front of your peers in that is, is. It's quite nice to be honest with you.

Yoyo: 31:15

Yeah, yeah it is. In fact You've been the president now for the Association of British Investigators, ABI, for a year. That's a big job, you know, that's huge. Like, what's your vision for what you want to do with that position during the tenure that you'll have?

Mike: 31:35

So, as you know, there is no license regulation for private sector investigators in the UK, which is

Yoyo: 31:42

Shocking.

Mike: 31:43

Shocking, where you look at some of the other jurisdictions around the world, many countries that we operate in require licensing. Many states in the US require licensing, Spain requires licensing, you know, there's Italy, there's numerous jurisdictions, and I don't understand why we don't. So we are self regulated, and my aim and objective is to raise the professional standard for private sector investigators in the UK, and the ABI is the leading association for private sector investigators. in the UK at the moment. We have a relationship with the Law Society. I was at the Law Society event last week, actually, promoting the Association of British Investigators and it was their risk and compliance conference. So for me, I'm trying to raise the awareness of the ABI and put it out there as the default body of investigators that if there's a member of the public. or a law firm or a corporate looking to instruct a private sector investigator, make sure they're accredited, make sure they're a member of the AAPI. And I, we spoke about this earlier where I'm trying to expose the association and increase the professional standard and, that's my objective really, really is.

Yoyo: 32:53

I, I'm beggar's believer the same as you as to why we've got no legislation, at all. No standards. Why? Do you have any idea why that is? Because surely there must have been people begging for it along the way.

Mike: 33:06

We have been, I remember going to a Select Home Affairs Committee meeting in 2013, post Leveson Inquiry in London, pushing for licensing. I don't know, is the answer. I think maybe the government see us as not a huge market, maybe. I see that we were going to follow the SIA route when they introduced SIA licensing and I thought maybe investigators will follow that. There are a couple of other issues where define an investigator, what is actually an investigator, is doing research from your desk and investigate, well I suppose it is to a certain degree. So define what we're licensing and what the role of an investigator is. You have investigators that sit in insurance companies for example that do pre claims checks. You have investigators that sit. So in journalism, so what is actually, so how do we, and I think it's a bit of a, not,, it's a bit tricky for the government, I think, to categorically define and roll out licensing. That's what my opinion, but what the ABI did do, which is, In me doing this nearly 30 years, which is huge for the industry, is have a voluntary code of conduct that was approved by the ICO, which is the Information Commissioner's Office, as you know, and that's the ABI's code of conduct in handling GDPR, handling personal data. So that got approved by the ICO. It's the first ever code of conduct to be approved, and that got approved in October 2024. So we're trying to roll that out to say, right. Make sure your investigator is a Code of Conduct member, a member of the Code of Conduct. In order to be a member, you need to have GDPR training, attend a workshop, pass that, and be accredited, have your criminal record done, your credit checks done, be registered with the ICO. So there's a list of requirements. So you are a safe pair of hands for someone to, to instruct an investigator. You're showing the public, you're showing your legal clients that, look, I understand handling, processing personal data. I understand GDPR. I'm accredited. I'm a member of the ABI. If I mess up your investigation, there's a monitoring body you can go to and there's a complaints procedure because like in any sector, there are some bad apples. And if we can try and raise, which is my objective, the professional standard of this industry, because I think Private sector investigating is important to the general pop, the UK population as a whole. It really is, you know.

Yoyo: 35:35

Yeah, I can see that. That's quite compelling, really. And it just makes you wonder that, you know, if that's how the SIA was born. In terms of, you know, it could, it's, it is government. They have limitations around, you know, How they can enforce things. And I don't know that you necessarily need that model, but I love the fact that you're trying to improve standards across the board, because I think it is needed. It gives you the efficacy when you're working with clients. In the pre chat, we talked a little bit about why there's a need for private and public synergy. The British Police Service, definitely have faced criticism, quite rightly, around not working more collaboratively or not seemingly want to have conversations about more collaborative working with the private security sector, number one. And I think there are opportunities that are being massively missed by staying with very archaic policing models. Why do you think there's a need for better synergy?

Mike: 36:36

Well, as we know, sometimes resources are stretched, especially in fraud cases. And, you know, the police, you know, they do an incredible job, but they are at times under resourced. And there are, you know, there are some, a lot of skills in the private sector that could actually help. Now, I think the police are in a bit of a situation as well, where Without licensing for private sector, who, who do they collaborate with and how, what are the terms of that collaboration? And I, we've had some success historically working on cases where we've, we've gone to the police, we've set up a CAD or what have you and said, look, we're working on this matter, we may need police support. And, if you prepare things properly. And professionally, the police are more receptive to communicating and dealing with you. However, we have our line that once it crosses, say, into a criminal environment, we're no longer involved and the police will take over. But what I would like to see is there's a lot of highly skilled private sector investigators that may have had careers in the police historically. Like yourself, for example, or may have been in the security services or may have been in the military or what have you but they're now working in the private sector that could complement and assist some of the Workload where clients have gone to the private sector and said i've been scammed out of this or i'm dealing with x someone's Whatever the case may be and that synergy actually helps the public. So, but there needs to be some outline. There needs to be some sort of memorandum of understanding. We've done it on a case by case basis, but if we had some more intricate integration, it would be quite successful. Some States in the U S that we operate in have this synergy and it works. You get the private investigators going into the police station. They have the meetings. they. share the information and, you know, cases are closed or worked on with this synergy, which I think it's going to take a lot of time. There's going to be a lot of work involved, but if there were motivated groups to look at this, I think we are missing a trick over here.

Yoyo: 38:40

Yeah, and when I was in the police, I mean, it was 15 years ago, 16 years ago, actually a bit longer. I was very frustrated, if we look at the England police service, that if we looked at Intel, for example, just one thing, how each separate police force area had its own intel gathering facility tool. And you just think, even back then in 2009, I could see, you know, we are not one police force in the middle of the country that's, the be all and end all, we have to work more collaboratively. And they have a history of not being able to work very collaboratively with each other. And I think. I've personally always wanted to see one England police force in the sense of a hierarchical structure that's for a national police force rather than all of these different pockets of county areas. You know, you look at county lines, for example, if we stopped thinking segmentally and started, bigger thinking, big thinking it needs where you have a national intelligence gathering database rather than having to phone a police force, validate who you are because you want to run someone through the box and say, Hey, listen, what have you got on this person? I understand he lived in your area for three years. I just think, well, you think that's how we were operating and I'm not as much in touch with it now, but I can't imagine it being that much different with every single police force area having its own uniform and its own paperwork process and its own way of investigating financial or international crime. God, if something came up internationally, we just all went, what do we do now? And it's like, ugh, come on, you know?

Mike: 40:17

So with the ABI, we have a police liaison officer who's Paul Moores, who was senior in the police and now he's in the private sector. So we have this connect where we, you know. So you've got a group of private sector investigators in an association, like the Association of British Investigators, with a police liaison officer that's connecting with police forces. And that, for me, makes sense because you've got an accredited pool of private sector investigators that's being led by someone who was ex police senior that's connecting with the police forces. So, We're trying to make these connections, work over time, but it's challenging, as you know, pointed out. I

Yoyo: 40:54

don't know why we make it as challenging as it is. Like, it doesn't need to be that challenging. No wonder criminals are sometimes running rings around us, you know, just because we're there, trying to sort ourselves out. Mike, what does the Security Act mean to us, if we haven't heard about that already?

Mike: 41:14

So, 2023 is to create awareness, for the, anyone that's working in the security industry or if you're a private sector investigator. That you, there are hostile states out there that are looking to attempt to contract individuals to do work on their behalf. You need to be fully aware of that because, there could be, some legislation broken on your part if you do work for these hostile states without verifying who they are. So in other words, do your KYC, do your due diligence, make sure you know who you're working for and what you're being asked to do is legal. Um, an ethical, and there's a reporting mechanism if you suspect that there is, potentially something that, uh, is not quite right.

Yoyo: 41:56

Wow. Interesting. Does that include, you know, people in, high places that have friends that turn out to be spies?

Mike: 42:09

I don't want to answer that. It's more, it's more the hostile states looking to utilize the skills and resources of the private sector to try and find individuals that they're looking for. dissidents or anything like that. So making sure before you take on these cases, you know who you're working for and why, and if you suspect there is something not quite right, then there is some sort of reporting mechanism you can use, know your client and, you know, know who you're working for and why, and whether you've been asked to do is legal and ethical and appropriate.

Yoyo: 42:37

Mike, it's just been giving this podcast. Thank you for giving us that lesson on the new security act. great to hear your insights and all the best. So thank you so much for joining us on the security circle podcast.

Mike: 42:49

Been a pleasure. Thank you.