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Showing posts from 2016

Private Detectives in India: Treading the thin grey line between legality and illegality

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Many of them have imported high-tech equipment like spy cams and bugs which even government agencies like the Intelligence Bureau and state police forces don't have. It is a grey world in which thousands of private detective agencies operate. There are no laws to regulate them or even to recognize their existence. In the absence of privacy laws in India, they get away by using methods that would have seen them serving long prison sentences in a country like the US. They shadow unsuspecting persons, take photographs, make videos, conduct sting operations, plant bugs and other listening devices , hack into computers and eavesdrop into each and every conversation their target may have on his cell phone, including the messages exchanged. Many of them have imported high-tech equipment like spy cams and bugs which even government agencies like the Intelligence Bureau and state police forces don't have. They are much in demand for the services they offer. Pre-matrimonial checks ...

Courtship now comes with a private detective

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More and more city folks are hiring registered private detectives to do a 'background check' on their potential bride or groom and even to spy on their spouses   So you thought there is no way your spouse or fiance is going to know about your illicit affair? Beware! You might be under the scanner right now! City folks are handing over the task of verifying the background and whereabouts of their potential partner or spouse to experienced, registered private detectives . But no, you would not find them anywhere around you as spying on a person physically is against the law; a violation of one's personal freedom. "We do a general investigation and if the person in question proves a suspect, we adopt several other undisclosed methods, following the consent of the client," says C J Babu, an undercover agent. With fees starting from `15,000 or `20,000, clients for pre-matrimonial investigations outnumber the clients approaching for post-matrimonial investigation...

Private detectives: a pre-nuptial priority for some in India

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The wedding, to be celebrated in sumptuous Indian style, was due for June and everything was progressing smoothly until the groom suddenly lost interest. Suspicious of an affair, the bride did what increasing numbers of anxious lovers and nervous families are doing in India: she rang a private detective to find out why. In a country where nine out of 10 marriages are still arranged and modern social pressures are putting the institution under pressure, the industry of snooping on lovers has expanded fast over the last five years, say insiders. In this case an investigation by the AMX Detectives  & AMX Detective Agency -- "marriage is a gamble," says its website -- revealed that the groom had recently discovered he was HIV positive. The discovery was made by an attractive female undercover agent sent by the agency, who befriended the groom and found his medicine. The wedding was eventually called off, like 20 percent of cases after a probe, AMX Detectives boss Baldev ...

A Few Spooks and a Wedding

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Is it love? Is it money? Is it written in the stars? Nah, the secret to a successful marriage is the fearless shaadi detective. Every morning, Monica Sen wakes up at 6 and throws herself head first into the rush that is the school run. Her husband and child must be awoken and fed, their tiffins packed, the five-year-old made to stand still at the bus stop. Rushing back home, she gets ready, packs her own lunch and travels to her assignment for the day. It could be anywhere in Delhi. In her mid-30s, with a pleasant disposition, and clutching her mobile phone tight, Sen doesn’t find it difficult to chat to people about their Aadhar card, or her plans to move into one of the vacant apartments in the colony. If it is important, she might even ask to see the floor plan; and how many attached bathrooms did you say the flat had? Back at her office, Sen types up a report, based on her conversations with the maid, the security guard, the neighbors, sometimes even the unsuspecting fam...

Snooping into the booming business of private eyes

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Recent incidents of stolen call data has turned the spotlight on the city’s burgeoning spy trade, where some agencies have delved into the dark side It took Rajeev Sahni*, a West Delhi-based private detective, just a day to judge that the bride’s parents would not “spend lavishly” on the wedding. He had been requested by the groom’s father to investigate the background of the bride’s family. “While eavesdropping on the conversation between the girl and her mother, I heard them quarrel over a few rupees. That helped me arrive at the conclusion,” Sahni explains. This is only one of several requests the city’s private detectives receive from their clients. The clients are often incapable of going about such investigations on their own and the police will not entertain such requests. So, even though the Delhi Police’s crackdown on the “illegal activities” of some private detective agencies may have forced some sleuths to go underground, business is booming for hundreds of age...