November 4, 2025 • 22 mins
Private Investigator Harry Watts of Answers Investigation in conversation with Nigel Parsons, a Tracing expert with decades of experience. Learn some of the secrets of how to find people
You can learn more at https://www.private-detectives.co.uk/services/tracing.htm about how to find people in the United Kingdom, Europe and further afield
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(00:05):
Welcome to Detective Diaries, brought to you
by Private Detective's Answers investigation.
If you're captivated by the art of deduction,
the thrill of solving unsolvable, or the enigmatic world
of private investigation, you have just
found your new favorite podcast.
Detective Diaries are where secrets are unraveled,
(00:27):
and the truth is always a clue away.
Presented by Private Detective Answers investigation,
each episode contains of big conversations
about the real people involved in investigation.
Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening,
(00:48):
whereever you might be.
Welcome back to Detective Diaries, the podcast
that pulls back the curtain on the world of private investigation.
I'm your host, Harry Watts.
Today, we're talking about a core part of a private investigator's
work, tracing people nationally and across the globe.
Today, we'll explore the tools, the legal landscape,
and the sensitive nature of tracking down a person,
(01:09):
whether it's a long-lost relative, a debtor,
or a crucial witness.
If you listen closely to our whole episode,
you may even learn how to find people yourself.
Joining us today is someone who knows this world inside and out,
Nigel Parsons, from answers investigation.
Nigel and his team have built a remarkable reputation
for their meticulous approach to finding people,
combining traditional investigative legwork and modern technology
(01:33):
with a sharp sense of empathy.
From sensitive family cases to complex corporate investigations,
Nigel's experience offers a fascinating look
into what it really takes to track people down in the modern age.
Nigel, thank you for joining us.
Oh, the pleasures all mine.
I love podcasting.
Brilliant.
Now Nigel, in the movies, it looks simple,
(01:55):
the detective types a name into a computer,
full profile pops up, complete with a current address,
job and all the rest of it.
In reality, I'm sure it's far more nuanced and more complex
and frankly more human.
Dijuage has provided us with new tools,
but also new walls, I suppose,
(02:15):
particularly with privacy laws and GDPR and so forth.
Yeah, I always smarten myself when I watch the TV
and see this tap, tap, tap on the keyboard,
and then the whole profile comes up,
including some address and pictures and everything else
that goes with it and then off the detectives run,
suddenly they're there three minutes later.
It doesn't work like that.
(02:37):
The first thing I should say is that not every private investigator
can just start tracing.
We must have a legitimate interest.
A person's right to privacy is very central to UK law
and you can't simply start prying into their life for some whim.
There are many legitimate reasons clients come to us,
(03:00):
locating a beneficiary for a will,
tracing a debtor who's disappeared,
or reuniting with a long lost family member.
This ethical framework regulated by organizations
like the Information Commissioners Office
is the bedrock of our profession.
Fantastic.
So if you can try and walk me through this,
(03:21):
so a case comes in perhaps of limited information.
I mean, where do you actually start?
Well, it almost always begins with the information you give us.
The more the better.
Full name, the last known address, date of birth,
these are the foundations of investigation.
If you've only got a name, of course that's possible,
(03:41):
but it's much harder and often a bit more than expensive search.
But we can and we have worked with much, much less.
Sometimes it's a question of identifying the person
as well as subsequently tracing them.
Once instructed, we combine old school detective work,
which I love, with modern tech.
(04:02):
Start with database searches.
Private investigators have accessed a powerful,
proprietary databases that aggregate data from multiple sources.
We can cross-reference information
from credit reference agencies from Courage House,
of course, the electoral role, although I've got to say
that's really not reliable.
And too many people place too much faith in it.
(04:24):
And more importantly, other sources
that are not generally available to the public.
Right.
For us, we use every resource we find, even offbeat ones,
like I don't know, in solvency records
or social media to obtain a lead.
To an extent, email addresses, telephone numbers
(04:44):
can link to an address.
To question, I've taken all those bits of information
and piecing them together to find the person that we want.
I mean, sounds amazing.
I'm envisioning multiple screens, tabs open,
coming through all of these digital records.
But is it always computer-based?
Is it always on such databases?
(05:05):
Well, that vision and the multiple screens in terms of,
is actually right.
I mean, you said my desk, I've got two massive, very screens.
You just have to have information overload them.
Maybe there's half a dozen bits which you put in a bit from this
and a bit from that.
It's very, very hard to describe.
But as for being a question of tapping into databases,
(05:27):
I've got a stress.
No, a finding from data is just that.
It's data.
It's a theory.
Frankly, in the extreme, if I choose to input a form,
saying I'm King Charles the second, third,
saying Charles the third, I think you probably
have not forgotten the second one.
I may end up registered somewhere as King Charles,
(05:50):
but it doesn't make me him.
Sometimes the only positive way to confirm
that somebody is somebody or somebody is what the data suggests
is to make some discrete physical inquiries.
Hola, yo soy James Lupton, interpreter, y traucator.
(06:12):
Escucheme en el podcast Detective Diaries.
Avlando de mi experience is la Verales.
There's the La Alta Court, the English, Al Campo Colombiano.
Hi, I'm James Lupton, interpreter and translator.
Come and listen to me on Detective Diaries,
talking about my experiences working
from the English high court to the Colombian countries.
(06:34):
(upbeat music)
So it's kind of one half of the coin
and the physical is the other half,
but if that's not machine-based,
how do these physical inquiries take shape?
Well, it could mean a dozen different methodologies,
perhaps a knock on the door,
perhaps some driven in the St. Rooze
(06:55):
or inquiries of neighbors.
We won't ever know,
but I have to confess sometimes
that folks would perhaps don't necessarily volunteer
the real reason from calling somebody's door.
It's perhaps the incentivized station
to get someone talking there.
Is there an example then that you can give us
as to how this kind of methodology gets put into action?
(07:18):
Yeah, I think of the top of my head.
I mean, not too long ago,
we were asked to identify and find somebody,
but all the client knew was their first name.
They had a rough idea, they rage,
the fact that it probably would be the parents,
but not very much at all, but yeah, we are helped,
just knowing that we're probably in that area.
(07:39):
I mean, we satisfied ourselves
that the client's reasons were not sinister,
I mean, far from it, in fact.
And then began the man searches of people
with that first name in the target town.
Right.
So for a population of about 100,000,
it produced around 250 results
just on the basis of this first name.
(08:00):
Sounds a lot you can't deal with that.
Still too much to deal with, but I'm extracting data
from those results and references.
Some had a date birth, some where that wasn't in the target range.
We could eliminate them, some showed merit,
occupancy, and again, we could eliminate them,
(08:21):
and other eliminating factors.
In short, we ended up with a short list
of just 11, 11 possible.
Wow.
So using that process elimination, you get your short list,
what happens next?
To be honest, we've discreetly doorstep them.
In fact, to take the edge from it,
a couple of my young female colleagues do.
(08:42):
They just removed any thoughts of the occupants
of any former threat by somebody on the doorstep.
Guess what?
Forced door knock transpired to be the person we found.
And basically, you go from 100,000 people
to finding the right person.
Just off their first name.
Unbelievable stuff.
Yeah, it's totally process of elimination
(09:04):
and usually there's little bits of information
and some educated guesses.
Yeah, it's very satisfying when you get to the limit.
When you get the threads coming together,
that must be fantastic for you.
Well, you know, driving tracing is an art form.
It's just this damage of tap, tap, tap,
putting there's the result of it.
(09:24):
It often takes innovative thoughts and methodology.
It's not just rooting, keyboard, version.
Hmm.
OK, so we can't have talked about where it all goes right,
but I'm sure it's never that simple.
I mean, what are the difficulties that arise?
Yeah, I imagine commonality of names, but that's...
Oh, heavens.
Yes.
(09:45):
It's the John Smith of this world, the difficult ones.
Not from finding them.
I mean, often the problem is simply not
locating them from databases.
We find that quite quickly.
The trouble is which ones yours?
You don't know which John Smith is from another John Smith
without the corroborating information.
Hmm.
(10:06):
I mean, you asked about examples.
Another recent issue.
We had instructions from a solicitor we'd worked with for years
and years and years.
The lovely people.
They needed to find the beneficiaries from a will,
but the will was made about 30 years ago.
And on that will quite a number of requests
and also charity requests.
(10:26):
And of course, the charity requests could not be satisfied
until the names beneficiaries were found.
OK.
We identified most of them, but we had a few that were a bit sticky.
Sure.
OK, and largely because they'd moved,
it was just Mr and Mrs X down the road,
or John and Margaret even are thinking more in case.
(10:50):
So we'd then find most of them because a few sticky ones
were the couple, even after we've attained bleeds
that they were or may have died in an area.
We ended up physically looking at headstones in Graveyards
to find evidence of their demise, where, of course,
the desk was a little bit too recent to be recorded
(11:10):
because those records don't come out straight away.
It's painting an awfully different picture.
I think that most people would think about the streams.
They have the files, they have lever arch files of data and data.
But you're actually looking at headstones.
Is this coming back into a physical work?
Yeah, yeah, transform your mental image from the geek
(11:30):
with glasses, stirring up the screen,
so we're about the glasses people are wearing.
So, but, you know, it's a different image from the geek
in front of the keyboard, so trutching around in the mud
and around, walking up and down,
lives the great lines of gravestones, trust me.
So, does the case with Argy involved the UK then?
Or looking elsewhere?
(11:51):
No, often not. We live in a global society.
I mean, we do a lot of work in Europe.
Once I traveled a course ago,
having traced someone's birth mother there,
to visit her at the client's request,
we've really served her the data,
but who knows until you actually get there?
Sure.
I mean, not too long ago, I spent an hour on the telephone
(12:14):
with someone who would be trapped down the Holland.
They moved there 27 years ago.
I remember the lady, she actually came from Wales originally
and she had lived in the Mercer to self-soumarch in the society.
She lived in, she'd actually forgotten a lot of English
because it was the first English person she'd spoken to in several years.
(12:34):
We located another mother in France, we visited her,
after transpired that she retired to a town called the Salt
for ideas previously. And yeah, not of examples.
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(13:15):
[MUSIC]
See, you measured a couple of places in Europe there,
so there's clearly a lot of reach.
Is it difficult to get into these databases and resources?
Yes, no.
(13:36):
I mean, it can't be an awful lot of work.
I mean, everywhere has available databases,
some more extensive than the other.
Of course, maybe talking about Greece, we're using
an entirely different alphabet.
The make-humps are very often different.
It's completely our ideas.
Spain's got 17 different regions.
(13:57):
That's, this into a total of 50 provinces.
There's also two autonomous cities,
Cureta, and Malia in North Africa.
You may have to go through every single one.
So rather than tap on that computer,
you perhaps do in lots of very quick look in hacking.
(14:22):
France, again, very similar.
Surprisingly, there is very little national recording.
I mean, France has got 18 administrative regions.
Somewhere around there.
I know about a dozen, though, in metropolitan France.
And then, of course, they've got the Roman Basis regions as well.
Places like Martinique, Martinique, Guadalupe,
(14:45):
Crayonin, French Guyana.
French Guyana is massive.
And just because somebody may be French,
they've got as easy access to go to Martinique,
because Martinique is part of France, as opposed to being separate.
There's lots of complications to it.
So it sounds like this kind of knowledge and experience
(15:07):
you've must have picked up over years and years of doing this,
because there's so many nuances and individual differences
between all of these countries and how you can go looking for these resources.
Yeah, whenever I find something new,
some new resource, I keep it.
I log it, I put a bookmark on it,
and it does help to be able to think,
(15:28):
"Hang on, this might be, I don't know, Romania, or what might be."
In your Spain or wherever, oh yes, that's the one, you know this,
because you're not using everything every single day.
Sure.
In Britain, a lot of the ex-packed communities,
you know, people like Lady Alentina before,
would go up to the tyre,
common met time and destinations are going to be for us in Spain sometimes.
(15:52):
This, they increasingly now portable,
but obviously can be much more further afield.
People work globally.
They'll just disappear off the map for three or four years,
because they've suddenly got a job in Budapest.
Yeah, fantastic.
It's interesting, really is interesting.
Is there perhaps then thinking back on these sort of years of experience
(16:15):
in these different cases?
Is there a particular achievement that comes to mind, or, you know,
a difficult case perhaps?
I'm not sure how to answer that.
I mean, there's always an achievement
getting the right answer for someone.
You do feel that satisfaction.
Often it's because the solution is one that you know is going to be
rewarding to the client, not always, but pay.
(16:36):
Many people have been down a very long road before they before they talk to us.
I mean, especially if it is an issue of adoption,
where they may have waited 30 years to actually do something
with a harboring at the back of their mind that may have had a couple of attempts
themselves and not got paid for,
and they've finally thought, "I need some professional help."
Sure.
To my achievers, I don't know, just achievements of all words, satisfaction, maybe.
(16:59):
I mean, I can remember being in Grand Canaria
where we travel with a colleague to serve some legal papers over there
on an individual and just to find out all that work and all that travel
and all that effort and getting there that they've moved.
I managed to locate them oddly from a laptop in the back of a van
(17:20):
which is not the best work in the environment.
Same sort of thing happened in Spain.
Right.
The individual we were looking for and tracking down was found to have moved to
called, of course, the city, and then called up just a few weeks before.
We trapped them to Madrid, which meant a very quick journey there.
It was successful.
(17:41):
Hi, I'm Torva Coteman and I'm the head of UK fingerprint.
We take your fingerprints for police clearances overseas
and other licenses.
You can listen to my podcast and all the services we provide here on Detective Diaries.
I just actually want to come back to something you said about being in the back of a van
(18:10):
laptop.
You know, you're doing this on the move.
Sometimes?
Yeah, I mean, technology helps.
I mean, for me, I've been doing this so long.
Heavens, I can remember visiting the family records office in London
and looking through manual records, big volumes and way to tiny.
It all got the shelf and goes through them line by line,
the same time, thing in Dublin,
(18:32):
well, it's equivalent there.
Today, at least, I can use a phone.
Or better access or server through a laptop from just about anywhere in the world.
All right. So what about the unfindables that these people who have deliberately
gone off the grid, for example?
Oh, deliberate is never easy.
(18:53):
They make reality TV programs now about that.
We recently ended up sitting on pavements in Southampton,
talking to homeless people to get a lead on tracking somebody who was a will beneficiary.
They've gone homeless 11 years before.
That gives you a real insight into the realities of homeless and I won't, homelessness.
(19:15):
And I won't dwell on it too much, but I think we've saw as how the public figures of homelessness
are total world away from the reality when you sit there and talk to people.
Hmm. Seeing the real reality, the situation,
you've probably been told it's something else.
Where you kind of think of the numbers which we've told
(19:36):
have done even touch on reality.
I shouldn't dwell on that.
Naju, you've been wonderfully insightful in illustrating how we trace people in how it really is an art form.
If you could, summarize the subject.
What would be your thoughts?
It's this. The world of people tracing is not cleverer.
(19:57):
It's a meticulous, regulated process that requires patience,
it requires skill, it requires an unwavering commitment to ethical practice.
Because if we didn't, life would be unbearable.
I don't want to go to somebody knowing that I found that information through spurious means.
(20:19):
I want to be able to show them the workings.
I want to be able to show them how and not worry about how that information is being obtained.
I've got to confess, you also need to be quite nerdy.
Please don't ask my family about that.
They would probably make comments about my excitement of travelling on
trams and trains and in this video's, I send of any tram that I see wherever it is in the world.
(20:44):
Seriously, it's about piecing a puzzle together.
Often you've got very few pieces and quite a few of them missing as well.
But the reward, whether it's reuniting a family or delivering justice,
it can be profoundly satisfying.
(21:05):
We have it, I think, satisfying as the term of the day there.
Well, that's all we actually have time for today.
Join us next time on Detective Darius as we delve deeper into the often misunderstood world
of private investigation.
We hope you enjoyed today's podcast,
(21:27):
brought to you by answers investigation and UK fingerprint.
If you've enjoyed our conversation and want to learn more about the fascinating world
of investigations, be sure to check out private detective's answers investigation.
Their experience team offers a wide range of discrete and professional services,
helping you find the answers you need with integrity and expertise.
(21:49):
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don't miss UK fingerprint.
As one of the leading fingerprint companies in the UK,
they provide everything from identification to background checks,
working with individuals, businesses, financial institutions and gambling companies.
To find out more, visit www.private-detectives.co.uk.
(22:15):
That's a minor sign, and www.ukfingerprint.co.uk.
These are your go-to resources for investigative solutions and fingerprint expertise.
You can call their office on 02-0-715-8-0-332.
Thanks once again for tuning in. Until next time, stay curious and keep seeking the truth.
(22:45):
[ NOobs ]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(00:05):
Welcome to Detective Diaries, brought to you
by Private Detective's Answers investigation.
If you're captivated by the art of deduction,
the thrill of solving unsolvable, or the enigmatic world
of private investigation, you have just
found your new favorite podcast.
Detective Diaries are where secrets are unraveled,
(00:27):
and the truth is always a clue away.
Presented by Private Detective Answers investigation,
each episode contains of big conversations
about the real people involved in investigation.
Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening,
(00:48):
whereever you might be.
Welcome back to Detective Diaries, the podcast
that pulls back the curtain on the world of private investigation.
I'm your host, Harry Watts.
Today, we're talking about a core part of a private investigator's
work, tracing people nationally and across the globe.
Today, we'll explore the tools, the legal landscape,
and the sensitive nature of tracking down a person,
(01:09):
whether it's a long-lost relative, a debtor,
or a crucial witness.
If you listen closely to our whole episode,
you may even learn how to find people yourself.
Joining us today is someone who knows this world inside and out,
Nigel Parsons, from answers investigation.
Nigel and his team have built a remarkable reputation
for their meticulous approach to finding people,
combining traditional investigative legwork and modern technology
(01:33):
with a sharp sense of empathy.
From sensitive family cases to complex corporate investigations,
Nigel's experience offers a fascinating look
into what it really takes to track people down in the modern age.
Nigel, thank you for joining us.
Oh, the pleasures all mine.
I love podcasting.
Brilliant.
Now Nigel, in the movies, it looks simple,
(01:55):
the detective types a name into a computer,
full profile pops up, complete with a current address,
job and all the rest of it.
In reality, I'm sure it's far more nuanced and more complex
and frankly more human.
Dijuage has provided us with new tools,
but also new walls, I suppose,
(02:15):
particularly with privacy laws and GDPR and so forth.
Yeah, I always smarten myself when I watch the TV
and see this tap, tap, tap on the keyboard,
and then the whole profile comes up,
including some address and pictures and everything else
that goes with it and then off the detectives run,
suddenly they're there three minutes later.
It doesn't work like that.
(02:37):
The first thing I should say is that not every private investigator
can just start tracing.
We must have a legitimate interest.
A person's right to privacy is very central to UK law
and you can't simply start prying into their life for some whim.
There are many legitimate reasons clients come to us,
(03:00):
locating a beneficiary for a will,
tracing a debtor who's disappeared,
or reuniting with a long lost family member.
This ethical framework regulated by organizations
like the Information Commissioners Office
is the bedrock of our profession.
Fantastic.
So if you can try and walk me through this,
(03:21):
so a case comes in perhaps of limited information.
I mean, where do you actually start?
Well, it almost always begins with the information you give us.
The more the better.
Full name, the last known address, date of birth,
these are the foundations of investigation.
If you've only got a name, of course that's possible,
(03:41):
but it's much harder and often a bit more than expensive search.
But we can and we have worked with much, much less.
Sometimes it's a question of identifying the person
as well as subsequently tracing them.
Once instructed, we combine old school detective work,
which I love, with modern tech.
(04:02):
Start with database searches.
Private investigators have accessed a powerful,
proprietary databases that aggregate data from multiple sources.
We can cross-reference information
from credit reference agencies from Courage House,
of course, the electoral role, although I've got to say
that's really not reliable.
And too many people place too much faith in it.
(04:24):
And more importantly, other sources
that are not generally available to the public.
Right.
For us, we use every resource we find, even offbeat ones,
like I don't know, in solvency records
or social media to obtain a lead.
To an extent, email addresses, telephone numbers
(04:44):
can link to an address.
To question, I've taken all those bits of information
and piecing them together to find the person that we want.
I mean, sounds amazing.
I'm envisioning multiple screens, tabs open,
coming through all of these digital records.
But is it always computer-based?
Is it always on such databases?
(05:05):
Well, that vision and the multiple screens in terms of,
is actually right.
I mean, you said my desk, I've got two massive, very screens.
You just have to have information overload them.
Maybe there's half a dozen bits which you put in a bit from this
and a bit from that.
It's very, very hard to describe.
But as for being a question of tapping into databases,
(05:27):
I've got a stress.
No, a finding from data is just that.
It's data.
It's a theory.
Frankly, in the extreme, if I choose to input a form,
saying I'm King Charles the second, third,
saying Charles the third, I think you probably
have not forgotten the second one.
I may end up registered somewhere as King Charles,
(05:50):
but it doesn't make me him.
Sometimes the only positive way to confirm
that somebody is somebody or somebody is what the data suggests
is to make some discrete physical inquiries.
Hola, yo soy James Lupton, interpreter, y traucator.
(06:12):
Escucheme en el podcast Detective Diaries.
Avlando de mi experience is la Verales.
There's the La Alta Court, the English, Al Campo Colombiano.
Hi, I'm James Lupton, interpreter and translator.
Come and listen to me on Detective Diaries,
talking about my experiences working
from the English high court to the Colombian countries.
(06:34):
(upbeat music)
So it's kind of one half of the coin
and the physical is the other half,
but if that's not machine-based,
how do these physical inquiries take shape?
Well, it could mean a dozen different methodologies,
perhaps a knock on the door,
perhaps some driven in the St. Rooze
(06:55):
or inquiries of neighbors.
We won't ever know,
but I have to confess sometimes
that folks would perhaps don't necessarily volunteer
the real reason from calling somebody's door.
It's perhaps the incentivized station
to get someone talking there.
Is there an example then that you can give us
as to how this kind of methodology gets put into action?
(07:18):
Yeah, I think of the top of my head.
I mean, not too long ago,
we were asked to identify and find somebody,
but all the client knew was their first name.
They had a rough idea, they rage,
the fact that it probably would be the parents,
but not very much at all, but yeah, we are helped,
just knowing that we're probably in that area.
(07:39):
I mean, we satisfied ourselves
that the client's reasons were not sinister,
I mean, far from it, in fact.
And then began the man searches of people
with that first name in the target town.
Right.
So for a population of about 100,000,
it produced around 250 results
just on the basis of this first name.
(08:00):
Sounds a lot you can't deal with that.
Still too much to deal with, but I'm extracting data
from those results and references.
Some had a date birth, some where that wasn't in the target range.
We could eliminate them, some showed merit,
occupancy, and again, we could eliminate them,
(08:21):
and other eliminating factors.
In short, we ended up with a short list
of just 11, 11 possible.
Wow.
So using that process elimination, you get your short list,
what happens next?
To be honest, we've discreetly doorstep them.
In fact, to take the edge from it,
a couple of my young female colleagues do.
(08:42):
They just removed any thoughts of the occupants
of any former threat by somebody on the doorstep.
Guess what?
Forced door knock transpired to be the person we found.
And basically, you go from 100,000 people
to finding the right person.
Just off their first name.
Unbelievable stuff.
Yeah, it's totally process of elimination
(09:04):
and usually there's little bits of information
and some educated guesses.
Yeah, it's very satisfying when you get to the limit.
When you get the threads coming together,
that must be fantastic for you.
Well, you know, driving tracing is an art form.
It's just this damage of tap, tap, tap,
putting there's the result of it.
(09:24):
It often takes innovative thoughts and methodology.
It's not just rooting, keyboard, version.
Hmm.
OK, so we can't have talked about where it all goes right,
but I'm sure it's never that simple.
I mean, what are the difficulties that arise?
Yeah, I imagine commonality of names, but that's...
Oh, heavens.
Yes.
(09:45):
It's the John Smith of this world, the difficult ones.
Not from finding them.
I mean, often the problem is simply not
locating them from databases.
We find that quite quickly.
The trouble is which ones yours?
You don't know which John Smith is from another John Smith
without the corroborating information.
Hmm.
(10:06):
I mean, you asked about examples.
Another recent issue.
We had instructions from a solicitor we'd worked with for years
and years and years.
The lovely people.
They needed to find the beneficiaries from a will,
but the will was made about 30 years ago.
And on that will quite a number of requests
and also charity requests.
(10:26):
And of course, the charity requests could not be satisfied
until the names beneficiaries were found.
OK.
We identified most of them, but we had a few that were a bit sticky.
Sure.
OK, and largely because they'd moved,
it was just Mr and Mrs X down the road,
or John and Margaret even are thinking more in case.
(10:50):
So we'd then find most of them because a few sticky ones
were the couple, even after we've attained bleeds
that they were or may have died in an area.
We ended up physically looking at headstones in Graveyards
to find evidence of their demise, where, of course,
the desk was a little bit too recent to be recorded
(11:10):
because those records don't come out straight away.
It's painting an awfully different picture.
I think that most people would think about the streams.
They have the files, they have lever arch files of data and data.
But you're actually looking at headstones.
Is this coming back into a physical work?
Yeah, yeah, transform your mental image from the geek
(11:30):
with glasses, stirring up the screen,
so we're about the glasses people are wearing.
So, but, you know, it's a different image from the geek
in front of the keyboard, so trutching around in the mud
and around, walking up and down,
lives the great lines of gravestones, trust me.
So, does the case with Argy involved the UK then?
Or looking elsewhere?
(11:51):
No, often not. We live in a global society.
I mean, we do a lot of work in Europe.
Once I traveled a course ago,
having traced someone's birth mother there,
to visit her at the client's request,
we've really served her the data,
but who knows until you actually get there?
Sure.
I mean, not too long ago, I spent an hour on the telephone
(12:14):
with someone who would be trapped down the Holland.
They moved there 27 years ago.
I remember the lady, she actually came from Wales originally
and she had lived in the Mercer to self-soumarch in the society.
She lived in, she'd actually forgotten a lot of English
because it was the first English person she'd spoken to in several years.
(12:34):
We located another mother in France, we visited her,
after transpired that she retired to a town called the Salt
for ideas previously. And yeah, not of examples.
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(13:15):
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See, you measured a couple of places in Europe there,
so there's clearly a lot of reach.
Is it difficult to get into these databases and resources?
Yes, no.
(13:36):
I mean, it can't be an awful lot of work.
I mean, everywhere has available databases,
some more extensive than the other.
Of course, maybe talking about Greece, we're using
an entirely different alphabet.
The make-humps are very often different.
It's completely our ideas.
Spain's got 17 different regions.
(13:57):
That's, this into a total of 50 provinces.
There's also two autonomous cities,
Cureta, and Malia in North Africa.
You may have to go through every single one.
So rather than tap on that computer,
you perhaps do in lots of very quick look in hacking.
(14:22):
France, again, very similar.
Surprisingly, there is very little national recording.
I mean, France has got 18 administrative regions.
Somewhere around there.
I know about a dozen, though, in metropolitan France.
And then, of course, they've got the Roman Basis regions as well.
Places like Martinique, Martinique, Guadalupe,
(14:45):
Crayonin, French Guyana.
French Guyana is massive.
And just because somebody may be French,
they've got as easy access to go to Martinique,
because Martinique is part of France, as opposed to being separate.
There's lots of complications to it.
So it sounds like this kind of knowledge and experience
(15:07):
you've must have picked up over years and years of doing this,
because there's so many nuances and individual differences
between all of these countries and how you can go looking for these resources.
Yeah, whenever I find something new,
some new resource, I keep it.
I log it, I put a bookmark on it,
and it does help to be able to think,
(15:28):
"Hang on, this might be, I don't know, Romania, or what might be."
In your Spain or wherever, oh yes, that's the one, you know this,
because you're not using everything every single day.
Sure.
In Britain, a lot of the ex-packed communities,
you know, people like Lady Alentina before,
would go up to the tyre,
common met time and destinations are going to be for us in Spain sometimes.
(15:52):
This, they increasingly now portable,
but obviously can be much more further afield.
People work globally.
They'll just disappear off the map for three or four years,
because they've suddenly got a job in Budapest.
Yeah, fantastic.
It's interesting, really is interesting.
Is there perhaps then thinking back on these sort of years of experience
(16:15):
in these different cases?
Is there a particular achievement that comes to mind, or, you know,
a difficult case perhaps?
I'm not sure how to answer that.
I mean, there's always an achievement
getting the right answer for someone.
You do feel that satisfaction.
Often it's because the solution is one that you know is going to be
rewarding to the client, not always, but pay.
(16:36):
Many people have been down a very long road before they before they talk to us.
I mean, especially if it is an issue of adoption,
where they may have waited 30 years to actually do something
with a harboring at the back of their mind that may have had a couple of attempts
themselves and not got paid for,
and they've finally thought, "I need some professional help."
Sure.
To my achievers, I don't know, just achievements of all words, satisfaction, maybe.
(16:59):
I mean, I can remember being in Grand Canaria
where we travel with a colleague to serve some legal papers over there
on an individual and just to find out all that work and all that travel
and all that effort and getting there that they've moved.
I managed to locate them oddly from a laptop in the back of a van
(17:20):
which is not the best work in the environment.
Same sort of thing happened in Spain.
Right.
The individual we were looking for and tracking down was found to have moved to
called, of course, the city, and then called up just a few weeks before.
We trapped them to Madrid, which meant a very quick journey there.
It was successful.
(17:41):
Hi, I'm Torva Coteman and I'm the head of UK fingerprint.
We take your fingerprints for police clearances overseas
and other licenses.
You can listen to my podcast and all the services we provide here on Detective Diaries.
I just actually want to come back to something you said about being in the back of a van
(18:10):
laptop.
You know, you're doing this on the move.
Sometimes?
Yeah, I mean, technology helps.
I mean, for me, I've been doing this so long.
Heavens, I can remember visiting the family records office in London
and looking through manual records, big volumes and way to tiny.
It all got the shelf and goes through them line by line,
the same time, thing in Dublin,
(18:32):
well, it's equivalent there.
Today, at least, I can use a phone.
Or better access or server through a laptop from just about anywhere in the world.
All right. So what about the unfindables that these people who have deliberately
gone off the grid, for example?
Oh, deliberate is never easy.
(18:53):
They make reality TV programs now about that.
We recently ended up sitting on pavements in Southampton,
talking to homeless people to get a lead on tracking somebody who was a will beneficiary.
They've gone homeless 11 years before.
That gives you a real insight into the realities of homeless and I won't, homelessness.
(19:15):
And I won't dwell on it too much, but I think we've saw as how the public figures of homelessness
are total world away from the reality when you sit there and talk to people.
Hmm. Seeing the real reality, the situation,
you've probably been told it's something else.
Where you kind of think of the numbers which we've told
(19:36):
have done even touch on reality.
I shouldn't dwell on that.
Naju, you've been wonderfully insightful in illustrating how we trace people in how it really is an art form.
If you could, summarize the subject.
What would be your thoughts?
It's this. The world of people tracing is not cleverer.
(19:57):
It's a meticulous, regulated process that requires patience,
it requires skill, it requires an unwavering commitment to ethical practice.
Because if we didn't, life would be unbearable.
I don't want to go to somebody knowing that I found that information through spurious means.
(20:19):
I want to be able to show them the workings.
I want to be able to show them how and not worry about how that information is being obtained.
I've got to confess, you also need to be quite nerdy.
Please don't ask my family about that.
They would probably make comments about my excitement of travelling on
trams and trains and in this video's, I send of any tram that I see wherever it is in the world.
(20:44):
Seriously, it's about piecing a puzzle together.
Often you've got very few pieces and quite a few of them missing as well.
But the reward, whether it's reuniting a family or delivering justice,
it can be profoundly satisfying.
(21:05):
We have it, I think, satisfying as the term of the day there.
Well, that's all we actually have time for today.
Join us next time on Detective Darius as we delve deeper into the often misunderstood world
of private investigation.
We hope you enjoyed today's podcast,
(21:27):
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(22:15):
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Thanks once again for tuning in. Until next time, stay curious and keep seeking the truth.
(22:45):
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