In this episode, Oscar and Francois discuss essential gear for surveillance investigators and executive protection specialists. From binoculars and portable jump starters to bulletproof vests and pepper spray, they cover a comprehensive list of tools and equipment that professionals should have at their disposal to ensure effective fieldwork and personal safety.
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This episode of the Miami PI Chronicles podcast is bought to you by the law offices of Richard E. Basha and Associates specializing in all aspects of commercial, civil, business law and litigation. Their office is located in the Bank of America building located at 401 East Los Solas Boulevard, wheat 1400, for Lauderdale, Florida, read read 301. For a free consultation, please call 954-523-4882. That's 954-523-4882. For all your investigative needs, please call McKinnon Investigative Group at 954-513-7414. That's 954-513-7414 or email us at myginvestigationsetoutlook.com. Welcome to the Miami PI Chronicles podcast. I'm your host, Francois McKinnon from McKinnon Investigative Group. And I'm Oscar Santa Maria of Optimum Investigations. We created this podcast with the goal to educate, inform and entertain aspiring beginner and senior professionals in the investigative field. With over 60 years of combined experience, we offer invaluable insights and lessons learned. While we may not have all the answers, our knowledge can certainly benefit anyone interested in this dynamic profession. So sit back, listen and enjoy these episodes. Please don't forget to like, share and follow. Hey Oscar, how's it going? It's going pretty well, Francois. How about with yourself? Great. It's been a long week. What have you been up to? Just trying to close up files, some that have been lingering for a while and just want to get those off my desk by the end of the month and start fresh. Yeah, I know. It's the time of the year. I've done the same thing. I've been working on social media and working on billing because I never have the time to do that. Thank God, my wife, Christina, has been helping me catching up a little bit. I wanted to tell you or tell our audience that this week for this show, we came up with a list of what investigators that do surveillance should have in their vehicles or with them at all times. And this is obviously not a final list, but it's a very good list that will have available through our email at the MyMePiacronicles.com. And if you reach out to us, we'll go ahead and email you the list that was compiled by Oscar and I. And I think it's going to be very helpful because there's a lot of little things that obviously we added more to the one from the email, but we're going to discuss some today. And Oscar, go ahead and tell us a little bit where you can put it. Sure. So let's just assume that we all have the reliable nondescript car with tinted windows, the cell phone and the camera. So above and beyond those things, I think whatever investigators should probably have at their disposal would be a pair of binoculars. Obviously your camera, you can zoom in and you can see things, but that takes a little bit of time. You can just pick up a binoculars and look and you're going to save yourself some time there. So I would definitely have a pair of binoculars, a tripod or a monopod, something that for those extended instances where you have a lot of activity, whether someone's either sitting or standing or playing basketball or something where you have to hold that camera for more than five minutes. I think you'd be best served using a tripod or a monopod. Your arms can get very tired very quickly holding one of these cameras even though that they're very light. Yeah, you're right because if you get tired or whatever, you start getting a shaky shot and it's not what the type of product we want to deliver to our clients. We want to get the best product out there for them. That's a mistake that newcomers do and we're here to help out newcomers. But the reality is that people make them mistaken. It's a very small investment. Like the J-mounts, one of my favorite things that I have in my gearbag is a J-mount that sets up on the window. It's a suction cup with a tripod that mounts on your camera that can go left, right, up and down, yet you don't have to touch it. You have a little bar that you can move a little bit up and down or side this up from side to side. It gives you the best steady shot. This is what our clients are looking for. Absolutely. You want your video to be clear and steady. I think that the monopod is really going to help in that regard. Moving on, I think every investigator should probably have a power inverter with them. From time to time, you're going to have to plug a lot of things into your vehicle. You can plug in your camera when it starts losing battery, be a computer, just all sorts of things. An air compressor in case your vehicle goes flat, which is something that I also have on this list. Oftentimes, surveillance investigators pull off to the side of the road, on the swale, things like that. There's often times nails and other things that can puncture your tire. It's good to have an air compressor or fix a flat or one of those tire repair patch kits that you can just do this. I use those all the time. I mean, we get flat tires all the time and they cost probably ten bucks. All you have to do is if you have a power drill or even nothing, you just shove it in there, pull it out and you're ready to go. If you have your air compressor, you can fill up your tire and go, "This happens all the time." I mean, people don't realize how many flat tires we get, even with new cars. We get flat tires all the time. The only way you're going to be able to utilize your air compressor is by plugging it into a power inverter. That's why I want to go back to the power inverter. That's very important to have. You want to have those things. Can I mention the portable jump starter? When you have things plugged into your vehicle, it's going to drain your battery. Next thing, you go to start your car, when your subject is moving and your car is not going to start. Jumper cables are one thing, but a portable jump starter is something else, something that you can actually just open up your hood, put them down there. It's kind of like one of those defibrillator things that you see clear, boom, and your car starts, just like a hard stuff. The hard just started it again. Exactly. Because time is of the essence in these things, so make sure you have one of those. I would also suggest there be a change of clothes, maybe a couple of hats in there. Sometimes you follow people into multiple locations and they keep seeing you. That could be a problem. Have some sunglasses, change of clothes, living in Florida. A lot of people go to the beach, so have something, you know, like short, like having shorts and a baseball cap and different sunglasses. You can have some weird sunglasses just to change the look, correct? That's exactly correct. Another thing I would suggest people have is carry cash with you. You don't have to have thousands of dollars, but I would say at least 20 dollars. There's going to be times when you're going to go follow somebody, maybe do a flea market or park at a certain location where they don't accept cards and you're going to need cash following somebody to a hotel or a condominium and you're going to want something to maybe tip a valet to let you stay where you're going to be able to see the person coming and going. Cash is still king in some respects, so have that with you. Also water, it gets eight hours. Typically, you're in a car and it gets hot and you need to stay hydrated. So certainly bring water and by that same vein, something to go to the bathroom in because the more water you drink, the more you're going to have to put that somewhere. So I would have either a little cup or maybe like a little urinal or something that you can do that. So those are the things that I think you should absolutely have. There's other things, a couple of other things that you don't really need, but things that come in handy and those things are like a drone. You can't get into a gated community and you want to be able to see if the vehicles are there. That's what it's for. I don't typically get video by using a drone because I'm not a certified drone pilot and I think that's the only way that a video would be usable if you get it on surveillance if you're a licensed drone pilot, but it gives you good intel. Also, an electric scooter and I'm saying this. Electric scooter for what? Okay. I want to hear this. It's your old age or something? Well, I mean, that's cool. That's part of it, but recently I did a couple of cases where people got on a bicycle and they took off and obviously a bike can be very, very bulky and you want to have something that you can get around in very quickly. I did a case where I followed a guy. He actually took a scooter out of his car and then he went he took off down Collins Avenue, which I don't know if any of you know that it's on the beach. And even though I was in my car with the traffic down there, the guy got off on me just took off. I think an electric scooter could have come in handy. Also, if you can't get into a gated community, sometimes you can go through a pedestrian gate or go between the bars by having an electric scooter. And if you do get in, the subject's house could be quite far. I would just do it for just a convenience sake. And probably the final thing that I would probably like to have is remote cameras. Sometimes cases are going well. You don't see any activity. So what you want to do is you want to use one of these things and maybe put them down, deploy them, keep them out there for a while. There's different functions. It can go either motion detector, time lapse or continuous. What I've done on a couple of occasions is I've used these things and I put them on continuous video. I leave. They usually go up to like 16 hours and then I review the video and see if there was any activity. Often times I do see activity that comes later on in the day. So remote cameras are good. You can get them fairly cheap, probably under $100. And if you lose them or somebody finds them, it's no big deal. They're cheap enough where it's not going to hurt. So those are the things that I would typically have if I were a surveillance investigator out in the field. Well, you are. You're one of the best. So that's very helpful. I was going to ask you about the water because staying hydrated, I remember doing this. You get so hot in South Florida that how much water do you consume because you understand every time you consume water, you have to let it out somehow. So because I personally try to always have ice with me when I leave in the morning and then I will take an ice cube and just keep it on just to stay hydrated. And I've heard some other investigative guys that say, Oh, I drink like two gallons a day and I'm thinking, Hmm, you know, that car is going to be smelly something at one point. So I'm just asking your preference. The funny enough is I kind of consider myself a human camel. I don't really drink a lot of water, but I do know the importance of it. And a lot of my investigative friends will not leave home without it. So I see them carrying the big gallon jugs, the water bottles. I see them carrying them and they're these yeti thermoses. So I mean, for me personally, I really don't need it. I'm not dying for it, but I can see the need where some people really like their water. And so you should definitely have it. I should certainly drink more than I do. Maybe that's something I'll do for the new year. I'll put that as a New Years resolution drink more. Yeah, which words nobody ever listens or so. Don't worry about it. Listen, we're going to take a break and we'll be right back right after this. This episode of the Miami PI Chronicles podcast is bought to you by the law offices of Richard E. Basha and associates specializing in all aspects of commercial civil business law and litigation. Their office is located in the Bank of America building located at 401 East Los Solas Boulevard, sweet 1400 for Lauderdale, Florida, read read 301. For a free consultation, please call 954-523-4882. That's 954-523-4882. For all your investigative needs, please call McKinnon Investigative Group at 954-513-7414. That's 954-513-7414 or email us at myginvestigations@outlook.com. And we're back. So first of all, let's talk a little bit about what every EP agent should have with them. Well, I don't know if I can say that every executive protection specialist should have, but I can tell you how I do it. And I've been doing it for 24 years, the executive protection part of it. So we compiled a little bit of a list for listeners and whoever's interested, they can go to my mepiconicles@gmail.com and we'll be more than happy to email you a more in-depth list that we compiled, but we're just going over some of the stuff that some people may or may not know. So to begin, when you do an EP job, the first thing you'll have is like a carry-on or eiffel bag to be able to be ready to travel. And it's very important to be ready in this kind of business because you don't get a second chance out of it. So the first thing that we have, I put a carry-on in the truck of my car, a gun obviously a carry-a 9mm Glock 17 and 19 I mean plus ammunition and then traveling with weapons are things that a lot of people don't know about. And the important thing is you better know what you're doing because you're going to end up over there without a gun. So which means you have to have my airline laws which vary from some airlines to others but you have to reach out to the airlines and understand and ask them the exact things that they want because some of them will take a small one-end gun type of still safe with a combination or a double lock but they will not accept the ammunition to be in the same box. So that's why I say reach out to your airline and ask them exactly what it is you need. And most importantly how long you'll take to get your weapon once you get to the airport because I've been in this, I've done this for a long time and I'll tell you what it becomes exhausting because every airline that's got different time. Are there any airlines that are more problematic than others? There are some and I use a lot of them so I don't want to name any. I can tell you that delta airlines and American are very gun friendly traveling and you have to understand these weapons your weapon is in a steel box in case lock with or without ammunition but nothing in a weapon. So they're very particular about it but delta and American have been and also a legion. A legion have been wonderful with me and I use them all the time. A legion airline has been fantastic. So you have to check it right? I mean you can't bring it as a carry on it's got to go into like no it has to go into a steel, personal, travel, gun, box that's what it's called. Yes but this but can you bring it on the plane with you or does it go where like luggage goes? Negative it goes into a special part of the aircraft in the belly of the aircraft where only weapons go and they're very, by the time you get out of the airport your little tiny safe has been tagged on everything. It's like all sorts of different color tag. That doesn't come around the luggage thing right? You have to go somewhere to pick that up at the end of your flight. You have to go to it's called a special service for most airlines. By the time you're doing this process of adding your weapon being taken care of in the belly of the aircraft they know what they're doing. They don't make any mistakes but it could be obviously. So the second thing when I travel and I do an executive protection detail I'm going to carry a weapon a weapon to my right because I might end it on my hip not liking the movies or you know cross-draw like a shooter buddy and as baton behind it 18 inch expendable baton and this is extremely useful because of the fact that if you have to separate yourself from a bad guy or a drunk guy or whatever instead of and I'm not saying to use the as baton the expendable baton to hit someone. I'm just saying use it to create separation. That way you have distance. This kind of job all you need is this distance. If you don't have this then you already fail because they got to get you. If they get close enough to you they might get you. So that's one of the that they and that's a very good point and as baton in a holster upside down takes one second it's expanded and it makes a sound that people get. It's like racking a shotgun. People get it. People get that and they go okay they mean this. On my left side and I you have to wear like I use 5-11 shirts when it's not a dressy coat and like a casual coat khaki pants and the nice blue 5-11 shirt. The good things about the 5-11 shirt is that the buttons they look like they have buttons but they're snap-ons. So at the last second you can just go like this and uninstall your weapon quickly and have quick access to your magazine. So that's why 5-11 is a great product. I'm sure there's other ones out there but I'm just venture. Another thing I carry military grade pepper gas at all times because of the fact that it's another level of protection and separation between the bad guys and your client and yourself and if you're taken out you're used. So you have to have as much as you can legally do to be able to separate from people who want to do something to your client. What do you recommend? Pepper spray or pepper gel? Pepper spray all the time and the pepper spray two rounds plus need to be you need to go outside obviously not in your house but go outside and use it away from the wind because some of them will give you a spray and some of them will give you a direct spray. Do you want the direct spray because as soon as you deploy the pepper gas you want to be able to visualize it where it's going and to shoot at your attackers to disable them and I'll tell you what pepper gas is a very very good process to stop people. Now all you need to do is literally step a foot or two to your right or left and they'll try to attack you with a knife they'll walk right by they won't even see. So very good weapon to have if it's legal and when I say that Oscar I'm saying for everyone to check their local states and see what's available what's legal and what's not and it's very important. So moving on a bulletproof vest I use level four it's a flexible vest it's a white one made in Miami it's white because I use it I use light shirts or light white dress shirts and a jacket on top to conceal the weapons and everything else we all a good bulletproof vest is everything first of all it's going to be the comfort you I see like a lot of police officers and I understand why but they have like an extremely high level and the stuff that these poor people wear every day is intolerable to me anyways to myself. So I wear a level four was made in Miami near Miami and I've had it forever I have plates that are in it and I upgraded those a couple of years ago and everything I feel very comfortable with that. Does that go over your shirt or underneath? Oh I wear like a t-shirt under it and then I put it on and then I wear a shirt and sometime a tie and a jacket on top the drill in South Florida gets really hot and I'll tell you what I've had moments before in my life that I was going what am I doing? Never mind the client I'm gonna time myself but it's something that you power through and you get over it at one point. I was in Las Vegas doing a protective detail it was my birthday I walked out I had my replacement I walked into the parking lot and it was a hundred and seven degrees plus but we're used to the humidity in South Florida there was a humidity in Vegas so I was walking around with a bullet proof as on a tie and a jacket and I'm walking around by the pool and these people were looking me going this poor bastard what is he doing? No that's a completely different type of heat. Oh yeah but it's for me I think it's more tolerable than the heat that we have in South Florida and specifically during these times July August oh my gosh it's horrible. So you're cooking from the inside with the dry heat I'll take the humidity. Yeah but that's after doing a 12-hour shift inside the casino that's somewhat cold and there's no clock so you're just waiting for yourself to get out of the job you know and then at one point you're so exhausted that you don't even you can't even go to sleep right away so what I do is I bring a bathing suit and usually these clients that we have very nice hotels so they all have indoor pools so a good swim to get the adrenaline out of you and then I shower and go to sleep and repeat so that's one of the important things bullet proof vests kind of important in this kind of job the proper clothing suits casual clothes shorts bathing suit these are all things that you must have because you're going to run into situations they have to change the way your dress or else you're not going to fit in with the client some clients sometimes turn around and they say you know what we're going to go to this fancy beach club but we changed our mind let's go to the beach which is where everybody goes the local beach or one of you and it presents a very complicated aspect of the protected detail that and you have to understand this Oscar most people are not aware of this these clients change our minds on a dime money is no object and they will do anything they want so you must be prepared and being prepared is everything if you don't prepare yourself in this kind of work you're going to fail you're preparing yourself to fail so the proper clothes suits casual clothing in South Beach Miami in South Florida we always carry shorts running shorts because some of the clients want to go running in the morning for some reason which is not the thing I love so much we get back in the shape very quickly another thing is your PI and firearms credentials extremely important and I have my PI badge with my ID and number my Florida PI number on it it's something that you must have sometimes when you're doing protective detail if you see people that want to arm your client once that they see this coming to you they pay attention they kind of back off and it gives you a little bit of a breather room to make it a next step well what about a passport you're gonna have that on you also well I was getting there valid passports are extremely important I carry mine we in my gear bag at all times and then once I get out of my car I put it inside my jacket pocket I always have my valid passport because it's happened I've seen the other guys that were ready our client said oh okay well we're gonna go to Rome and we're gonna do this for two weeks this is about two thousand a day per guy and these guys lost out on this income for two weeks so that's 14 days at it so it's almost 30 000 they lost out because they didn't have a passport and I don't know if everyone understands when you're flying on a private client it doesn't matter you have to have your passport and when you get on board of the private jet the pilots or to help that they have on board come around and they take a photo of your passport and they must put it into the flight plan and it's usually done before obviously they don't ask at the last minute but these people lost out on 30 35 000 dollars because they didn't have a passport ready to go and you must be ready to go at all times and it's kind of like so also credit cards some credit cards are not accepted overseeds so you have to do your due diligence in your own work and find out a credit card that's really gonna work I love American Express but I will tell you that it's not accepted everywhere in Europe so always have like maybe an annex and also a couple of visa or massacre just in case sometimes these clients expect you to be extremely wealthy and they'll say oh something didn't happen with my credit card can you pay for the fueling of the yacht or the jet well that's about 40 000 dollars either way you want to spend so it's very very expensive so I have something or always communicate properly with a client when they're doing a job for your supervisor to say well I'm not dropping 20 grand 30 grand on gas or toiletries medication these are all things that you have to plan ahead if you're taking any kind of medication for blood pressure anxiety whatever you better have it ready because they will not fill your prescription in another country it doesn't work that way you have to go through a whole process some of them might be easier but the bottom line is that you're gonna want to stay healthy that they care and protect your clients so you need to be yourself properly feeling good and the medication toilet freeze bathing suit to exercise anything that you exercise in a nice hotel you won't add that because your ward 12 to 16 hours a day and you'll need to sleep at least four to five hours so in between what I do is I love to swim and then I get into my bed so go to the pool these pools are open 24/7 into these nice hotels and you swim 20 30 minutes you come out of the pool and you get back to your room take a nice shower go to sleep and repeat and it's important to add and I'm sure there's a bunch of things that I did not discuss today about but I think that there's a bunch more things that I could add and we'll have that on the list at my me P.I. chronic goals at jubilee well that was a very informative list Francois thank you for sharing that with us I have a friend who does E.P. and he's a big first-aited guy like he has oh I'm glad you brought this up the reason I didn't bring it up is because whenever we have a big detail there's one guy that's an emergency medical so he has a bag and these bags Oscar you hook it up in the top of your hotel room door and they little they go two two like four step down they have everything in there and we're expected in case this guy gets shot to use it we've taken classes about it and the training but I'll tell you what they have portable what do they call those things to start your heart I mean it's awesome yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah exactly I can't think about it right now but I don't care A.E.D.s I think that they're calling it. I mean these things come in a very small little case but it's part of the emergency medical kid that they deploy in front of you it's a very impressive and that's why I didn't mention it because on these details they either have a physician and a protective detail a medical protective detail that's why I didn't bring it up at a very good point very good if you get a client out there and they get shot uh you have to first of all remove them of the situation put them in a car or wherever and take it away and you should see the checklist that we have when we do these protective detail we're talking about blood types clients blood types their children hospitals different areas of let's say that let's use my beat as an example if something happens somebody gets shot the timing and all I get takes you to get from A to B and what we do is we pre-map it before and this comes from in the binder and we send it to the clients they fill in all of the blanks that they want or may not want but some of them are some of them are very important yeah I'm glad you brought this up I think that's going to do it for today and I want to thank all of our listeners for listening to us and supporting us we really appreciate you and you guys are what make us do this and we're here to help you and try to teach or for you guys to learn something that you didn't like Oscar so I don't know a lot so especially about the EP stuff so it's always good to learn all these two different worlds you know a lot more about surveillance than I do and I've been doing this for a long time so I'm the yin to your yang okay there you go that's us anyways everyone thank you so much for listening to us and please like and feel free to reach out to us at my me ti Chronicles dot com I at gmail dot com we'll be more than happy to answer anything you want and if you have the suggestions for the show please feel free to let us know we'll be more than happy any PIs that have great crazy stories we'd love to hear from have a good night everyone and we'll see you next week up on their Tuesday [Music] [Music] [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
