This episode of the Miami PI Chronicles is brought to you by The Spy Shops for all your investigative and spy gear needs. Please call The Spy Shops in Fort Lauderdale at 954-563-1779 or visit them at www.spyshops.com. For all your investigative needs, please contact us at McKinnon Investigative Group at 954-513-7414 or visit us at www.miginvestigations.com. We are a full service investigative agency. For a free consultation, please call 954-513-7414. Florida Agency license A-1341-42. We also offer professional courtesy rates for other investigative agencies. 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 a goal to educate, inform and entertain aspiring, beginner and seasoned 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. Welcome back to the show. Hi, Oscar. How's everything going? Pretty good, Francois. How about yourself? Everything is good here a long week. And I want to tell you that a lot of people have loved the show and they send an email to McKinnon Investigative Group telling us that they love the show and they're supporting the show. So I was very excited about that. We've been putting in the effort and the work and I wanted to share that with you. Well, thank you. And how's your week? You've been doing surveillance? Yeah, it's been a busy week. Same thing. You sound very excited. Same thing different day, so. And it's very hot right now. Oh, my God. Yes, it certainly is. It feels like it's 105 degrees. It's really, really hot and it's tough on cars also. I had a little bit of a overheating problem this week. I had to get some radiator hoses replaced, but she's good to go again. So we're back on the road. That's because you're running the AC all the time. What are you doing? So balance to stay alive, not dying? Yeah, pretty much to stay alive. Yes. That's the reason I do it. It's tough. It's been a costly week. It's been a costly week as well as a repair. Yeah, well, listen, it's an occupational hazard. So it's going to happen. You're going to lose your ACs. You're going to do overheat. You're going to go through alternators and batteries because you got all sorts of things plugged into your car. So, you know, you just got to expect it and, you know, leave room in the budget for that part of the expenses. And since we're talking about the surveillance, what do people just starting out in surveillance have the most difficulty overcoming? You know, that's a question that somebody, one of our listeners sent us. So in my experience, I've trained several people over the course of my career. And I think that right out of the box, the most difficulty people have overcoming is the paranoia that the person that they're following actually knows you're following them. And so that just causes them to, you know, want to break off or stay too far back and end up losing somebody. And you really have to overcome that fear if you're going to be a good surveillance investigator. So what I would suggest is people who are, you know, having that difficulty getting over that paranoia, I would suggest they go to the local grocery store and then just follow people, you know, from the grocery store home. Obviously, they're going to, in most cases, live in the general vicinity of where that grocery store is. So I would start following older people. They're less aware. And then, you know, just following them from the store to their house. And then as you go, you go a little bit younger and, you know, until you get rid of that fear because, you know, more often than not, people are clueless. I mean, they're so distracted these days around their telephone at lights. They're, you know, too busy, you know, looking at the road in front of them. Maybe they're talking on the phone. So you just got to overcome that fear. And then there's also things that you can reduce getting burns or losses. And I think that the most important thing to do when you're on a surveillance is really getting the people out of the neighborhood without them seeing you noticing you obviously they might see you, but really noticing you. In most cases, once you get them out of the neighborhood and onto a main road, you can blend in with vehicles and you're just going to be just another car, but, you know, they see you behind them, leaving their neighborhood, you know, just you and them. They might notice your car at that time. And then they might notice you later on. So what I would do is, you know, let them get out of the neighborhood, try to be as discreet as possible. And once you get them onto the main road, I wouldn't, you know, if it's a multiple lane highway, I wouldn't stay directly right behind them. I would either probably stay to the right of them. It's kind of their blind side to the left of them. You know, that's really their driver's side and right behind them is really never good either because whenever you get to a light, they're going to be able to see in their rearview mirror, you know, if they're paying attention. And if they keep seeing you. So, you know, try to get a cover car or a blocker and try not to stay directly behind somebody, try to stay in maybe another lane. If you're going down a neighborhood and you're familiar with a neighborhood and you have the ability to parallel down the street, I would do that. And, you know, if they're going into like a mall area or a gas station and there's another entrance, I would try to use that other entrance. Gotcha. Well, I did a job, but years ago in the neighborhood, very tight neighborhood. And what I would do is once I followed the car out of the cul-de-sac, I would turn on my right, flash it, turn right, and then just barely turn right and get right back in and turn my lights off and then continue a bit and then do that if I add to it in case they stop at a light. They look at the mirror and they see me again. So, either you make a left turn, you make a right turn, but you can't. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, make a quick little ride and then like a quick little U-turn at the same time and then maybe turn your lights on and stuff. And, you know, that works. And that's why I think we spoke before about these automatic driving lights. You know, sometimes you're not able to turn them off. So, I would prefer my preferences to have a vehicle where I can turn off those running lights and, you know, and you can change things up. You can put something in the mirror. Like, if they're hanging from a rear view mirror, you can mess with your sunpass, turn it on, take it off, maybe throw some things on top of your dashboard. Just give it some different looks when you're behind somebody, especially if you're following somebody for quite a long distance. Now, where I would suggest you not give a lot of blockers and maybe stay directly behind the person is, you know, when it's bumper to bumper traffic. So, in those instances, I would probably say you should probably be right behind them because you have a couple of people coming in and all of a sudden you're six cars back and there's a light coming on and then you're out of the ballgame. Aside from bumper to bumper traffic, try not to be, you know, directly behind the person, try to be on the right side of them, if possible. If you have to be behind them, try to get it in case that they get off and exit. So you want to stay on the right side of them. Exactly. Well, they, exactly. And then when you can have a blocker or a cover car. Can you tell us what a blocker is? Well, it's just a car that's between you and the person you're following. People also call them cover cars. So, just, you know, take advantage of those things and sometimes you're able to tell when you're on a surveillance, when the light's going to change by looking at the pedestrian crosswalks. So they have a countdown. I think they started maybe at 30 seconds or 25 seconds. And if you see that countdown happening as you're approaching that intersection, you can evaluate, "Do I need to speed up? Are they going to make the light? Am I going to make the light?" So, you know, try to use those things to your advantage also. And if someone does happen to get through a light on you, the best way to recover is you want to make a quick right hand turn and then a quick U-turn. And if they made a left hand turn through a light, you know, you can go, your light will be green. If not, you can make a right hand turn and you'll have the right of way and you can catch right back up to them. So, there's a little things that you'll learn throughout the years, but that's what I would suggest. You know, it's trial and error. I think there's a lot of practice that is, and we've been doing it for a long time, but for newcomers, at the beginning, it could be a little frightening. But I think the advices you're giving are very valid and very smart. I believe that I used to do the same thing. I would get the new interns and to see if they could follow somebody. I would have them set up at a public or a food line or something, and then they would follow the vehicles to a residence. I would get them to film to get videotaped. This is during the daytime in videotape of them arriving at the house. Then I would tell them to return until I saw the video and see how much better they were getting and how much further they followed the target because, you know, sometimes it's like a two blocks away. So, it's very good training for the newcomers, and we're here to help the newcomers because a lot of people, we've done our time in this industry, and it's time to share some of the knowledge we've acquired over the years. And a lot of people don't take the time to teach others, except if they're their own interns. You know, Francois, let's just hear here a little bit. This podcast is not only about investigations, but it's also about personal protection, and I know that's not something that I have too much experience with, but I know that you do. You have some very funny stories about... I mean, yeah, that's why I'm not doing it for very long, but for real, we're sure a little bit more about it. You know, let me ask you some questions first. That's faithful memories. So, how long have you been doing personal protection? I've done personal protection since 1998, so almost 30 years. And how does one become a protective specialist? Well, in the state of Florida, you must be licensed under 493 as a full private investigator. And that's the only way you can become a private investigator and a bodyguard, which is also known as close protection officer, CPO, or executive protection specialist, ETF. Well, I did not know that. I didn't know that you needed a special license. I know private investigators could do it, but I wasn't aware that that was the way you had to go. So, learn something today. I believe these days the internal private investigator intern can work as an executive protection officer, but there's a certain amount of hours and they have to be supervised by their C licensee, which is the private investigator license that's sponsoring them. So, there's some lead way, but I believe that now these days, it wasn't possible way back when we started out 30 years ago to do executive protection when he had the CC, a private investigator been turned licensed. So, things have changed. And I suggest for people to go to the department for the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Service and look at the application for the statute 4983 for private investigators. And it's going to cover the bodyguard aspect of it. Alrighty. Well, let me ask you this. I've always heard of threat levels. Are there different threat levels in your type of work? There are, and they're rated on a five. So, using the up to five being the highest and one being. And what is the usual job that you get? Is it somewhere between... It's possibly probably a two or three and it involves wealthy individuals that are looking to get some security to go out to clubs or special events and the likes auto show about shows. They're very wealthy and they have drivers and Ferraris and they're very wealthy. So, they need to preserve their wealth and they're afraid people will try to mug them or whatever you so the close protection officer's job is to always be with the client. Within, I would say three yards, two yards to be able to react quickly to get somebody's hand out of the way. If they're walking in a mall, let's say, and you have three CPOs, you'll have one walking in front of them and one on each side. It's preferable to have four to cover it to make it a full diamond. You have one leader, the team leader is up front, then you have the right and left side, then you have the one that walks behind the crow in case somebody were to assault them from the are usual. But the threat that, like you were asking, it's usually a two or three. I've been in situations where at the end of states, generals of other foreign countries, and this was pretty up there. We were working with the Secret Service and other Secret Service of other countries. Yeah. Are the different threat levels a different pay grade or is it all the same standard hourly rate? It's fairly all the same. Anything above the two and up is going to be these days the prices are crazy. The rates are nuts. You can get a true professional to work and make charge 120 to $175 an hour. And that's based on a 12 hour shift. And also you can have somebody that really wants the work or perhaps getting that job full time or 40 hours a week. And they really want the job. So the agency will hire them at a rate of, let's say, $100 an hour. So they guarantee 40 hours a week or more to this particular CPO. So the rates can be way up to 200 an hour. But roughly, I think it's about 120 to 150. Are weapons always used in these types of cases? Weapons are most of the time if they're legal to be in that country where you are, they are used. And if you're traveling with your clients to other country, I always hire people in the country. They give us a professional courtesy and sometimes land us weapons, but they have weapons and they have the transportation doing this kind of work. You have to deal with all the logistics and all the logistics comes from you and the location of where you're going. What the threat is going to be all on your clients are going to be there. How many of them there will be and et cetera. It just doesn't stop and your job is also to oversee the security with hotel director of security of hotels. If your clients are going to spend two or three days, they normally email you a floor plan where also showing where the suite of your client is going to be. Usually we request connecting rooms to the suites. So we have direct access to the client. And on the outside of the suite, we set up a laser and it's an invisible laser beam that sticks to the walls. If anybody crosses this, it sets an alarm to everybody's phones and radios. So by the way, nobody sleeps. There's always somebody there by the door. But if something were to happen to this person and they get taken out, the alarm sounds to all of the protective team. Wow, that's very involved. People have been telling me all you travel all over Europe and Asia and Canada and you're having fun. I'm going to tell you something. You can make a lot of money. The thing is that it's not fun because you're always on your toe and you have to remember you're protecting people's lives. It's not a joke. You're stepping in to take a bullet for that person. And this is what you sign up to. I mean, people who wouldn't do that, they wouldn't follow through what they're supposed to. They're not professionals and they should not be in this line of work. I've done it myself and I've come close many times and I'll tell you what, when you work with other professionals, there was a detail in New York that I think they had brought from India and Dubai. They had brought 15 of their own personal protective officers and they had a bodyguard for the client's wife. For both his children let their own bodyguards at all time. And these guys would sleep outside the room or alternate with swingers. We have swinger alternate bodyguards. So they let the other bodyguard sleep while the other one covers the night shift by the room of the client. It's a great experience, but it's a very tiresome and constantly you constantly have to plan, plan, plan. What's the next move? What's the next move? And whenever you take people's like this shopping, it's truly an incredible adventure. Sometimes they have the jewelers come into the suite and we have to check all the jewelers, check their bodies for weapons and then they go in and they showcase their jewelry, their pieces. And then of course they're going to go to dinner at the nicest restaurants in New York and sometimes they don't even want people there so they eliminate or they pay the entire bill and then some other monies to the clients to leave the restaurant to go eat somewhere else. And I've been in nightclubs and Oscar, I'm going to tell you, I haven't been one time, about 20 times. When they take a stack of $10,000, they cut it open and they're at the top of the club, the big nightclub and the dent floor is on the bar and they cut those packages and they toss it. So now you have women and guys jumping all over to get $100 bills. It's insane. And they do that, they buy like magnums of champagne and then with the fireworks on top and then 20 minutes later he looks at you and says, okay Frank, we're out of here. We're leaving right now. You have no idea where they're going. You say, okay, where are we going? He said, I don't know, find me another club. And you have to contact the directive security of that club and make arrangements with the vehicle to get them. And the last time I was thinking in New York, we were at towel and they wanted to go another place and there was literally two blocks and we had to have five different vehicles to just transferring them and the bodyguards to the other club. And they did the exact same thing around five o'clock in the morning. Everybody went back and the client woke up at eight AM. So that's a two-hour sleep that we were getting. That's crazy. He went to get very late and he loved to get up early. So we had to get up early as well. It's been an exciting life, private jets on yacht. But I'll tell you what you earn your money. And when you're ready to put your life on the line, you're really earning money. Is there any places in the world that you just hate to go? I hate to say that I hate to go, but a couple of times in the South of France for the fact that we cannot bring any weapons there. And the companies and the individuals that we hire are the best in the business, but they do not have access to firearms. Have you ever had a throw down? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. We were on a private casino and apparently the yacht was split in two. It was not a yacht. It was a real cruise ship, but it was private. So there was a wedding party and then our clients with their friends and stuff, gambling, dancing. The shit really hit the fan and we were going at it, man. And thank God it was a wedding on a cruise ship that there were no weapons and they had checked, but it really came down to it. They were going after the client. Have you ever been stopped by the police during one of these. Maylays, I guess. Not really the police. First of all, we are constantly communicating with the police every time we're doing something, whether it's a city or a state or a government, depending on what country or constantly with the top level in communication. So there is no issue that arise. People know who we are protecting this client and the reason why we're there. It's very important to keep good contacts, constant contacts with the police, I would say, because if something happened specifically in another country, if you don't speak the language, then you have people that you hire that are locals. They speak the language, but you have to translate everything and things get lost in translation real quick when you do this kind of job. So you have to really keep your eyes on the prize and make sure your client is safe. And listen, it's like anything else. Hire the right people and your protective detail will sail. Hire the right drivers. Hire the right vehicles. If you think you need an armored vehicle and you think about it, hire an armored vehicle. That's it. There's no turning back. If it's their lives, they don't care about how much it costs. They're going to pay. And that way, the more assets that you have on your side, the better you're going to do, the more resources, the safer your client's going to be to get from A to B to continue their life as a regular vehicle. How much is your agency split between investigations and executive protection? I would say 80% investigation, 20% for executive protection. The problem with executive protection is that it's not something that happens every day. These jobs that happen every day turn into full time contracts. So then they might like one or two of you, the guys or girls that work for you. And they say, listen, we want to hire them directly. And this has happened many, many times. So 20%, I would say executive protection, 80 investigation. But when those jobs come in, we have very good contacts with other investigative agencies that provide top level executive protection officers to fulfill the need. Well, have you have any jobs lined up in the coming months? We have some stuff coming up in the south of France after the Olympics. You know, France has gotten pretty dangerous over the course of the last several years, hasn't it? It has. And we've worked the variety of Canadian clients that were doing business in Paris. And we went to Paris. Paris is nice and there's a lot of police. But when you get to the south of France, you get to Marseille and these things get pretty rough quickly. And there are no weapons. The bad guys have weapons, but nobody else, the cops don't have weapons. Some do these days, but years before they did. But they do a lot of stabbings there, right? That's the big. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. They'll take a baseball bat to anything and the stabbings. Everybody has a knife. Well, they'll be. And not say it. And you know, Oscar, you have to, you're also dealing with gangs, very big gangs, that come from all over the world. And they gather in the south of France during the season where the wealthiest people in the world come and play. So from, I would say, from Monte Carlo, all the way down to Marseille would be 30s and there's people that will jump you for money everywhere you go. I'm not saying that it's a huge problem, but it's been going up every year steadily for the past five years. Is there like a forum that you guys talk about, you know, how these different countries are what you need to watch out for in certain countries? Well, we belong to associations that we guide through. So every time that we have a protective detail, we'll follow through with the guidelines that are offered to us by associations of professional protection specialists. Hmm. Well, I learned something today. Well, I'm glad. Finally, you learned something. It's finally right. That's all my teachers would say also. Thank you for listening to the MyMePI Chronicles podcast. For all of your investigative needs in Florida, please contact McKinnon Investigative Group at 954-513-7414. That's 954-513-7414 or visit us at www.miginvestigations.com. Thanks again for listening and please remember to share, follow, and like. [MUSIC] [BLANK_AUDIO]
