Miami Pi Chronicles Podcast

S1 EP3 - Surveillance Secrets and Wild Case Stories: A Day in the Life of Private Investigators

In this episode, join seasoned private investigators as they share their expertise on surveillance techniques, the best types of vehicles for the job, and the essential equipment needed. They also recount thrilling and humorous stories from their careers, including a case that took them from Florida to Massachusetts. This episode offers a unique glimpse into the adventurous and unpredictable life of a PI.

Duration:: 34m
Broadcast on:: 25 Jun 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

[MUSIC] >> Hi there and welcome to the Miami PI Chronicles podcast. I'm your host Francois McKinnon, the owner of McKinnon Investigative Group in Miami, Florida. I've been a private investigator for over 30 years in the South Florida area. McKinnon Investigative Group has taken me to many unique destinations, both domestic and abroad. I've conducted complex investigation as well as countless protective details from them. The Miami PI Chronicles podcast will bring you inside the world of private investigations, the security industry. This podcast will showcase different guests who will bring you their professional expertise in their specialty fields and some of their wildest and most memorable cases. Our guests will be from different backgrounds and investigations, security, and everything in between. On our show today, I have the honor of having Mr. Oscar Santa Maria, President of Optimum Investigations. Let's welcome my dear friend and colleague, Oscar Santa Maria. >> Welcome back, Oscar. We're back in studios together on South Beach and South Florida, beautiful day today. We're going to start talking a little bit today about the best kind of vehicles to conduct surveillance. Oscar, since you're a professional at surveillance, what are your thoughts about this? >> Well, I think a vehicle is very, very important. I never underestimate that. You have shows like Magnum PI that you're driving around in the Red Ferrari on an island. And he thinks that's inconspicuous. It's probably the most ridiculous vehicle you can possibly use when conducting surveillance. You want to go with the more popular vehicles, the Toyotas, the Hyundai's, the Nissan's, the Hondas. A vehicle that when you're driving, you see a plethora of some geographical locations are a little bit different. Some are more high-end cars in the rural areas. There's probably things like a pickup trucks that might be useful also. But as far as the city goes, you can't go wrong with a Toyota Hyundai Honda an Nissan. >> Something that blends in. >> Neither a sedan or an SUV. >> And what colors are best? >> The best colors I find are the whites, the silvers, the gray. Those are the colors that I would generally stick to. You want to stay away from loud colors like yellow and red and orange. >> Yeah, because people look in their mirrors and they see that. >> Yeah, those colors aren't very common and they really stay out. So you want to avoid that. Another thing you want to consider is the headlights. Does it have automatic driving lights? That's kind of an issue these days because sometimes vehicles you turn them on and these lights automatically come on. Sometimes you have the ability to turn them off, but sometimes you don't. And you have to be very cognizant when you're out in surveillance. That the only way you're going to be able to deactivate those running lights, pulling up the emergency brake a little bit and then those lights won't turn on. But you have to be vigilant because if you turn your car on because it's hot and you don't have that emergency brake on, water your car is running, those lights are going to be on and it's going to be bringing attention. >> You're going to stick out like a Zordov. >> Do you want to be very careful? You don't want to have anything like very strange odd shaped lights. Some of the cars these days have LEDs around them. It's something that if you're following as a BI and somebody looks around, they see these weird LEDs and go, okay, that car I saw before. That's how people think. >> Yeah, so you want to stay away from those. I would personally suggest finding a vehicle that is very economical on gas because that's where you're going to blow a lot of your money. Gas prices aren't cheap these days and they're only going up. So I would consider getting something with good gas mileage, something in the neighborhood of 30 in the city, maybe 35 to 40 on the highway. Maybe a hybrid, I'm not really sure. Sometimes those hybrid vehicles, they kind of turn on when they're idling at a certain time. And if somebody's around, they might hear that. So I don't know about hybrid vehicles at the moment and also electric vehicles. I know that there's these Teslas that are becoming more and more popular. I'm just not sure if that's a vehicle yet to where you can get away doing surveillance. You might be. >> I think in a couple of years when there'll be a lot more, you'll blend better. I've seen a lot of them around, but still, I mean it would be great and cost effective to have the electric vehicle compared to it. But again, you and I did a surveillance years ago and we ended up following somebody to Atlanta. So I don't think that would have worked. So it must be some kind of a hybrid. >> No, yeah, for sure. Something about electric vehicles is it takes a while to charge. So it isn't like going to a gas station and being able to fill up within five minutes. I mean, sometimes you have to stay there for 20 minutes, 30 minutes. Also, I like to top off my vehicle every morning. In case I have to follow somebody at it down with these electric vehicles. You really need to let the batteries go down to about 20% before you recharge them. Because it's not, it's probably going to mess up the batteries. You don't have the ability to be able to top off. So if you've only got half the tank, you're going to need to go out on your surveillance. And if they go any kind of distance, you're going to have that stress. That, my God, I've only have so much battery life left in this vehicle. So these are things that you really need to consider with an EV vehicle. I think down the road, they're probably going to be everywhere. So I just don't think that this time is probably the best time for it. Yeah, I think it's forthcoming, but not just ask her. I wanted to ask you a little bit about, first of all, the tent. We're in the city of Florida. What is the tent legal percentage? I'm not exactly sure what the legal percentage is. Maybe it's 30%. I don't know. I mean, I have my windows, obviously, very darkly tinted. And I also have my windshield. You know, there's different schools of thought when it comes to that. I've been doing this for 30 years and I find that having your fun windshield tinted is very, very helpful. People can be standing in front of my car and I can be getting video of them. And they don't see anything. They don't see you at all. You might bring a little bit of attention to some people that are, you know, very hypervigilant. Maybe a police officer or somebody of that nature, a professional claimant, but in most cases, I have no issues with the vehicle being hinted in the windshield. And it's not only the claimant I'm seeing these people walk from their dogs, pass them by me. They try to look in. They have no idea. And they just keep going. It's very helpful for one of your car, you know, in a tight neighborhood. People are wondering if you're in the car, you know, they can't see me. I'd rather not say anything. These days they have those, those internet things, those community nodes where people are emailing, hey, it was a suspicious vehicle here. And you don't want any of that. You just want to be as low profile as possible. So the old neighborhood walking. Yeah. These people take that very seriously, sometimes they burn us. And it's also important to have a claimant not knowing that you're there, but it's also the neighbors. You don't want anybody coming up to your vehicle during a surveillance. So that very rarely happens to me. You have the right vehicle, you keep it off, you have your head on a swivel to make sure when you can turn the car on and when you can turn the car off, it's getting too hot. And 95% of the time I can sit in the surveillance and nobody approaches my vehicle. I can do this for multiple days, you know, occasionally there is somebody who's looking out the window and they've seen you there for a couple of days that might come and ask you what you're doing. I wanted to ask you a little bit about equipment, what kind of camera would you suggest somebody that really wants to do, to specialize in surveillance? First of all, you need a digital video camera with a good zone, you need binoculars, you need a camera, a digital camera with a photo of that. What would you suggest to people that are new at this or want to up their game? Listen, most of these cameras all do the same thing. I would definitely go with a camera that has a pretty good optical zoom. I would say at least 60% and then there's a digital zoom, but you never really want to get into the digital part of it. You want to have enough optical zoom, I guess sometimes those things start pixelating. The digital, yeah, you know, I'm going to stay away from that. I think a minimum of a 60 optical, you should be fine staying a couple of, you know, maybe a block away, you'd be able to get a good video of them, so. Is there a brand new working on? Are you Sony? Yeah. I have a Sony also. I've had the cannons are at the Panasonic. You just kind of, you know, go out in and test them yourself, maybe talk to some friends that are in the industry and see what they have, as well as some of my colleagues use the same camera, we use the Sony and it's nothing very expensive. A lot of people who do more investigations at night, mostly investigations I have during the day, you might want to have one with night vision, which is very helpful with domestic cases. Just, you know, remember that sometimes you're also not only shooting at night, but you're also shooting at 10. So you want. Yeah. I was going to ask you, when you shoot through 10, does night vision work? I does. Yeah. It doesn't work as effectively as it could, but you have to go with what you have. In those instances, if you're doing those nighttime surveillance, I would really consider a good camera with night vision. So those are probably a little bit more expensive than the other one. So I don't know. Listen, you can get a camera that does this job for $200, $300 and that's fine. They're going to break throughout the years and they're slamming the screens down. You're moving on. They're jostling. So, you know, it's probably good to have a couple of different cameras. You know, when it's a backup, you know, I've been on surveillance. I'm a camera totally died. It's just, you know, before cell phone. As a backup, you could probably use your cell phone if your camera happens to die. But it's not something that you can really use effectively for surveillance is because you got to turn them on and then you have to large the screen with your hands and you're going to miss some of the activity. I do use my cell phone for over video at times. And I also have other cameras and I have the key fob. Different ones. But I find that. Oh, you're talking about the covert cameras that you pay. It's a pen you put it in your pocket and you click it. It turns on and you walk into a restaurant. You can send by your subject. I really don't like those cameras because when you move and it shakes a lot. So what's your favorite, like the key phone? Now my favorite actually is my phone. You know, I have an outer box and what I do, say I follow somebody into a grocery store. I flip the camera with the lens facing out onto the cart and I just push right behind. Nobody ever says anything to the grocery cart or the video is very, very smooth. And I get a lot of video and sometimes I also hold it to my side as I'm looking at different things in the eye. So the pet camera definitely shakes. The key fob has its, you know, I guess advantages in some cases. I remember doing an investigation of surveillance and the lady worked at a shoe store with a really small shoe store and I happened to have a key fob. And what I did was I left my keys inside the store and I walked out for half an hour. Clarifying. It's a key file with a video. Yeah. Yeah. It looks like a key fob. It has a little camera inside. And then you pull it out and plug it right in there and laptop and then it loads up all the video. So this is a very small shoe store and I just left my keys in there for half an hour, let her do. We're walking back and forth and, you know, it got most of the activity that she was doing, you know, putting shoes away, tending to customers and things of that nature. And then I came back and half an hour later and I said, oh, I think I left my keys here. Do you think big fair men know where were you? I was over here. And I leave and I got 30 minutes of video. So, you know, it's good to have a few things in your arsenal. Yeah. You have to have some tricks up your sleeve. Hey, Oscar, I wanted to ask you, I know the answer to that because I've been shot at before, but anything as far as dangerous that you've led through as far as, you know, like your life is in danger, well, because I don't want to scare people away, it doesn't happen all the time. First of all, it's how much people work. You and I work constantly. So if you have probably missed areas that work 20 hours a week versus 80 hours a week, obviously, they have a less exposure. A couple of recent things come to mind. I was working a surveillance in a questionable neighborhood and I was part of the cars today sometimes when you hit the car and car doors will open. So you want to make sure that when that happens, you lock your doors. I was sitting in there and I had this guy just park his bike next to my car and I totally forgot about putting the locks on my vehicle and he entered my car and I thought, what are you doing? Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It was a spotter. Yeah. The guy was there to try to steal my car checking if it was open. It was. And then he was very surprised to see me again because my window can't see inside your car and my windows are starting. So I was not on a surveillance. This probably happened. I think it was in January of 2023. I was driving from one case in non-surveillance. I was heading home. I was passing by a location where I had done a surveillance and I was kind of distracted looking at that and all of a sudden I hear the shots ring out and all of a sudden I hear my car getting hit. And I look and in right in front of me, there's a guy shooting his gun across the street at somebody. I stopped. I got behind the dashboard. The guy got into his car and he drove off and my car got spook a few times. So every innocent crime can happen anywhere. But when you're in part questionable neighborhoods, you've got to be extra vigilant because there are people out there that are not doing the right things and they're very hypervigilant. So you've just got to really be careful. Today's episode is brought to you by the Law Offices of Diana Santa Maria, Personal Injury Law. For a free consultation, please call 888-494-2736. Again, if you have a vehicle that's got run lights on, you have to remember it. Yeah, the daytime is the kind of sort of thing. You know, you don't want anybody to know that you're there. Especially in those neighborhoods. Oh, yeah. And I was going to tell you a little story. I was doing a surveillance in Delta, Miami years ago. And to tell people what a time shot is while you run surveillance, you have to do, my company does it every 30 minutes, not exactly on 30 minutes, but it's only to document the fact that you're there. In all of our videos, timestamp shows the day, the day, the time, and your location. So I was raising my camera, hit the record button to do the time shot that takes three, four seconds, right? Because you don't want to make a big deal about it. And as I raise the camera and I hit the power, I saw two men walk up to a car and it was 4 o'clock in the afternoon and they fired at the driver, got back in their car. And I left the camera on the dash and I started driving slowly, was able to get the tag and call the police. And as I drove by something, I was dead. And I knew the best thing for me to do, not the wisest, but the best thing for me to do was get the tag and I got my MPPD, I called 911, I got my MPD on the case and they let them up and they arrested them off. They had a little bit of a standoff and I kind of stayed back, but since I had called 911, I had video, as I have the video. So you see that with some things and you get home at night and say, honey, how was your day? Oh, fine. It's just fine. So it's overwhelming. Yeah, we're living in crazy times, so that's not surprising, it's something like that. Oscar, what's the best part that you would tell people that you love about this job? Well for me, I'm not built to work a nine to five job. I never was. I kind of like being on my own and working the lone wolf and yeah, the lone wolf. I work cases, I go places, I see things that a typical person doesn't ever see. Everybody lives in their own little bubble, they go to work with suburbs and then they go to the city or they live in the suburbs, go to the city, come back and then I go to the areas that I can go to, you know, I can go from the wealthiest neighborhoods and on the island of Palm Beach to the scariest of neighborhoods in Miami and anything in between. So every day is something different and I don't have that minutiae of doing the same thing every single day and seeing the same people every day. Every day is somewhat of an adventure, sometimes it's a very boring adventure. No, you're right though. Every day is an adventure as a part of a investigator. It's just you get out of your house early in the morning and you go, okay, let's see what the day brings. Yeah, I find myself driving, you know, different areas and all like, oh, I did the surveillance there and then Oscar and happens to me all the time. I go, I was here. I did that. I set up over there and then you drive somewhere else and you go, how many surveillance have I done in my life? Wherever you go into an area where you die, I would really, it was to be out in this place. I've never done one in here and then you're waiting. But it gets weeded up because we've done so many of them. I mean, you and I were talking together, then we're laughing our butts off and we're talking about the funny stories that we've had and we've had so many of them. We call them funny because they were crazy and we were crazy to do those cases. So we definitely call our book characters along the way. Yeah. And people don't understand, but sometimes our clients are wilder, the subjects. Yeah, we have, we nicknamed a couple of those, a mother daughter duo that went on for probably a year and a half, surveillance following the daughter's boyfriend around and and you affectionate. Anyway, it was to them as the Lofuras, which is the Spanish, the crazies. And it was touching on some of the stories we had when we dealt with that days that, you know, sometimes I scratch my head and that really happened. I just have such fun memories of some of the times that we work on the keys together. I'll lead to my good, we travel everywhere. And oh gosh, I want to tell our audience that if they want to hear this, keep listening to our podcast and tell your friends to listen to us because this particular job, we thought it was going to be for one like a week or two, we knew it was just going to be for a day. We caught the guy right away. Remember when we first got the case, I was in Pennsylvania testifying on a domestic case that we had done down here, but the jurisdiction was in Pennsylvania. And while I was there, you had gotten the case from one of your limousine buddy friends. And it was a mother daughter and the daughter believed that the boyfriend was cheating. And she was very privileged, there were a lot of money. And she was totally fatuated with this guy. And you would actually follow them to a Halloween party, a costume Halloween party that you had to go to a certain destination and they had a charter bus. And they would drive them back to the house. You obviously, yeah, I told the client, I said, listen, we're going to costume party, this two Palm Beach Sheriff's office right there on each side. And they're looking for invitation. We didn't have one. So I had her rent a limo. We pulled up. I don't know who I think the client was. Yeah, you won't be fine. And she was dressed. She had some kind of a mask. He was dressed as a Whoopi Goldberg. Yeah. She was. Yes. God, I forget a lot of things. So we walked in and the police officers went to ask for the invite. And I just said, Hey, I was just here. And he sees us coming out of the long level, the super special. And he said, hey, how's it going? Finally walk in. And of course, the male subject is there and he's already with another girl. And tell me if I'm wrong, everywhere we followed him, whether it's skiing in the Poconos, everywhere we went, he was always cheating on it. It's she who because we had video of it and they continue. Well, yeah. Remember when she showed him, he had a heart condition. Oh, my gosh, that's horrible, it's horrible. That enough we should mention that he had. He was well with some sort of birth defect in his heart. And she actually showed him one of the surbalances when he went to visit a next girlfriend. And listen, she rented a suite. Yeah. And then and then set by popcorn and said, Oh, we're going to have a little movie night. So he's all happy and stuff. So she puts the movie on and go on the list. Oh, yeah. And it's the surveillance of him leaving his job and then going to on the road. And I think about two hours later, he ended up in like the central part of the state and he actually went to visit a next girlfriend of his spent the night. And then the next morning, he had gone to get some bagels. And anyways, she gave him the tape and he was floored. And then she was like, Oh, where are you going now? And he's like, Oh, I'm going to get the bagel. Yes, we're going to get the bagel during this whole thing. He starts having a heart condition that they had to take him to the hospital by spread through her. Yes. You know what? Twenty thing. This is that. And they didn't stop there. It kept going, but you know, turns out that they ended up getting married and having children and living happily ever after. But that was an ongoing case. And we followed him. And we have a lot more to say about the story because, I mean, talk about incredible. I was very proud of us as partners and we worked so hard and then it took us everywhere. But the story is behind this. Like I think we did a good job. No, we definitely did. Remember when we followed him to when he was going to be in the wedding party in Massachusetts? Yeah. And we ended up going there. The client came with us with her assistant. And they flew a nurse slash actress. Well, I thought it was her assistant. No, no, she was a medical person and also an actress wanted me in any event. I think this is going to be for the next show because there's so many stories that and I, well, you know what, let's do it now. Give our audience what they want. Okay. So we ended up going to Massachusetts for this for this wedding. We knew where he was going to be, where the wedding was going to take place. And once we were short, after the wedding, we went to the reception and this is really what she wanted to know who he was hanging out with at the reception. So because he had told her it's a wedding, but you're not allowed to invite your girlfriend or wife, right, which did not sound very kosher. We had a couple of vehicles. We had a van and we had another vehicle at that time. And I remember that you and the assistant lady, yeah, they had rented a private party that would, again, we can, I'd laugh at the movie, wedding crashers. We went in and she was like my girlfriend and we walked into this beautiful company club and we got to the front desk. We had no invite. You and I had gone that day, the day before we went to the ceremony. And I have locked a door, one of the doors to the side, passed the reception. So we kind of walked up and we're all dressed, I'm wearing a tuxedo, the girl, I feel her name. She's wearing like a beautiful dress and very elegant and stuff. And we have undercover cameras and very long story short, you got caught up with a bra marker is an event that we rented and I'm getting so much great film and I'm calling him in the earpiece and saying, hey, I have this, I think we have enough. And I'm on the 18th hall, which is right by the reception area. And the doors blow open and little children, somebody eight o'clock, nine o'clock and I little kids are running around all dressed up in suits of little dresses, adorable. And is there making out with this girl? And now we're filming this, but they're forgetting something you think caught by the bride. Oh, you can't get that and thrown out of there. Listen to me, we did a great job. We had everything we needed. And then the client was having some kind of anxiety. Yeah. Because those doors opened, so A, I wanted to leave the car and I wanted to go back in. And when I went back in, the bride, that's just Christzilla, by the way, Godzilla comes over to me and says, what the who the are you? And I said, my backstory is always Peter Gray said, I'm Peter Gray. And I swear to God, I said, and I'm on the list. Look like a side fell episode. She looks at me and it couldn't be funnier. She started marching towards the front desk. And I tell the girl with me, I said, take off your shoes because we're going out. The alarm is going to go and we're going to run. And you're calling me in the earpiece and say, what's going on? And I said, no, no, we're coming to the car and the van is not starting. You know, we're kind of getting the story a little bit confused. You would come out, they get caught in you, they get the hell out of here, you're not on the list. And then, but then later on, the doors are open because I think that they were bringing in the wedding gifts out to the vehicles. So these doors open and in our subject had a particularly large head. We could find it all the time. Yeah, you could find him all the time because he just had a really big head in any event. He's dancing in the middle of the dance floor. And then remember, he had just gotten kicked out with the lady a while ago and then the doors closed and the subject is going crazy. She's having an anxiety attack. I'm trying to tell the assistant actress, you know, please give her medication. She needs a lot of medication. Anyway, do you guys got to go in there? So she, listen, I was like, but I'm not going back in there, France, well, it's not going back in there. Nobody's going back in there. So she actually sent the subject in there and the subject went in and she was in there for five minutes. And then all of a sudden, the doors swing wide open and I see the, the assistant, you know, walking, she has her shoes off and she's running towards the car. And then all of a sudden the doors open again and the whole party party was just getting the car getting in the car. So we're, you know, trying to start to, I'm trying to start the vehicle and it's just like the movies. It won't start. It's like a horror show. It's not going to start. It's not going to start, it's not going to start. The subject is screaming. Ah, I need to know. I need to know. And I'm like, look, just show up. Give her a moment. He jumped in the car. We finally got the car started. We left. We got the other car. We came back. I mean, really, the only thing we really wanted to know is that this guy is leaving with somebody and we ended up going back to the reception in a different car. Everything had calmed down by then, you know? And also when we got to explain how we got to our hotel, you remember that it was a brand and then we turned the lights off and we parked in the garbage. We actually ended up following him. I think he ended up with some college buddies that they were staying in Salem. Our client was happy because he didn't go home with any girl. And then the next day we ended up going back home. That was definitely a crazy case. And if I recall correctly, we actually missed our flight home the next day. Yes, we did because we were exhausted. And all my long when we got back to the hotel, that she was asking us more and more questions. And the whole time was a question. And we said, and we called her mother and she, you know, he was leaving the next day. So it was like, listen, he went home. He went to his friends. If he was going to go with any girl, he'd be there that day. You're fine, you know, where he's going to be leaving later today. And we're going to pick him up again in Florida and continue the surveillance. So they just calmed down. She, you know, she was fine. She ended up happy, but we ended up missing our flight and we ended up picking a later one. Well, we ended up sleeping in because we were we had been doing this every day. I mean, it was exhausting. And the good part is that she got married and if kids are happy, but it was we were just doing her job. I never thought I was going to happen, but no, they did and this is a happy story. We're going to have a lot of these happy, funny stories from the shows that we're doing, but also they're some sad ones. It's just part of our business where we sometimes deliver good news to people. And most of the time, not so good and it's really part of the job to just, you know, go with the flow and be a kind human and respect people's feelings, you know, because they're hurt a lot of time. A lot of time, they're very happy when we reunite families and stuff, you know, and sometimes you end up becoming a kind of a therapist that these people are getting hearted. So, you know, you have to. For the record, none of us are properly licensed to do that and are probably the first people to be. Oscar, I think that just by listening to them and giving some kind of a positive and point helps them during that talk. You know, people are suffering. All they really want to do is talk and be heard. It's an outlet. You don't have to say anything, probably make them feel better. Just listening to them really, really goes far. So, you know, just be sympathetic to some of these clients that you end up having to work for and understand, you know, they're coming from often times because it's, you know, of greed, anxiety and heartbreak. So, just take that under consideration. And if you have to spend a little bit of time on the phone with them, just to, you know, reassure them that everything is going to be fine and sometimes there's bumps in the road and you kind of, you kind of, but you are helping them relieve some of that anxiety that they have. So, you got to understand that that comes with the territory being something like a therapist. So, you know, hopefully you got a good best I meaner and you can talk some of these people up a little bit. Yeah, absolutely. Hey, Oscar, thank you so much for being on the show. Oscar can be reached at 800 745 4021. Please, if you want to send us some questions or any kind of comments, you can do that by going to MyAnEPI Chronicles@gmail.com. Listen, thank you so much for listening and hope to catch you on the next podcast. [Music] [Music] [Music] (upbeat music) You