Partnering with a private investigator services firm in Singapore allows companies and even law enforcement to get expert assistance in gathering data related to financial, criminal, and legal issues. Individuals not affiliated with law enforcement and corporations can also hire a private investigator for personal matters such as surveillance, finding missing persons, and looking for evidence to catch cheating spouse.
Before hiring a PI, however, you need to know their responsibilities and duties.
Duties of a Private Investigator
A general private investigator can be hired for various jobs such as background checks, insurance, fraud, corporate investigations, domestic investigations, accident reconstruction, civil investigations, and surveillance. Most of these jobs have overlapping responsibilities, that is why the PI must possess the basic skills for investigation, reasoning, interpersonal, and surveillance as well as knowledge about criminal and civil justice, self-defense, corporate laws, and political science.
A private investigator is expected to perform the following duties:
1. Work with lawyers for civil cases, sometimes to help collect evidence through interviews, surveillance, and paperwork as part of trial preparation.
2. Work with insurance companies to investigate claims and perform background check.
3. Gather evidence for individuals who suspect infidelity and want to catch cheating spouse.
4. Gather data for a divorce case or a parent custody battle and child support in case of infidelity, child abuse or neglect, and marital property issues.
5. Help entrepreneurs or corporations investigate a potential partner, investment, contract, or merger before any action can be taken.
6. Gather data for potential investors to avoid fraud or a scam over a high-risk investment.
7. Locate missing persons, stolen/missing pets, or look for documents in public records.
8. Perform video or photo surveillance for individuals, corporations, shops or malls, and law enforcement.
9. Safeguard very important persons who may be threatened. Private investigator services classify this as executive protection.
10. Provide background information on suspicious individuals or groups.
11. Track down perpetrators of cybercrimes, gather evidence for cyberbullying cases, and other cases related to the use of information technology.
12. Look for data relevant to various cases in the computer files, emails, software programs, web pages, text or images, databases, backup tapes, cache memory, hard drives, phone call logs, and other electronic data.
13. Perform bug detection or bug sweep as part of technical surveillance countermeasures or security maintenance.
14. Help the fire department determine the cause of fire if there is a possibility of arson.
15. Provide accident reconstruction for insurance companies.
16. Help enforcement look for law fugitives or monitor bail enforcement, including individuals who still have cases related to drug use, juvenile delinquency, gang affiliation, fraud, theft, and others.
17. Companies hire a private investigator if due diligence is needed when establishing credibility of a person or group before a legal or financial transaction.
18. A PI may also act as a process server responsible for notifying persons that a legal action is taken or deliver legal documents to a person.
19. Some companies need the help of private investigator services in Singapore if repossession is about to take place. Repossession refers to the legal process of taking items and property from the person who has not paid the loan.
20. Determine if there is fraud in claiming benefits related to employment and healthcare. Some people might wish to take advantage of the system of claiming benefits by exaggerating details or lying outright.
There are other private investigator services that a licensed PI in Singapore can perform, but those listed above are the most common jobs they usually take.
Types of Investigation
Private Investigation Process
A private investigator in Singapore is not like the detectives you see in movies in television, because they follow guidelines when performing investigations. The methods will differ depending on the type of investigation conducted and the parties involved. This means that cases related to the legal system are handled differently than cases from clients outside of the legal system.
Below is an overview of the investigation process used by a licensed private investigator in Singapore.
Legal System Investigation. For investigations that are related to the legal system, the gathering of evidence and other related data will ultimately end as part of the presentation in a legal and formal proceeding. Most clients in Singapore who need the services of the PI for this type of case are insurance companies, law firms, accounting firms, government agencies, and businesses or entrepreneurs.
A PI who specializes in these cases must have training and experience in law, finance, and criminal justice, because how the laws applies to the evidence can help strengthen or weaken a case. Quality evidence must be gathered for formal proceedings by using the following methods: surveillance (find the party or individual in the location where the act will most likely be committed), prove that the person or party has the inclination to commit the act, and gathering physical evidence for the act through interviews, tailing, stakeouts, and data-gathering.
Civil or Domestic Investigations. The most common investigations often involve the family, such as looking for evidence to catch cheating spouse as grounds for divorce. Other examples of similar cases include child custody and support, missing persons, and others.
A PI assigned to these cases must be good listeners, because they have to get all the information they need from the client. Leads can be pursued through interviews, searching for public records, surveillance, and gathering of physical evidence. The private investigator will still have to observe the laws that are applicable to the investigation, because these will determine what he/she can and cannot do.