This story is the perfect lead for this section, as a client put it into plain English what he thinks about the current state of law enforcement in this country; all about rich man’s police. But, first the case story.
It was in the mid-1980s when the executive VP of a large oilfield tool company came to me with a problem. This was a global company based in Houston, TX with multiple locations. They were experiencing repeated thefts at two of their locations in the Houston area.
A couple of times each month the thieves would cut the tin walls in the back of the large warehouses. This allowed them to get into the building without setting off alarms on the doors and windows. Without motion detection alarms, once they gained entrance, they were free to take whatever they wanted.
I asked the VP if his goal was to simply stop the thefts, or if catching the thieves was also a high priority. It helped him to decide when I told him I thought that the thieves were likely to be current or former employees. He definitely decided that he wanted us to catch them.
We took an inventory of the items being stolen and decided that there was some internal employee involvement. They weren’t just grabbing whatever was easy to take. They seemed to be shopping for specific items. It was like they were fulfilling orders, knowing exactly what they wanted and where it was located in the large warehouses.
Their targets were very high value oilfield valves, drill bits and other lucrative resale items. Anyone without inside knowledge of the layout of the warehouses would have had hours of searching to find these items. From our review of outdoor camera images, we could see that they were on average spending only ten minutes or less in the buildings.
Pictures! Problem solved, right? Nope. In the low light situations, these cameras didn’t have the resolution or quality of images to identify people or read license plates. We could see their comings and goings, but not anything else of investigative value.
If our goal were to simply end the problem, we could have just installed better cameras and motion alarms indoors and out. We would also add additional fencing, security signage and infrared beam alarms. Some very loud pop-up sirens would activate to scare would-be thieves away.
However, our client wanted the thieves identified, so these measures would have to wait until we set a trap for our culprits. We wanted them to return so that we could spring a trap and turn them over to the police. We did want to install some security measures right away, but they would be covert in order to help us to catch them.
We installed covert inside cameras and motion sensors that would alert a local security company if they were activated. When a breach occurred, the security company would alert us and the police. It was less than a week until our technology sent out an alert.
My investigators and the police responded to the alarm, but were too late to catch the thieves on the premises. They used the same method of entry, cutting through the rear wall. We still had some resources though. The next morning we examined the inside videos that showed the break-in happened around 2 AM. The thieves hadn’t brought their vehicle into the parking lot, so there was no value in outdoor videos.
Unfortunately, there was also little to nothing we could gain from the indoor cameras. We had plenty of video of them inside the warehouse. They methodically moved from shelf to shelf in different areas throughout the warehouse. They carefully selected the items they wanted and got them out of there quickly.
Unfortunately, they wore ski masks that prevented us from identifying them. They also wore gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints. I wasn’t happy, as we were more like movie-goers than investigators. We could watch it all happening, but couldn’t do anything about it! In and out in ten minutes, no identities, so it was back to the drawing board.
Because they were in and out so quickly, it was not going to be possible to respond to alarms in time to catch them. I had a strategy meeting with the client and we moved to Plan B. Now, Plan B would definitely get the job done, but it was going to be expensive. I again asked my client if catching them was high priority, and he said it was.
The plan was to have my investigators spend the night in the two buildings until they returned for another haul. I would use experienced former police officers with reserve police commissions and the authority to legally carry firearms. We alerted the police that we would be in the buildings and would call them if we apprehended the thieves. We set up the surveillance schedule and then just waited.
My instructions to my investigators were to call me and the police immediately upon hearing them cutting into the wall. Very few burglars of this type carry weapons, so we weren’t expecting major resistance when we confronted them. I was still concerned for the safety of my people and told them to back off if they felt in danger at any time. This was probably useless, as former cops would not likely back away from doing their job.
I lived 5 miles from one warehouse and 7 miles from the other, so I didn’t think it would take long for me to get there. Now it was all about waiting and watching. One morning around 3 AM, I got the call.
My investigators had caught two suspects breaking into the building and were holding them with a shotgun until police arrived to make the arrest. I arrived shortly after that and was pleased at the results and that nobody had been hurt. However, this was not the end, instead just the beginning of much more investigating. We would learn much more over the next two weeks.
The first revelation was that the two burglars we caught were current employees of our client’s company. One had worked at different times at both of the warehouses. He was doing just as we expected, taking and fulfilling orders. His customers in Texas and Louisiana were buying as many valves, drill bits and other items as the burglars could steal.
Some of the material was being sold to a fencing operation in Louisiana acting as a distributor and selling the stuff over there. The people running the Louisiana fencing operation were former employees of our client as well! They were all eventually arrested in a cooperative effort between us, the Houston Police and the Louisiana State Police. Case closed.
I had my normal final wrap-up meeting with my client, and he was happy with the results. However, in that meeting he said something that’s stuck with me ever since. It was something like: “Rob, y’all did a great job with this case, but I’m still a little bitter about something. You and your people did what I think should have been done by law enforcement. Basically, y’all are kind of the “Rich Man’s Police.”
The unfortunate truth is that law enforcement often does not have the resources and personnel to stake out locations in these type of cases. That’s where the private investigator comes into the picture. It took a rich man to fund the resources invested in this case.