An Investigator's Diary 14 August 2009

Private/Forensic Investigators | Tracing Agents | Risk Auditors, Managers & Consultants CCTV | Access Control Systems | Electronic Surveillance & Counter-Surveillance SPECIALIST CRIMINAL/CIVIL LITIGATION, COMMERCIAL/WHITE COLLAR CRIME, BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE, & MISSING/SOUGHT PERSONS INVESTIGATORS 14 August 2009 HEAD OFFICE Physical Address 7 Cedar Road Westville, Durban Postal Addres PO Box 17 Pavilion, 3611 Telephone 0861 000 979 Fax 0865 168722 Website www.fohlasecurity.co.za <http://www.fohlasecurity.co.za/> Email fohladbn@yebo.co.za <mailto:fohladbn@yebo.co.za> EMAIL MARKETING POLICY FSG does not support spam. This email is published & distributed in compliance with prevailing legislation. You are receiving this because you are a client of FSG and/or our market research suggests that you may require our services. Should you not wish to receive this from FSG Click Here <mailto:wjardine@yebo.co.za?subject=UNSUBSCRIBE> to unsubscribe. From the desk of Willem Jardine - "An Investigator's Diary" If you are not already aware of it, I publish this diary aout once a month and distribute it to a database of persons that our market reserach suggests are either in positions of influence and/or who may have need for our services. The intention is to share a bit of my 25 years experience trading in my industry, a sort of "pre-service" relationship exercise. Please, I am familiar with legislation about unsolicited email - and hate spam junk as much as you. If you DO NOT want to hear from us, please use the UNSUBSCRIBE facility in the blue column on the left. FSG continues to grow at a phenomenal rate such that one of my major difficulties is finding suitable candidates to staff our resultant vacancies. This success can partly be attributed to making our existence and services known where it matters (largely limited to these emails); partly to the goodwill that accrues from successfully attending to your instructions and partly because of the recession (increased business failure, increased debt service default, etc. that result in increased litigation, theft, etc. - and more instructions to FSG). I suspect, however, that the growth of FSG has as much to do with an increased demand for our services because crime is so high, because the police are understaffed, under-resourced and inadequately trained (especially in respect of detecting and investigating commercial crime), and because specialized units with capacity to be effective in some matters have been disbanded or decentralised - all in the context of a judiciary in turmoil, politically motivated appointments to key positions, a very recently replaced former police commissioner suspected of criminal activity, and - I'll say no more. White collar/commercial crime is especially rampant and the police detectives who actually have the skill to investigate are in such limited numbers that they are barely able to scratch the surface. It is a major area in which SAPS lacks capacity. True, much of this can be written-off as the growth pains all developing nations endure. True, some excellent strategic decisions have been made to remedy the situation; like drafting legislation to allow SAPS access to the fingerprint database of other government departments (Home Affairs and Transport) and the intention to rescind legislation that prescribes that SAPS must destroy fingerprints taken from suspects if the suspect is acquitted/not prosecuted. But, these will take years to implement and even longer for the benefits to accrue at the coal face of police criminal investigation. I'm again embroiled in the investigation of corruption amongst senior political figures and civil servants. From where I sit, corruption is the order of the day, a culture. I need only mention two examples to justify my statement. At a global level, the media recently reported dozens of senior civil servants own shares in entities which were awarded tenders by the departments in which they hold positions of influence. On a micro level, I was recently approached by a businessman to lend FSG for the purpose of securing a lucrative government security contract - for a price, of course. The businessman concerned is a leader in a large Christian church community and the manner in which I was approached was such that I was clearly expected to co-operate with this "normal" practice. Corruption is offensive for the simple reason that it inflates the cost of service delivery/production, for which the end-user either pays an inflated fee, or as a consequence of which the end-user suffers an inferior service. When politicians and officials are involved, it is our taxes that fund the exorbitant lifestyle of the privileged few that are enriched by corrupt practices. I have said before that corruption is one of the most difficult crimes to detect and investigate because the intrinsic degree of collusion between the parties concerned is high. The thing is that corruption is as rife in the private sector as what it is in government. It starts with the employee who accepts gifts from suppliers/service providers and it begs the question of just how much will the employee accept, and in return of what. I need also only mention media reports about price fixing by cartels (Sasol, Tiger Foods etc.) to indicate the consequences of corruption on a grand scale. I have no doubt that much of FSG's growth can be attributed to rampant corruption and commercial crime because reliance on official police resources to investigate and prosecute is mostly a futile exercise. There is something very wrong when part of FSG's growth can be ascribed to anything but merit resulting from its own efforts - especially when the reason for that growth is the lack of services that the state is obligated to provide to uphold the constitutional rights of its citizens. The question is, "What am I going to do about it?" One answer is that I am going to continue to grow a business that meets the need. For the rest I'm going to have to get back to you, just as soon as I've figured it out ...