Surveilling a target can be difficult. You have to locate the target, disappear into the street, confirm they’re home, and, if they get mobile, follow them.
But what if the target is an ex-police officer? A bounty hunter? Now the game is afoot. Now you’re going after somebody with years of training, years of evasive driving training, someone fully aware of The Game, with the same technical and technological abilities you have. The Private Investigator industry is full of ex or current police officers, but I’ve rarely come across one working as a bail agent—more colloquially known as bounty hunters.
I was sent to surveil a police officer collecting workers compensation benefits. An anonymous informant tipped off the insurer that the claimant was double dipping by working on the side as a PI. No additional info was provided, and the informing source would not respond to additional inquiries. A lesson to the reader: If you’re going to commit insurance fraud, stay on good terms with your former coworkers. They’ll be the first ones to rat you out, followed closely by your neighbors.
I went out on the hunt. After a day at the target’s house, watching his wife and kids come and go, I determined he wasn’t actually living there. He owned the home, his family was living in there, but he hadn’t been seen there in months. That was unusual. There weren’t any divorce records, confounding me further.
Neighborhood sources claimed the wife would leave on the weekends and return late Sunday evening, and that piqued my interest. After a couple weeks, I was about to give up, but then I got lucky. While on the phone with a colleague, a former police officer who hustles on the side as an investigator and bail agent, I lamented my inability to locate my target. He was silent for a moment before replying, “Maybe he’s working as a bail agent? I could find out.”
A couple hours later, he provided the answer. My target was working as a bail agent, but in another state. I embarked on a rather long road trip and reached the destination, setting up at the main office of the bail agency. I didn’t have to wait long. Within a few hours, the target arrived and I was on him.
For two weeks, I followed him as he dragged low-level offenders to the county lock up. He was good, with a high success rate in locating his skip traces and usually taking them in peacefully. One exception was an extraordinarily large man that the target and two other agents had to tackle to the ground and pepper spray.
Ultimately, surveillance is a running clock. The timer ticks down until the target eventually gets spooked, particularly one so evasive and aware. That moment came when the target walked through a busy parking lot and his gaze lingered on a nearby vehicle matching the make, model, and color of mine. He was getting smart. He slowly walked back to his car, got in, and waited for over an hour until the operator of the matching vehicle returned: an older woman with a small child. The target lost interest and left very slowly before entering a nearby highway on ramp where he was briefly stopped at a traffic signal. At this moment, I managed to see his face. His panic and distress was obvious. He got on the highway and I followed at a great distance. He started driving 100 mph, at which point I dumped the surveillance and halted the effort. I wasn’t getting anyone killed for this a**hole. Enough was enough.
This case eventually went to court a few months later and moved past discovery to the trial, which in this case was ridiculous given my overwhelming video evidence depicting him working in violation of his restrictions. I was called in to testify. He sat there burning lasers into me from an expressionless face. His attorney sat beside him, hand to face, shaking his head. After the hearing I left the courtroom and saw him by the elevator.
“You f***,” he said as I walked by.
That put me in a good mood. It told me the target knew there was nothing he was going to do, and he needed to get at least a word in while he could. He admitted that I won. He was good, but I was better this time.
J.Z. Delorean is a writer for Michigan Enjoyer and has been a Metro Detroit-based professional investigator for 22 years. Follow him on X @Stainless31.
