The case of the bumbling spy is the latest episode involving undercover agents, working for private intelligence firms or other clients, who adopt false identities to dig up compromising information about or elicit embarrassing statements from their targets...
The phenomenon of private spies drew widespread attention in 2017, when Black Cube, an Israeli private intelligence firm, was found to have used undercover agents to approach women who had accused Harvey Weinstein, the Hollywood producer, of sexual misconduct...
At their lunch meeting, he read questions from cue cards of three colors that seemed to be organized by topic, explaining that at his age he needed them to keep the details straight. He held the cards in one hand, while in the other he held and awkwardly pointed a pen that appeared to contain a video recorder, Mr. Scott-Railton said. (John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab
In a phone conversation, he had told Mr. Scott-Railton that he had a son about his age. When they met, he said the child was a daughter. more
The point is obvious. Nine out of ten private investigators did not graduate in the top 10% of their class. However, there are plenty out their who did, and they can pretext you and bug your office quicker than a magician can make a coin disappear.
