Conversation with a private detective in Singapore
There is a joke among my friends that if I hadn't been a writer or journalist I probably would have become a private investigator (PI). It's not so much who I amkaypoh, it's just that I'm really good at digging up dirt on people.
And yes, that includes dirt on exes, dating app matches, and even my friends' matches. In my full onlinelurkThrough research, I uncovered dark secrets including hidden commitments and extramarital affairs.
It's both a gift and a curseAs a matter of fact, to be able to expose scammers and liars. Because sometimes I think ignorance would have been bliss if I hadn't insisted on seducing an ex-boyfriend via a dating app just for him to willingly meet me at a transit hotel.
arrested.
So, okay, I'm better off without him. And when I tell this story, people are always in awe of my detective skills. But I also wondered if catching scammers was something I could seriously make a career out of.
A friend recommended I speak to himRanger investigative and security services(RISS), an IP firm she hired herself to investigate her fiancé's deception. So I called her to find out more.
Hire a private detective in Singapore
I contacted Mr. Lim Yong Yi, who runs RISS, a family business he took over over ten years ago. His organization operates security services for various properties, but also does investigative work not only in marital matters but also in domestic affairs and background checks for companies.
About half of the cases he sees for PI work involve relationships, most of which are for partners who want to gather evidence of third-party relationships for use in divorce courts. Sometimes a fiancé will give you background check requests before the marriage is official.
Many who walk through your door usually have an idea of what's already going on with their partners, but just need an IP to confirm these issues. What Mr. Lim hopes to provide with his services is peace of mind for his customers.
"Sometimes it's a relief for them when they know what's going on and can end the relationship quickly," says Lim.
On the hunt for cheating spouses
RISS has been in the field of investigative work for 35 years, and over time, Mr. Lim has developed and trained his staff to catch fraudulent partners through various means.
In most cases, their customers would provide information about the possible whereabouts of their partners, e.g. B. their working hours, their place of work and their usual places. From there, the IPs play a waiting game, tracking their target's every move to see if they're cheating.
But these days, surveillance doesn't happen nearly as often, not when there are less time-consuming ways to get information. Mr. Lim revealed that his team uses Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) and social engineering when his client cannot provide enough details about their goal.
Using OSINT, Mr. Lim explained what most of us would do when meeting someone for the first time. It's basically online stalking but with style, such as B. Using different social media accounts to get the necessary information about a destination and its partners. Or even search dating apps for signs of activity by the scammer in question.
And yes, it's all perfectly legal, Lim assured me. Even with the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA), his team has ways of finding evidence of foul play involved, though he couldn't go into detail.
OSINT can sometimes hit a dead end if a brand is too careful to cover their tracks, so this is where social engineering for the team comes in. Some people liken the method to manipulation, but Lim considers it a cautious game of getting a mark to get information he wouldn't otherwise be able to reveal.
Now You See Me - Airplane Scene - Disclosure of Personal Information
There's a scene in thereNow you see Meshowing how this can be achieved. The illusionists gain access to billionaire Arthur Tressler's bank account by inadvertently tricking him into revealing the answers to his security questions just by speaking to him.
Lim does the same, except maybe with a lot less money. Your modus operandi may include introducing yourself to the target person as a friend or getting close enough to a social circle to get information from them. Once it makes contact, it examines their microexpressions (facial signs) to see if what they're saying is real.
Interesting cases of infidelity found
It doesn't sound like much work, but Mr. Lim caught a number of scammers this way.
Similar to the use of social engineering, Mr. Lim reported a case in which he could see a woman's willingness to cheat. Mr. Lim called it a "honey trap" and organized a sting operation for a man to test his wife's fidelity.
How I cheated on my ex. A friend texted him to see if he was stupid enough to take the bait. He was.
Bildnachweis: Raewyn Koh
Similar to what he had done with my ex-boyfriend, he had befriended his IP with the woman through an app and developed a relationship with her. But without the IP's powers of persuasion, he began a sack romp at a hotel near his home. The IP entered the hotel room with the aim of gathering evidence of his intentions.
In case you are wondering, the IP was left before something happened, such asTheit's not part of the job. Although Mr. Lim mentioned that the woman was quite insistent on completing the deed.
Regarding the use of OSINT, Mr. Lim had a wife who wondered why her husband flew abroad for work so often. She naturally assumed that something was wrong and assigned Mr. Lim to track it down.
His team searched for him on social media and discovered that the husband had been actively following a foreign streamer on a live streaming website. He had spent thousands to support her and even traveled to where she was supposed to spend time with her.
Needless to say, it was pretty clear that both parties were guilty. After the evidence was gathered and presented to Lim's clients, both couples broke up soon after.
How to tell if your partner is cheating on you
I asked Mr. Lim if there are ways to determine if fraud is taking place before having to post an IP. Were there any clues or signs you could look for?
"Actually, if you already suspect your partner is cheating on you, they probably already do," was the big revelation I got from him.
Not that Lim is reluctant to divulge trade secrets, but said that the people who know their partners best are themselves. As PIs, they can only help confirm or disprove your allegations.
Behavior change is often the biggest giveaway, such as B. spending more time in the office than usual or being more careful with their phones.
In my case, what made me hook my ex-boyfriend was that my suspicions on Telegram suddenly became very active. He claimed to be "a bad copywriter" but here he came online frequently and didn't say a word to me. My suspicions were confirmed when I checked his phone and saw his explicit messages to various women.
A friend of mine also felt that his wife was cheating on him when she started withdrawing a large amount of cash while she usually paid with a credit card. It emerged that he used cash to disguise his credit card statements for overnight stays at a transit hotel.
Put simply, intuition is there for a reason, and hiring a private investigator can help you calm down to uncover the truth.
Lessons learned from talking to a private detective
Since it was his job to catch cheaters, I wondered if Lim-san was fed up with the idea of true love. "No, I still believe in true love," said the happily married man.
Lim asked several clients for advice on what to do after they found out about an extramarital affair. And while he warns that he's not a marriage counselor, he tries to help them move on.
He also believes that cheating isn't the be-all and end-all of all relationships. There are many reasons couples stay together. Sometimes it's the familiarity, and sometimes there's something bigger at stake, like children or even a business partnership.
You can't guarantee a leopard won't change tack when it comes to infidelity, but sometimes getting these things out in the open is the boost needed to rebuild a relationship. One such couple, for example, discovered the root cause of one spouse's cheating in inattention to the other's needs and worked to repair their relationship from there.
Trust is another issue couples face when trying to continue the relationship. "If they really want to try again, the scammer needs to find ways to calm their partner down," she advised. That includes things like transparency about whereabouts and allowing spouses to check their phones.
"Moving on is difficult, but not impossible," shared Mr. Lim.
Whether or not you want to continue in a relationship or move on is a personal choice. Ending my relationship was a difficult decision, at least for me. After all, nothing else my partner did warranted a red flag, but his dismissing our relationship as a joke was enough to make me want to get out.
Since then it has not been easy to continue. It still pains me to think about what he did and I wonder if there was something wrong with me that made my partner give up what we had so easily. There were fears that the same would happen again in a new relationship.
When I confided my concerns to Mr. Lim, he understood where I came from. But he assured me of one thing: "Whoever you pass next, at least now you know what to look out for."
I think you are right.
Photography by Li Haiyang.