During nice weather, business is conducted in a lot of places outside the office. Think the golf course or even on a boat. was called about Technical Surveillance Countermeasures (TSCM) services from a financial planner’s attorney.  His client had suddenly lost several clients to a specific competitor and was suspicious about why – and how. The common denominator was that the financial planner had entertained every one of the lost clients on his boat. Of course they had talked some business and the financial planner believed there must have been a listening device or some sort of spy equipment on the craft.

When a TSCM sweep is requested, it is most often for an office or meeting facility. But in reality, a bug sweep can be effective for not only phones and rooms, but for:

  • Vehicles
  • Boats
  • Trailers
  • Recreational vehicles
  • Even golf carts!

And the electronic bug detection executed in TSCM sweeps can uncover listening devices like voice-activated digital recorders, video surveillance equipment or a GPS unit placed in or on any of the above.

It is a common misconception that a GPS unit planted on a vehicle will interfere with the GPS system installed in the car. It will not. For that reason it is almost undetectable to the naked eye. Spy surveillance electronics are tiny and unobtrusive and can be hidden somewhere as innocuous as the bottom of a tissue box.

A bobble head dash ornament can house covert surveillance video equipment making video and audio recordings of passengers and all their conversations.

Eavesdropping devices or tracking equipment like a GPS unit can be rooted out by specialized equipment used by , even if it has been planted inside an ordinary item or place.

So the request from the financial planner’s attorney for a bug sweep was not all that unusual for us. Electronic surveillance can be used in both personal and professional situations and it is always alarming to discover evidence of its use, but better to be alarmed and remove it than fall a victim to spy surveillance.

-Brenda McGinley, CEO, All in Investigations, All in Investigations