TSCM Archives - Page 7 of 9 - All in Investigations

TSCM Foils Entrepreneurial Voyeur and His Spy Equipment

You’ve all seen the movies, but truth be told, actual real-life situations beat out most all of the movies. Take for instance the situation a recent call brought to . The caller was a professional woman in her 40s who we’ll call Mary – and she was beside herself. Mary had received a call from a friend on the other side of the country telling Mary that she’d been featured in an online porn movie. Mary was VERY certain she had never participated in the production of a porn film and she couldn’t hardly believe there was any truth to it. So her friend sent her the link via email. To her horror, there she was – in her bedroom! That’s when she called . [...]

Fugitive Recovery Agent Aided by Investigators

By the time Joe contacted , he was beyond angry and frustrated. After all, Joe is a well known and well respected bail bondsman. He still believes that good people suddenly find themselves in some not-so-good situations, through no fault of their own. Unfortunately, that is exactly why Joe ended up in a bad situation, which brought him to our office. A male acquaintance of Joe’s called him in the middle of the night, begging to be bailed out of jail. Joe knew the guy from the gym where they both worked out every morning. And so, when the guy tearfully explained that he had wrongly been arrested for dealing cocaine, Joe jumped out of bed and headed to the jail. The guy insisted that [...]

Theft in the Workplace Belongs in Professional Hands

Theft in the workplace can take many forms and every department is vulnerable. Like many company owners, Ed felt the crunch of the economy. He tried not to get to the point of lay-offs. But eventually, that choice was inevitable. Some guys in production lost their jobs, others lost hours. In fact, within a few months, Ed had to reduce employees and hours in every single department. The morale of those left behind went from low to downright vicious. Ed was doing the best he could do. Then he started to notice that inventory was low, tools were suddenly missing and machinery in the production lines was suddenly out of commission. Ed suspected that his employees were purposefully causing problems; they were sabotaging the machines; [...]

Are You Being Watched? GPS vs. Cell Phone Spyware vs. Listening Devices

Debi called to ask that her vehicle be checked for an unauthorized GPS unit. She admits that she has been sneaking around behind Tom’s back (her boyfriend) but it was because she was planning a special birthday event for him. Tom’s best friend, Ryan, let it slip that Tom told him she was at a certain location and there was no way he could have known that. Now she suspects Tom has put a GPS unit on her car and is tracking her movements. When someone asks about bug detection, which includes GPS units, we have to ask a lot of questions. A bug sweep is technically called Technical Surveillance Countermeasures or TSCM. And, frankly, we are discovering that more often than a hidden GPS, [...]

Trends in Private Investigation for 2014

Clearly the investigative world continues to evolve. At we have taken on the latest trends. There is no one investigative technique that is best utilized and blended investigative strategies are more the norm. Two areas where stays on the cutting edge are cellular forensics and social media engineering. For example, the use of digital forensics has become a critical tool in the resource box. We could be doing a cell phone analysis for data recovery or cellular forensics for cellular location evidence. Communication modes from test to email or call logs are all records to substantiate or refute claims of guilt or innocence. Cell phone forensic tools provide facts, not claims. In 2013, industry experts predicted a significant rise in the utilization of mobile device [...]

Successor Busted in TSCM Investigation

Here at we use a lot of high tech equipment and software. But along with that comes years of investigative experience. And we employ both good old fashioned detective work with the digital tools in just about every case we handle. One case involved a son and his father and the company the father had built from scratch. Both had offices in the same building, just a floor apart. In fact, the son’s office was directly below his father’s office. Dad, who we’ll call Sam was getting on in years and wanted to retire – at least part-time. But he wasn’t sure his son, we’ll call Jim, was ready to take over the helm. Jim believed he was able and the next in line. Sam [...]

Cell Phone Forensics Reveals Who is Watching You

One thing that we realize here at is that a couple doesn’t have to actually be married to be caught in an emotionally charged – and challenging – situation. For instance, one case we had was a couple who had been together for many years and had two children together. They never married and their relationship was “shaky” as she described it. She felt sure that he had listening devices installed in their home and perhaps even a mobile phone tap. What made her feel she was surrounded by spy equipment? He traveled a great deal for work and their conversations were limited to once daily in the evening. And yet, he and the children knew things that she hadn’t shared with them. Several things [...]

Suspicions Lead to Fruitful Bug Detection

We had a client who had taken on a special, highly confidential project at work. The reason he called was because he was concerned about inadvertently leaking information. He kept asking “Is my phone tapped?” He wasn’t paranoid, but suspicious. What made him suspicious? Electronic devices were acting “weird” and although he said he had an electric personality, these odd sounds and happenings had never happened before. He described some of them: His AM/FM car radio had developed interference on several stations that had been previously clear. This could be the case of an eavesdropper since antennas can be exploited by eavesdroppers. Sounds were coming from his office phone line when it was not in use. Sometimes his office phone would ring and no one [...]

TSCM Sweep Rounds Up the Bad Guys

Truth is the basis for fictional story lines, that’s for sure. was called in on a case by an attorney that had a female client who was being blackmailed. The blackmailer said he had video of her inside her apartment in a 28-floor building. He described the apartment and conversations held there in detail so she knew he had access. Immediately it was evident that technical surveillance countermeasures (TSCM) were called for. A TSCM sweep of the apartment was scheduled. Since both conversations and visual details were given, it was evident that covert surveillance and spy listening devices were present in some form or fashion. The target was eavesdropping devices and surveillance equipment. Using sophisticated counter surveillance equipment used for electronic bug detection, hidden wireless [...]

RV TSCM Sweep Not a Joke

Comedy really is no laughing matter. No, it’s big business and people’s livelihoods. When a call came into from an attorney who said his client was a jokester, we weren’t quite sure what to expect. At first, we thought he was being sarcastic about something a client was asking him to do, but no, the client was a comedian – really. And he needed a bug detector. The comic was on the circuit travelling from gig to gig, living in an RV. He was being considered for a television production and was working really hard to build his book of jokes and skills on stage. All of a sudden, there was a competitor who was making jokes very similar to the new material he and [...]