Doing surveillance on someone (aka following the subject in question) is never easy, but it is especially difficult in New York City. As the saying goes, “if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere”. They were not kidding, especially when it comes to surveillance. When I have an assignment in Connecticut, on Long Island, or even upstate, it’s like a vacation compared to New York City. While other areas bring their own set of challenges, it is definitely less dangerous and oftentimes much less of a chance of being in an accident when you are in the middle of Kings Park in Suffolk County versus Jamaica Avenue at 5 pm in Queens, New York. There are so many unknown variables and so many near misses that your head will be spinning. While you are trying to “blend in” with the traffic and surroundings, avoid the red light cameras and not hit the doordash people on their bikes darting in and out of cars, you are still attempting to keep a visual on the subject – all while not being caught.
The main point that I am trying to make is that if you need surveillance done on someone, please leave it to the professionals. We have been doing this for over thirty years and to date, we are still here to talk about it so I’d say we are doing pretty well. We’ve followed all types of people and all types of vehicles in all types of weather. We have done literally thousands of surveillance cases and just when we think we have gone through pretty much every scenario possible, something else will come up to challenge our expertise. Here are a few examples of situations and how we make them work to the best of our ability.
Multiple Personalities – In most assignments, the client leaves it up to our discretion as to how often to work on their case. That means we are free to judge just how often to work it, based on the situation. For example, if the client put someone else on the case before us, and they, let’s just say failed for whatever reason, the subject is now well aware that there is someone following them. Now it needs to be worked differently from when the subject has no clue that someone has been hired to follow them to see what they are up to. When following them on foot, you often have to travel with different clothes and hats to throw them off. My wife hates to use my car because all of her “work supplies” are in hers and the same for me. If you did not know what we do, you would think that we literally “live out of our cars” because of the amount of things we have to take with us just in case the need arises. The flip side is if we ever got stranded in our car, we could probably live there for a week or two with all the stuff we have with us for working at a moment’s notice. We recently had to follow a 30-something around at night and we started out at her apartment in Westmoreland, Queens. After about an hour, she departed the area and we followed her to a friend’s home where she changed into her “club” clothes. So we followed her and another girl to the club. Terri literally changed clothes in the car under the veil of darkness and then emerged from the vehicle looking like she came straight from home dressed to party, while I stood guard in the car, monitoring Instagram and Snapchat to see what the subject and her entourage were up to while texting the info to Terri inside the club.
Follow The Posts – I personally am not a fan of posting pictures of my burger or selfies next to statues, but I absolutely love it when the subject is “snap-happy” or blowing up Instagram with their every move. People have no idea how much information we get from what is posted online. It could be by them, or by a friend or relative. Terri does our OSINT and Deep Web searches and she loves it when someone is overly active online. It makes her and my job so much easier. We recently followed a kid to Rockwood Park in Queens, and the only way we knew where he was came directly from the trail of Snapchats he had sent out during the three days leading up to catching him. Once we had a visual, we simply followed him back to the apartment where the girlfriend lived and then we had his location. We were able to give the information to the parents and they went and retrieved their son and took him home.
Is Your Headlight Out, Or Are You Winking At Me? – There is nothing worse than trying to follow someone at night, only to find that one of your headlights is out. Nothing says “yup that car is following me” like one headlight on and one off at night. So you need to be creative and compensate for it as much as possible. That happened to me recently and it was a time-sensitive case that required me to follow the subject that night for the evidence needed the next day. (Side note – it would be greatly appreciated if you thought about hiring someone more than a few days before you need the evidence. The more time I have, the better my chances of success are for both of us. But I digress…) So, I was driving through Brownsville in Brooklyn when I pulled into a gas station and discovered by my reflection in the window that to my horror one headlight was out. It was just getting dark and every place that could have fixed it in a hurry with some monetary incentive was now closed. So I had to be as creative as possible. I knew that the subject would be getting onto the highway and what their most likely route would be. So instead of following from the residence, I went to the most likely departure route and prayed they would come that way, which they did. Once I followed them onto the highway, I compensated for my broken headlight by keeping a car between myself and the subject as much as possible. I also made sure to move over to the left instead of the right so the car blocked the dark headlight. When the car in between us would signal to change lanes, I would go to the right lane to keep my dark headlight hidden as much as possible. Once another car moved up, I immediately changed back to the lane the subject was in to avoid losing them in traffic. And as anyone in NYC knows, it could be 3 am and there would still be traffic – maybe not as much, but there would still be cars on the road, especially on Friday and Saturday nights. So I continued that way as long as possible until I had no choice but to exit behind the subject, who happened to be driving a big SUV. So I stayed super close to them and prayed that they didn’t have to stop suddenly. Nothing puts a damper on a case more than rear-ending the person you are trying to follow discreetly. It really makes for a bad end to the day.
Practice Makes Perfect – The best way to have successful pursuits, however, is to practice. Often during the quiet season, we will practice by choosing a random vehicle and following them as long as safely possible to see how well we can do it and practice our moves and tactics. Needless to say, since there is no pressure and no risk in losing them, it almost always seems to go well, plus we only do this for a short amount of time so as not to freak anyone out. But it is how we perfect our craft. We have become exceptionally good at following in from New York City traffic to mostly empty roads in Connecticut. It all comes down to experience.
Hiding In Plain Sight – Sometimes you need to literally “hide in plain sight” and be right there and yet, have a way of making it seem like it’s just a coincidence and nothing more. How often have you been driving along and there is someone right behind you and you’re not thinking “oh no, it’s a serial killer!” but more like, “just go around me already!!!” Sometimes we will play the “two-car game” move and be behind the subject when we are doing two-person surveillance, then the first car turns off or goes around the subject and the second car continues. This way, the subject is so fixated on the first vehicle, that they don’t even realize a second one is also following them. Then when vehicle one finally leaves, they let their guard down. This is a great tactic when we are dealing with someone that is suspicious, to begin with. They would never imagine that two cars are following them, so it almost always works.
Who’s Following Who – Once I had this case in Winchester Estates in Queens that definitely became one of my more challenging surveillances. I was doing surveillance on someone who was the perfect person to follow – a slow driver who always signaled way too far in advance. They rolled down their window, put their arm out, and gestured for me to go around them. How kind, but no thank you. Now I knew I had to accept their gracious offer, so I went around in front of them. I now had to do my pursuit from in front of the subject and watch them in my rearview mirror while trying to keep from hitting anyone in front of me. I managed to do this long enough for my partner to catch up to us and take over from behind them. Then I broke off and let them follow the subject to their destination. That was a tricky one, but it all worked out in the end. I was able to take a video through my back window of both him and “the other woman” clearly through his windshield before I left. Mission accomplished.
Now You See Me, Now You Don’t – Ultimately in order to do “on foot” surveillance in the city, you need to be discreet but blend to the point of almost being invisible. In colder weather, we dress in layers so we can swap layers when necessary, such as wearing two different colored jackets and switching them after a bit, adding a hat or taking one off, switching out sunglasses for regular glasses or no glasses, etc. We have reversible hats, and reversible jackets or shirts as well for when it’s warmer out. Terri will start out with her hair up in a ponytail, then pull out the elastic and switch to sunglasses, reverse her jacket and suddenly she’s a different person. If I still had hair I’d do the same thing, but it’s hard to do with a shaved head, so I just switch out my hats or take it off all together. Whatever works in the situation I’m in. We will hide around corners or behind trees to catch the money shot (yes it sounds hoaky, but it does work) and we will often follow from across the street diagonally behind the person if we have been following for too long. When we are doing a two-person, once we get into the subway we walk along holding hands. No one ever suspects a pair of Gen-X people of spying on them, so it always works. We just blend into the background – always in dull gray clothes, no jewelry, nothing that stands out or gets attention. We just happen to be going in the same direction and they do…or so they think. And now everyone is taking pictures of everything in order to document their activities as if anyone cares what we had for breakfast or which platform we were standing on. That is what the subject thinks they see. It is actually not the burger but the couple at the next table behind the burger that we are videoing. When we sit together to “watch” something one of us saw on our phone, we are actually getting photos of you nibbling on “someone not your spouse” across from us on the train. And when we are taking a “selfie” we are zoomed in on you both right behind us. So never underestimate the couple that seems to be in the same area as you and your “secret” person. You never know.
What it comes down to is this: In order to be successful at what we do, we need to become chameleons and fit the environment that we are in and the crowd around us. To do that successfully means years and years of experience and practice. For the most part, if you want to be able to follow someone successfully, it becomes a dance. You need to know when to stay close and when to give them space. You have to follow their moves and try to predict as much as possible without “stepping on their toes” figuratively speaking. But while you do this, you also have to watch your surroundings and be aware of everything that is going on around you. I think I know now why chameleons have those crazy eyes that spin around in different directions. That’s what I must look like when I’m following someone through Queens during rush hour. It’s not easy, but it definitely keeps me on my toes. And that’s the closest you’ll get me to the dance floor. Just ask my wife, she’ll tell you.
Investigreat, LLC is a recognized full service Private Investigation Agency that is fully licensed, insured and bonded, handling cases all over Connecticut as well as Queens NY, Brooklyn NY, Bronx NY, New York City, Staten Island and Long Island NY. Adam, along with his wife Terri, have been working cases for Legal Teams, Insurance Companies, Private Businesses, Municipalities, School Systems and general investigation services for the public since 1992.
Investigreat, LLC | Private Investigators serving Connecticut, Long Island City, Jamaica NY, Brooklyn NY and Queens NY | Office Numbers: 860-899-1710 or 718-412-1845 | Text: 718-309-1269