PRIVATE eyes don’t just spy on cheating spouses anymore. More and more, they are investigating companies involved in mergers and acquisitions, pursuing corporate embezzlers, checking out Insider trading scandals, uncovering illegal apartment sublets and proving insurance fraud. It’s a world Sam Spade, Lew Archer and Travis McGee would hardly recognize. “The private eye today Is more educated and sophisticated than his counterpart of a decade ago,” said Nick Beltrante, head of the Council of International Investigators in Washington. “His client list Is more diversified and his whole operation is more efficient and more professional.”
Samuel Webster, president of the World Association of Detectives, said: “Portrayals of detectives as guys who follow people around and look through windows are inaccurate.” Gumshoes of yesteryear would barely know the business these days. Gone, for the most part, is the battered old desk, with its hall-empty whisky bottle lucked away in the bottom drawer. Today’s 50,000 or so private eyes use computers, high-tech surveillance gadgets, polygraph machines – and, increasingly, lipstick.
The number of women In the business has increased dramatically in Industrywide revenues, 100, are up, about 20 percent a year during the last decade, according to the World Association of Detectives, a 700-member group based in Long Beach, L.I. Vincent Parco, former secretary of the Society of Professional Investigators, based in New York, and head of his own agency, estimated that the industry pulls in about $10 billion a year.
Insurance claim work represents the largest caseload at many agencies, but financial searches seem to be the fastest-growing segment. Detective work has long drawn retired police and military officers, but now attracts more young people. Carolyn Moltett, administrator at New York’s Superior Career Institute, said enrollment in its detective school has doubled in the last couple of years. Rules vary state by state, but in New York, would-be private eyes must work for three years under a licensed detective to be eligible to get their own licenses. Once licensed, they can begin charging going rates that range But most detectives say it’s not the money that lures them. “Every day is different,” said Marla Paul, a 22-year-old detective with Vincent Parco & Associates in New York City. “It beats the office routine.”- By Warren Berger
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