Mobile Surveillance: Pretexting

Video Transcript

"Hello, my name is Frank Torres and I'm here on behalf of Expert Village. And this segment is about pretexting while performing mobile surveillance. Pretexting is basically or basically tactics used to establish that your subject's where they need to be while your performing mobile surveillance. The first kind of pretexting are fake phone calls. A lot of times your organization will give you phone numbers of to reach your subject to make sure they're at where they need to be. While your making these phone calls you can pretend to be anything. Pretend to be with the Red Cross and say that your subject signed on to make donations a couple months back. Pretend to sell encyclopedias. Whatever makes you comfortable, whatever seems to work. Second kinds of pretexting are using the subjects neighbors. If you get up to your observation point and you notice that it looks like your subject hasn't been home in a while, don't hesitate to go knock on their neighbors door. Pretend to be anything you like from a delivery man to an old friend just trying to catch up with the subject. Just try to establish whether the subject's home or not. I've seen plenty of investigators get really into pretexting. They'll get fake labels for their vehicles, to throw off subjects while they're pulling surveillance. They'll even get fake I.D.'s that can be made anywhere from Office Depot to OfficeMax. Whatever it takes to throw their subject off and to get a good idea of whether that subject is home to begin with. These are just some of the tips for pretexting, but feel free to get creative as much as you'd like with it. I think you'll find it's a very useful tool."