Often in movies, we see exciting scenes of tracking and spying on people, as well as uncovering fraud, murder, and bribery with the help of a private detective. Adela Krivanek Magerl revealed how similar it is to the real work of a private detective in our country.
She works as a private detective in Croatia, other European countries, but also Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).
She explained that the work of private detectives includes combined work in the office and in the field. Regardless of how the investigation will be conducted, the basis of every investigation is analysis and preparation for the operational part of the work in the field. After that, the analysis and processing of the collected material are started, and work is done on the Report, which together with the collected materials is handed over to the customer.
Regarding whether the scenes from the movies resemble the real work of a private detective, Adela said that the movies faithfully depict a part of the investigation and work of private detectives. But considering that they are mostly about American movies, the picture is also more faithful to their detectives, because their work is partially different from the work of private detectives in Europe.
Can private detectives work in BiH?
In the Federation of BiH (FBiH), the work of private detectives is not regulated by law. Although there have been numerous initiatives for many years, the Law on Private Detectives has not been passed. However, the Republika Srpska (RS) and the Brcko District have a Law on Private Detectives, which facilitates the work and also provides the opportunity for natural persons to conduct investigations in cases in which they have a justified legal interest.
“Legally unregulated does not mean that there are no detectives and that they do not work, so we can make a comparison with Germany, which also does not have a law on detectives, but there are over 3.500 of them on the market and they are registered based on the Companies Act”, explained Adela.
The negative consequence of this is that this way of doing business leads to an unregulated market and risks for customers. There are companies that do not have trained staff, so they improvise and often put the client at risk with their investigation.
What are the strangest requests from clients?
Adela stated that one of the strangest requests was the request to follow the client who hired them and record people who would follow her and possibly make rude comments when going shopping or to a cafe. But during that, she tried to escape the detectives in the field.
“There were inquiries such as ‘Could you organize an analysis of traces on the wife’s underwear?’, there were also those who would ask for an anti-eavesdropping inspection of the house located next to the border, and where a listening device was indeed found,” she stated.
However, she says that it is difficult to say whether these cases can be classified as “strange” because each request is treated with equal seriousness and attention until it is determined that the case is not worth it and that it is a problem of a different nature, Klix.ba reports.
E.Dz.