Practical Instruction for Detectives: A Complete Course in Secret Service Study

by Emmerson Wain Manning

CONSPIRACIES

The disclosure of conspiracies in their hundreds of forms offers a broad field for the detective. Hundreds of damage suits are instituted annually throughout the country wherein damages claimed to have been suffered by the plaintiff are nothing more than conspiracies to defraud. The field for such investigation is very wide, especially as it applies to fake bankruptcy cases and damage cases brought by persons against railroad and street railway companies. For example, I once investigated a case wherein the store of a certain jewelry firm was destroyed by fire. Later they claimed that during the excitement of the fire some $20,000.00 worth of diamonds were stolen from the premises by some person unknown. The creditors were loath to believe this and had an investigation made which developed that the diamonds in question had not been stolen, but were removed from the store by the owners previous to the fire, and that the fire itself no doubt was a part of the plan to defraud creditors.

Railroad companies suffer tremendously as a result of conspiracies, of which the following is an example, and which ease I personally directed: A new railroad was constructed through a certain farming district, for a distance of perhaps fifteen miles. Before the advent of the railroad none of this farming land had ever been valued at more than twenty-five dollars per acre. Practically all the farmers along the line of the railroad claimed damages up to a hundred dollars per acre. The cases were decided in the courts, upon the opinions of viewers who were appointed by the court, and which body of viewers was composed of disinterested farmers of the same county.

After the railroad company had been compelled to pay two or three excessive claims, it looked about for relief, it having suspected right along that a conspiracy existed among the farmers and viewers to claim and recommend such excessive damages. After three cases had been decided against the railroad company, I detailed two detectives to visit these farmers, and who pretended to have been sent by a number of farmers of a far distant county, who also proposed bringing damage suits against a new railroad company; that they had heard of the success these farmers were having with their suits, and that it was desired to know along just what lines they were proceeding. The two detectives also advised the ring leaders that they did not want the information gratis, and if given assistance were authorized to pay a certain percentage of all damages secured in the distant county. The result was these farmers then unsuspectingly told the detectives how they had all met and agreed to claim certain amounts of damages, and how they had even gone so far as to hold mock trials at several of the farmers’ homes, so that all concerned would be properly coached when the time came to go into court. At these mock trials one farmer would pose as plaintiff, while another would pose as the railroad company’s attorney, when questions were asked, and answers agreed upon, as was anticipated would come out at the real trials or hearings. Needless to state, that after corroborative evidence of this conspiracy was placed in the hands of the railroad company’s attorney, no more excessive damages were paid, and I later had the pleasure of being advised that this bit of detective work saved the railroad company fully forty thousand dollars.

As to how creditors are defrauded in hundreds of instances, the following is a fair example: A retail shoe dealer in a middle western state went into bankruptcy owing several eastern jobbers several thousand dollars. Examination of the dealers’ stock and records of sales for several months developed the fact that two or three thousand dollars worth of shoes purchased from the eastern jobbers evidently had never entered the dealer’s place of business. It was suspected that the merchandise was concealed or had been secretly disposed of by the dealer. I directed an investigation which resulted in locating the goods in another city, the investigation having been conducted along the following lines:

Information as to the road over which the goods were shipped, together with dates, weights and car numbers was first obtained from the shippers. The drayage company on the dealer’s end was then seen, after which drivers for the drayage company were interviewed, and which developed information that the missing goods had never been delivered to the dealer’s place of business, but instead were moved from one depot to another and promptly re-shipped to another city. The same plan was then followed in that city with the drayage companies and the goods easily located, and which were promptly attached by the creditors.

In another case an Italian fruit jobber once received three carloads of fruit, and after disposing of same left suddenly for parts unknown, without remitting to, or paying the shippers. I was called into this case, and I promptly directed that the Italian’s wife and children be placed under close surveillance. In about a week the wife and children packed up their household goods and had the same shipped to a city some three hundred miles distant. The household goods were then watched closely after being unloaded in the freight depot at the point of destination. Three days later the goods were removed from the depot and taken to the home of an Italian, whose house was then kept under surveillance, but no trace could be seen of the fugitive. At the end of a week the household goods were again taken out, hauled to a depot and re-shipped to a small town a hundred miles away. I recall having personally examined the shipping tags attached to the goods upon this occasion, which gave us the address of the final destination of the household goods, and which address, a few days later, enabled us to cause the arrest of the fugitive.

TESTING RETAIL BUSINESS ESTABLISHMENTS

The making of test purchases in retail stores is done very extensively, and for which work detectives are employed. Taking for example a high class confectionery store, drug store or cigar store. The proprietor may not come to his place of business until late in the morning, or may be away for perhaps a week. He desires to know if his sales clerks are honest and reliable, and courteous to customers during his absence from the place of business. The detective retained for this purpose enters the store one, two or three times a day and makes purchases the same as any other customer would, and while in the place makes careful note of the kind of treatment accorded him by the sales clerk, and in particular notes if the amount of his purchase is properly rung up on the cash register, with which most retail business establishments are now equipped. Owners of department stores and of saloons spend thousands of dollars annually for detective work of this kind.

DIVORCE CASES