Q&A: Takeaways from a 26-Year Career as a Private Investigator

When assessing fraud allegations or other acts of wrongdoing, some organizations turn to outside private investigators to find out what happened and who’s responsible.

Don Aviv, CPP, PCI, PSP, has been an investigator since 1998. His father started an investigations firm in the 1970s and Aviv grew up in the business, working for competitors and peer companies before moving to New York in 2005 to work for the family firm, Interfor International. He’s now the president and CEO of the full-service global business intelligence and security consulting firm with clients from family offices, financial institutions, investment houses, law firms, and more.

“Our day-to-day cases are typically pre-investment, pre-acquisition investigative due diligence matters in which we are compiling comprehensive dossiers on an individual or company almost anywhere in the world,” Aviv says. “This also includes investigating board members and executives. We also conduct a large amount of litigation support and general fact-finding inquiries.”

For Security Management’s fraud series, we spoke with Aviv about skill sets he’s honed during his career that continue to be valuable today and how he and his team work to protect the integrity of investigations in an ever-changing world. The answers below have been lightly edited for clarity.

Security Management (SM). What skill sets do you think are most important for today’s investigators to have?

Don Aviv (Aviv). Nothing is more important than creativity and the ability to connect with others. So many investigators today come from law enforcement or the military and have been trained—rightfully—to think about a strict legal framework for all cases.

In the private sector, we do not carry badges or come armed with court orders. Our investigators and analysts have to be creative, ethically manipulative, and charming to convince people to give them what they need or want. These skills are not taught in schools nor are they instilled in most corporate settings. This is why we love recruiting former actors, performers, teachers, and intelligence professionals.

Our investigators and analysts have to be creative, ethically manipulative, and charming to convince people to give them what they need or want.

SM. Is there an investigation from your early work experience that stands out as particularly formative?

Aviv. Almost all of our more complex cases have left a mark one way or another. We have chased fraudsters around the world.

Thinking back, I would say the first global asset case I worked on left a particularly strong impression. An international fraudster made off with millions of dollars from a number of victims and seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth. Everyone was looking for him—including a few federal law enforcement agencies.

We were retained by a European-based finance family that was impacted greatly. No one was able to locate him or the money he absconded with. The client came to us a year later to both locate him and the funds, if possible. There were supposed sightings all over the world. We realized that chasing him would be impossible, so we decided to make him come to us.

We knew he was attracted to a certain type of investor when it came to his fraudulent actions—old money that is desperate to replenish fast diminishing assets. So, we spent months creating a fictitious old Swiss finance family with money to spend. We dangled crumbs quietly near many of his former known associates and co-conspirators. Lo and behold, a month later he took the bait and offered us “an incredible investment opportunity.”

After weeks and weeks of dancing around playing the long game, we scheduled a meeting and cut a deal in which we would wire him directly to his offshore account. Shockingly, he gave us a viable account.

SM. During an investigation, what steps do you take to ensure that the identities of individuals who are interviewed and the information that they provide remain confidential and protected?

Aviv. We would not be effective or productive if we did not protect the privacy and security of our sources. There have been numerous cases in which reporters, the authorities, and/or interested parties have come to us to reveal our sources. We have fought off every attempt and will continue to do so.

We are very “old school” in some senses. We know systems can be hacked and information stolen digitally. We do not keep any truly sensitive information online or in accessible systems.

SM. This series is focused on internal fraud investigations—sometimes called occupational fraud investigations. Are there differences in how you approach an internal fraud investigation compared to other types of investigations?

Aviv. We approach every investigation—whether it’s internal or external—in the very same way. We always ingest and take in all available information from all available sources and assess, analyze, and investigate the veracity of all claims.

It’s important to remember that no two people view or recall a situation the same way, so it’s critical to perfect our knowledge-base from as many angles as possible. We are not influenced by politics or power. We hunt for facts—both what can be proven and what is perceived.

SM. Your current firm has worked on several investigations involving high-profile figures that held a lot of power and influence over their company. When an investigation is focused on a C-suite level individual, how does that change the approach you take to the investigation?

Aviv. As mentioned previously, we do not allow ourselves to be influenced by power or stature. We walk away from more cases than we accept. We explicitly state at the onset that we follow the facts where they take us irrespective of who the client is or what they want us to find.

We tend to be handed high-profile cases or cases involving “powerful or self-important people” because it is widely known that we are incorruptible. The most important outlook from my perspective would be to ignore all the noise when dealing with highly publicized matters. It is critical for firms like mine to protect their investigators and to give them as much runway as is required without external pressure or influence.

I often joke that my main job is to act as a bodyguard for my teams—to block out all the noise and pressure. Let them do what they do best.

SM. Sometimes internal or external corporate investigations are passed on to potentially conduct a criminal investigation that could lead to charges. What are some best practices for investigating and documenting your work so that when it’s handed off to law enforcement, it’s likely to move forward with the case?

Aviv. Our internal mantra comes down to this: Treat everything you write, everything you document, and everything you do as potentially disclosable in a court of law no matter what country the case is in. If you keep that mantra close to your heart, then you should have clean documents and clean investigations.

We also believe in having legal oversight on all cases large and small. In this day and age, the permissibility of investigative work product varies from state to state and country to country. It’s our biggest headache as investigators in this ever-shrinking world.

Treat everything you write, everything you document, and everything you do as potentially disclosable in a court of law no matter what country the case is in.

SM. One thing that has come up in my interviews for this series is how investigators handle situations where they have suspicions that activity occurred but have run out of leads to prove their theory. Has this happened in your career? And what advice would you give to individuals just beginning their investigatory career who might run into a similar problem?

Aviv. This happens all the time, actually. In fact, we train our young analysts and investigators to assume that they will not be able to prove what they believe from the outset without building their cases step-by-step. We want them walking into a case thinking that they will need the utmost creativity and thoughtfulness to make their case.

We also challenge them to attack each fact pattern from multiple angles. We train them to think like the counter-party or bad guy in every matter. If they can put themselves into their shoes, they might see an angle that will lead to a new line of inquiry or a unique way of challenging the status quo.

Megan Gates is senior editor at Security Management. Connect with her at [email protected] or on LinkedIn.