Legal gray area

For many companies, finding counterfeit goods is an impossible task without detective services. A public relations manager at a major US-based pharmaceuticals company, who did not want to be named, told China Daily his firm uses them to trace fake medicine.

The owner of a Beijing investigation agency, who asked to be identified only as Yu, said business is on the rise and that half of his clients are women suspicious about their husbands. He also collects debts and searches for fake goods.

"Ages of clients range from early 20s to late 60s," he said. During an hour-long interview, he answered his phone every few minutes to answer inquiries from potential customers.

Although business is good, Yu admitted he is feeling under pressure to be more disciplined as police are watching closely. "We don't use tracking devices any more as they're illegal (under Criminal law)," he said, "All my colleagues and I do is follow."

With a smile, he added that if private investigators do their job properly, police officers will be able to take more holidays.

Chen Wei, founder of Jilin Fuer Social Issues Investigations based in Changchun, said he is receiving more work tracing missing people, with cases rising from about 30 in 2008 to 50 last year. Subjects are usually teenagers on the run with cyber friends and adults who are victims of scams, said Chen, a former police detective who has been in the industry for 11 years.

"We investigate cases that the police don't accept," he said, adding that, for cases in which companies want to protect their brands, going to the government can often take too long. "(Authorities) don't have the staff to cope."

Shanghai SDE Business Information Consulting Co Ltd, which investigates claims of corporate espionage and bribery, has also seen demand grow 30 percent, according to general manager Wei Yingjie.

The annual Lunar New Year holiday, which this year runs from Feb 2 to 8, is the busiest time for many detective agencies.

"Recently, we have mainly investigated fake products ahead of the New Year shopping period," said Zheng Yuxin, founder of Xinjiang Gelei Business Investigations in Urumqi. "We spend weeks cooperating with industry and commerce bureaus to crack down on fake wines, brandy and fireworks."

Although surrounded by an air of mystery, most private investigators are actually former police officers and army veterans. Many have poor education backgrounds and simply slipped into the industry after struggling to find civilian jobs.

"The public generally misunderstands the profession and equates us to the mafia," complained Beijing agency boss Yu. "Someone once called me and said his friend wouldn't leave his house. He wanted me to scare this friend away. I don't take cases like that."

However, like every other detective who agreed to talk to China Daily, Yu accepts the industry has its good and bad operators. Some investigators take deposits but do not do any work, while even "good ones sometimes resort to illegal methods", he said.

Getting connected

Last September, authorities in Chongqing executed detective agency boss Yue Cun after he was found guilty of running a criminal gang. According to the municipality's No 5 Intermediate People's Court, his gang committed acts of murder, intentional injury, blackmail and illegal detention and possessed illegal firearms.

Beijing courts also tried about a dozen cases in 2010 involving private investigators using illegal methods to collect debts, obtain personal information and track cheating spouses.

Some investigators interviewed by China Daily admitted using connections with police or government officials to get personal information, while others have accessed phone records, which violates privacy laws. One case heard at the capital's Chaoyang District People's Court involved investigators working with cell phone services companies to obtain details of target subjects.

Although judge Zhang agreed there is a need for such investigations, he suggests authorities set up departments and rules to stipulate what information professionals can use to justify their assignment. "It is hard to control the industry when it's in a gray area," he said. "It should not be supported by law unless there are strict and detailed rules on its conduct."

Many legal professionals and industry experts say investigation services are more helpful than harmful, as they facilitate and extend their clients' rights to search for the truth.

Private detectives cover cases that are out of the judicial system's range and help keep society safe, "but there should be laws defining conduct, to differentiate from cases dealt with by police", said Chen at Jilin Fuer.

Criminal law expert Cai Jie wants the government to go one step further, however, and give investigators "more power" than the public to carry out their services. "That way, they won't need to bribe governments or companies to access information," said the professor at Wuhan University's law school.

As investigators are now being hired for a wide variety of cases, industry insiders say they believe their services will be legalized in the future.

Xinjiang Gelei Business Investigations used to deal mainly with cheating spouses, but in the last few years its client base has shifted to firms searching for fake goods, including international corporations like Nestle and L'Oreal, according to Zheng.

Meng Guanggang, one of the first and most well-known private investigators in China, said he also now focuses more on business information security.

"For the past two years, I've been employed by a company to provide security advice on intellectual property rights protection or investment safety," said the 56-year-old. That is the future of the industry, he said, "and as competition gets more fierce, more companies will need those services".

The only problem is, with detectives operating free of effective regulation, who is ensuring they are qualified to do it?

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