Sherlock At Home With Old-World Sleuthing

While snoops are increasingly coming under the lens for digging up dirt by using unsavoury means, the traditional art of detection is still alive. Technology may play a role that’s more vital

- Raj Shekhar Jha & Abhay

Just when Covid-19 struck, private detective Rajesh Chaudhary (name changed) was approached by a woman employee of an IT firm in Gurgaon. She wanted to find out if her boyfriend was cheating on her and she was ready to pay a premium for this information. Though not an unusual request, the problem was that the target was very well covered — a wealthy businessman from south Delhi who had PSOs accompanying him everywhere, there was a guard at residential entrance and he used iPhones.

A few days of stalking revealed that the target regularly visited his farmhouse at Satbari on the Delhi-Faridabad border and stayed there for the night. A few cars went in and out, but they were careful not to allow a tail. Chaudhary, therefore, decided to go old school. He sent in an ‘undercover’ agent, aka UC, posing as a job seeker. The agent met the guard a couple of times, pleading for a job and left his phone number behind. For two weeks, there was no communication. Then the phone rang and the UC was asked if he could come to the house immediately.

Apparently, the farmhouse caretaker had to rush to his home in Nepal and a replacement was needed urgently. The UC was offered the job and he ‘worked’ at the house for a little over two months and gathered details of the visitors, mainly women, who arrived late at night. He clicked pictures, enabling Chaudhary to submit a report to his client detailing the target’s various ‘affairs’.