ArmInfo. Since the mid-19th century it has been hard to imagine Europe and America without detective services. Noise and publicity were minimal, results were significant. Just think how many stories and legends there are about, say, the very first American detective agency, Pinkerton. Allan Pinkerton and his detectives guarded US President Abraham Lincoln and foiled an attempt on his life on a train travelling from Maryland to Washington. A year after declining Pinkerton’s services, Abraham Lincoln was killed in a theatre box.
For two years now, in internet search engines and on world maps, Armenia has had its own special place and role as a country with a private detective culture, represented by Armenia’s first and only detective bureau, Gabrielyan & Partners.
On detective activity in Armenia
There is a misconception in Armenia that detective work is prohibited here. In fact, the law regulates the activities of private security services, and the list of business activities that security services may engage in also includes conducting investigations.
Today Gabrielyan & Partners Detective Bureau operates within the current legislation and is actively involved in drafting legislation to regulate private detective activity.
The bureau is the only one in the region (the South Caucasus and Central Asia) that is a member of the World Association of Detectives, and it is also a member of international and regional associations of detectives.
In its two years of operation, Gabrielyan & Partners Detective Bureau has gained wide recognition and established partnerships with the best organisations in the field, including the world’s oldest and best-known detective agency, Pinkerton.
How detectives are perceived
In Armenia, detectives are received with interest and caution. “For some reason, whenever I attend an event, everyone thinks they might be my target, that someone has hired me to watch them — and they forget that we can relax too,” the agency’s founder Hayk Gabrielyan says with a smile.
Caution is followed by surprise: instead of Sherlock Holmes or Poirot with a pince-nez and a pipe, people see someone no different from themselves, who never shows his modern working tools.
From the very beginning of any investigation, a detective moves through space and time. He opens doors that let him see the past, live in the present and travel into the future.
A detective comes into this world not to please the client and earn big fees, but to create and leave behind the greatest investigation in history.
The detective and the police officer
Internationally, a detective may make a citizen’s arrest and then hand the detainee over to the police, may carry a service weapon, and may carry out eavesdropping, video recording, photography and so on in public places.
Any information obtained that concerns a crime is immediately passed to law enforcement, who see the case through to its logical end.
According to Hayk Gabrielyan, Gabrielyan & Partners Detective Bureau already applies this culture of cooperation and partnership in Armenia.
“Let me tell you more: the work of private detectives provides serious support to law enforcement and the justice system.”
An investigation with a single photograph
Detectives can solve cases from torn, faded photographs only in the movies. In real life you need a photo with some details of the location, or additional information — at least one social media account or part of a phone number. Add the “digital footprints” that people and organisations leave online, and the chances of success become almost 100%.
One of the most important keys to a detective’s success is extracting evidence from whatever information is available, however scant.
To investigate is to find cause-and-effect links, not to invent them.
On economic crimes
The development of the internet has also led to a rise in economic crimes in the digital sphere — financial fraud, theft of money from bank accounts and so on. But that does not mean crimes are no longer committed in real life.
Recently, Gabrielyan & Partners Detective Bureau, together with foreign partners, investigated a case in which a citizen of a Middle Eastern country extorted a large sum of money from a well-known European company. The investigation identified the suspect and established specific details about him, and gathered facts that were handed over to the law enforcement agencies of the client’s country to start court proceedings.
The agency is currently actively involved in investigating cases in Armenia where third parties have been deprived of real estate using forged powers of attorney. “I won’t reveal the details, but some very interesting findings await us at the end of the investigation,” says Hayk.
The detective: 10 years from now
In ten years, when most professions will have died out because of the development of artificial intelligence, the detective will be one of the few still in demand. Demand will remain as long as there are people and organisations and they leave “traces” on the internet and in everyday life.
“The tools will change and cars will be replaced by flying cars, but the motto of our work will remain the same: ‘for, not against’. The detective profession will disappear only when human relationships cease to exist,” Hayk Gabrielyan is convinced.
Read at the source (in Russian): ArmInfo: A detective never rings twice