Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
An insight into the character, personality and passion of the leading figures in the Investigation and Intelligence industry who have shaped the way we gather, analyse and utilise information and intelligence.
Surveillance may not be the endgame finding evidence.
For example, if I notice somebody has gone to a farmhouse
and this guy is not returning government-owned or
bank-owned or somebody-owned hundreds of crores of rupees,
but that farmhouse is in the name of his driver, right? So
surveillance may give me a hint. What are the practical
boundaries to what you can do in surveillance?
So the practical boundaries are twofold, as Sagarika already pointed
out. The Constitution lays out clear rules. Obviously, there is
right to privacy, right to not get into somebody's
sort of data, and a lot of other details. So as long as it
is more like a public view, your surveillance is very limited to
that itself. How do you form that view when somebody is lying to
you, Sagarika? You make them believe that you believe
in them completely. And make them speak, talk, talk,
talk, because nothing is worse than getting caught in your own web
of lies.
Hello and welcome to the Intelligence Advantage podcast, where we talk
to the movers and shapers in the investigation and intelligence
space. My name is Gary Miller. I've been an investigative
lawyer for nearly half a century, and I'm also the chairman of the
IFG, a network of international investigative and
asset recovery lawyers. Okay, welcome to
the Intelligence Advantage podcast, where I,
Gary Miller, on behalf of the IFG, get
an amazing opportunity to talk to the great and the good in the
investigation and intelligence space. Today,
I am truly blessed because I have, for the first
time in the intelligence podcast sessions, an
opportunity to speak to two people together, both Both of them
are from the same business. They are, um, Sagarika
Chakraborty and Gary Singh from Iris
Consulting. And Iris Consulting are one of the
leading investigation and intelligence gathering outfits in India
and also in other places, which we'll hear a little bit more about
as we progress in the podcast. So welcome,
Sagarika and Gary. It is lovely to have you. Thank you for
taking time out. Thank you, Garry. Really an honor and
pleasure to be present in this podcast. Thanks. Excellent. And this
really is an amazing opportunity for all of
us. We've only met in the last 3, 4 months when I
came to Mumbai. And
the more I learn about what is happening in the
investigation space in India and what you
are doing in it, the more excited and impressed I
am. So Sagarika, you and I have spoken a little
bit about it, but I'm going to ask you, you are multi-talented.
You're a lawyer, you've got an MBA. What
on earth attracted you to the investigation space?
It's not a natural home for a
young lady in any day and age, but you've been doing it
for many years. So, Gary, as much as I would love to say
that life happened, well, it didn't. It was a very conscious choice, and
I'm extremely proud of the choice that I made. I
grew up in a typical Indian family where the options were
between being a doctor or being a lawyer or being a bureaucrat.
And all my family members had A, B, and C, or, you know,
neither of the above was not an option. But me being the rebellious
kid that I was, I declared when I was 12 that I wanted to be
a lawyer. Okay. A lawyer? Yeah, I did become one,
and I did have to rebel against it and become one. And I
thought that this is it. I'm living— I got into my dream school. I'm
living my dream life till I became a lawyer. And after 3 years,
you could just wake me up from my sleep and hand me an ISDA or
a derivative document, and I could, you know, really read through it. And then
I was like, no, this— I don't think this is what I was born to
do. So that is when I started— I was working at a bank and I
started looking into stuff that other people were doing. And
I chanced upon a department called Fraud Intelligence Unit,
okay, because I was working very closely with them. And I was like, okay, you
guys do all the interesting stuff and then you pass on the findings to me
just to give a legal opinion. Okay, so how can I do both? They
said, oh well, there are just two options. You can either be a chartered
accountant or be an MBA. Till then, maths wasn't
really my, you know, best ally. So I said, ah, chartered accountancy
is out of the window. MBA is something that I can really consider. And
yes, I went to a B-school, a batch of 570 people,
where I was convinced that I am there to become an investigator,
which even the dean had not heard of. But luckily for me,
I think 5 months into the course, I met Gary. Okay. And we started
discussing the plans. So let me, let me
pause you because it's an excellent story.
So in a nutshell, you thought you wanted to be
a lawyer, but once you'd been a lawyer, you decided that really wasn't
exciting enough. That's right. Is that fair enough? And
you were fortunate enough. Life is made up of
Sometimes people say
happenstance. I'm a great believer in
destiny, and I think you and Gary were meant to meet
each other. You were— you met at the right time in your career.
So Gary, welcome.
What is it? What was it about your career and where you
were in your life that made
the meeting with Sagorika special in the sense
of, I know I wanna set up an investigation business with
this lady. What was it? What was going through your head at that time?
Well, sure. My, my career started very differently.
I used to be a para commander in the Indian Army and
was enjoying some of the
quite interesting battlefields. Served in
Siachen area, Kargil, and then Jammu Kashmir,
bit of Northeast India. And once I completed my
commissioned service within the Indian Army, then
I got exposed to a bit of different stuff, but still it was not
close to investigation in the beginning. I ended up being in
Afghanistan working for United Nations doing disarmament. I was
with Accenture. That's where— I'm just going to pause you, Gary.
Lovely to hear all about that. I want you to fast forward
and imagine the day or the week
that you bump into Sagarika. Had you met her before?
When was the first time you met Sagarika? That's, that's how, once I was in
the corporate life, I was leading Asia Pacific efforts
of an investigation and risk consulting company. Here I see an email
popping into my mailbox from a B-school. Where
we will not go and do any recruitment generally, but saying, okay, I want
to be part of your team, and if I can be part of
investigations there. So you were where? You were at Pinkerton in
those times, in those days, is that right? You were at Pinkerton? Yes,
correct. So that's where I forwarded to HR. I said, just
check it out. I mean, whether she's generally fishing or she really wants to be
an investigator. And I think some of the initial rounds did prove
that it was something which she really wanted to do.
And yes, we first met together when we were working at Pinkerton.
So this was when? Give me a kind of time
sequence. When was this? Which year? I first wrote to him in August
of 2011. 2011. And
how, what was the investigation
industry? What did it look like in India at that stage? Clearly, obviously
Pinkerton were there,
Sagarika, were there other potential candidates?
And if so, why did you choose Pinkerton? Investigations in India at
that point of time was in an evolving phase wherein people were still trying to
differentiate between an audit and an investigation. So
with regard to specialized investigative agencies, there was only Pinkerton.
The others were the Big 4s or the Big 6s who did have a forensic
arm of their own, but they started off as auditors and they thought that it
is a natural progression to have a robust team that also does forensics.
But I always wanted to be the boots on the ground, okay? What really excited
me was the fact that you go and you gather intelligence, and
yes, you crack the case, not just by looking into some audit report.
So that is why Pinkerton was my choice, and I think I just
manifested it. So yeah. Okay. And Gary, what
kind of work— Sadarika is
setting the scene that in 2011,
the investigative
landscape in India was evolving. What kind
of work were Pinkerton and you doing before you
were approached by Sagarika? What kind of business
had you been, had you been able to develop and how difficult was it to
persuade corporates or whoever to retain
an investigation agency? Well, truly, I,
I do want to, uh, reach that stage, but maybe I do want to add,
I'm quite historic. I started the industry in 2002 after
my army career. So I was already looking at different faces within the
industry which were coming up in India. Initially,
the number of frauds and number of investigations were very less, but
with continuous economic upbeat, and I will say especially
during the end of 2000s, where there was a huge amount of
sort of recession across the globe, I didn't notice huge amount
of frauds and investigations happening that time. It was, I think, a mental
tendency. That I need to secure myself. I should have enough
funds even if my job goes away, if my business is not there, I need
to secure myself and my families. So that's where a lot of siphoning, a lot
of those trends were uptrend that time. And when
Sakrika did message in 2011, I think we were still living
in that era when investigations were far more growing.
At the same time, India has a—
there's no feeder mechanism to investigation, Kartik. That time there used
to be no investigative courses, investigative schools
coming up. So, so a lot of people had to learn the hard way being
on ground. Here's somebody— So let me, let me ask you this. How did
I understand in terms of investigative courses, and believe it or
not, there are not, well, I shouldn't stick my neck out, but
there's no clear career path in England to
become, there's no certificate or anything that you can, uh,
officially get as far as I'm aware, but When you were— you
started— did you open up the office for
Pinkertons or were they there already? No, so they were
there already. They were there already. So they were already established. And
what kind of work do you— were they doing corporate fraud
investigations? Were they doing the sort of
less exotic, I don't know,
employee theft? What kind of work were they doing? It
was quite a mixed bag. It was obviously have white-collar crime angle,
typical background check of the companies, due diligences of
vendor profiles. So you were doing preventative as well as reactive?
Yeah. And what for you, when you were at
Pinkerton, what was the tipping point? Uh, you may have mentioned it
already, so forgive me, that made you think Sadarika wants
to become, because you did join Pinkerton, didn't you? Um,
Sadarika, if I'm not mistaken. Yes. And then at some stage,
the two of you decided that why should you do this
for somebody else? Why don't you do it for yourselves? Is that right?
It didn't happen typically that way. Yeah. I think what
triggered it actually is, is also a unique story
when actually I was, I was not keeping well
and I work quite a bit. I mean, my family sees me working
sometimes 46 hours in a day. So they were like, after my life, that no,
you're not going to do this job anymore. So that's where I
said, okay, Pinkertons, bye-bye. And while I
was just thinking that what exactly should be done, I think that's
where a few of the challenges which I could see that any large
corporate setup, when it ends up being a larger body, you
are governed by too many of your policies, too many of your
different parameters. This is what you can do. This is what you
cannot do. So I was thinking about more element of
freedom that I will do whatever is best for the client and what I
like. And also the approach client first,
my policy comes later. Yes, within this sphere of legally
permissible area. But yes, how do, how do ensure if
client needs 10 different things, why the client has
to go to 5 different companies to get it? So that's where slowly the
concept of IRIS came up and at that stage
We never knew that it will become a large company. I just thought,
let's just do it. I mean, I'll spend my time doing something or the other.
So tell me, Sudarshan, I welcome her comments.
Okay. No, I think I will add on to that. In fact, you know,
I didn't even know that Gary actually was planning to put down his papers
because I had put it down much before him. And I had an
offer in hand. When you say put down my papers, what do you mean?
Resigned. Resigned. Oh, I see. So I resigned much before
than Gary did. And I did not, yeah, so I did not even know that
he had also a resignation coming, you know. So
it wasn't a coup d'état. The two of you didn't— I
had. An offer in my hand. Okay. And I was, of course, I was
enjoying the so-called transition leave when he calls
out of the blue. Are you going to tell us who the offer was from
or are you not? No, I see. Okay. I think I still have a lot
of burnt bridges over there.
Okay, we won't embarrass anyone on this podcast.
So you had an offer in hand. So tell me what happened. Just very—
see if you can compress it. Tell me what happened. So basically, Gary just
called and, you know, we've always had a great working
relationship. And yes, so we can at least vouch for the fact
that professionally we think on the same line. So when he said, this is what
I'm planning, what do you think about it? I just slipped in and said that,
okay, are you calling me to ask if I can join? And if yes, what
took you so long?
I love it. I was saying to Sagarika last time we spoke, Gary,
that Sagarika is a great
example of, I don't know about the new, I've not been in India for
many years, but the really sort of, there is
no shyness, there is no hesitancy.
Sagarika, you know what you want and you ask for it and you put it
out there. And When you first came across
this, Gary, were you— was this out of the
ordinary for the young professional
Indian woman, or was this something that was just, you
know, you come across constantly? Well, not only initially,
I think she still faces that situation quite many times
when she go and meet a client to present how to
do things. They believe that she's a marketing girl. And they look around
saying, is anybody accompanying you who talk about the operations?
They still believe she's a business development or a marketing girl. Actually, that's the
reason she carries a very heavy bag because she's got tons of global prizes,
best investigator. She puts those all thing on the table and then people say,
okay, I'll talk to you. There's
that great video that, or there
must be similar videos where the lady comes in, sits down
and they say, I'll have a cup of tea please. And I'll have a coffee.
And she actually went out and got the tea, got the
coffee, said, there you are. Then she said, now, where should we start with the
documents? And you know, she'd already changed the dynamics of the room
and they were eating out of her hand after that. They didn't know where to
put their faces. That's actually a very, very true thing. I still
remember that, you know, I had to present a finding to a board, okay? And
I walked in and I was chit-chatting. Then when I realized that they're
expecting somebody so-called senior to come in and present, okay?
And you know, I introduced the company and then I said, okay, so let's, let's
start. Like, no, we are waiting for your colleague. I said, oh, unknowing to you,
she's already walked in and we are sitting together. So let's start now.
Excellent. Excellent. But I have a strong feeling, and I've
only been in India for 3 or 4 days at that time, that
you are an exception rather than the rule, Sagarika. There
are certain people that you don't think so. You think there's a whole
bunch of young, dynamic,
feisty Indian women, right? Absolutely. And when
I look at them and I, and they're much junior to me and I
look at them and say, I want to be you when I grow up. Excellent.
Excellent. So, Gary, you get together,
you get that, what it feels like, that
little push from Sagarika saying, is what you're doing
gonna, is really what you wanna do is go into business with me.
And how long did it take from that initial
conversation to putting, as it were, the name on the
door of the office? Was it weeks, months, hours?
Well, I'm very bad with timelines. I think Sagarika can
answer this one. Oh no, I'm actually quizzing him. He needs to remember
this. So he needs—
Gary, you need Sagarika like I need other people in my life
to remind me where I was, what I did, what I had for breakfast,
right? Daddy, it took 12 days.
12 days. I love it. Excellent.
And see how precisely she could tell you 12 days? I don't
know. Who knows, right? You're like me. It doesn't matter how
long it took. It's now successful. So because
I was working, she was counting. So she knows it took 12 days.
Gary, did you find— you were in the army. Tell me briefly,
what were you doing? Were you in combat? Were you actually in the line
of fire in the army when you were there? Yeah, so I was a
paratrooper and we are
obviously the special force of India and we
are in the combat most of the time. And I don't know whether I can
say I was lucky or I should use some other word. But
yes, looking at the battlegrounds of Kargil,
Siachen, and Kashmir area, which I mentioned briefly earlier as well,
was professionally satisfying as an army man.
But if I see as a human, these are not good situations for us.
No, I can, I get that. And what made you, if I may ask this,
what made you go into the army in the first place? Is it something that
your family has a long history of doing? No, I was
actually the first guy in my family to join the Army. But I think it
was a mixture of patriotism, sense of
adventure, wanted to do something
where such things can be accomplished. And I'm glad I
was blessed to get that opportunity because I could only
do that at that age. Rest of things I can try now and later.
But Army was meant for only that time. So I'm glad I
checkbox that in my life. Excellent. And it
feels like, Sagarika, you've got a similar personality
in a sense of, Gary jumped
out of airplanes, which always amazes me, but you
seem like the sort of person that can jump out into the unknown
without much fear. Are you totally fearless, Sagarika? Is there
nothing that sort of disturbs your equilibrium?
I mean, if I say that I'm totally fearless, that would be a lie. Nobody
can be totally fearless. But I think I would still like to believe
that I do have a greater degree of adaptability, and that has come with my
growing up. And the other thing is that I have an extremely supportive
family. So yeah, so they are like, okay, we got your back, do whatever you
want. So I think with that, you know, you can jump into the unknown
at any given point of time. So I ask as
many guests as I can, as I can remember to do, So
who was— and I'm afraid you can't refer to Gary—
who would you point to as the main guru in
your life that had a real impact on what you
decided to do or not to do? Who would that be, Sagarika? It's
unfair that you exclude the person who holds the answer. So it has
to be Gary, does it? It is. It is. Okay. But I'm going
to go back before Gary. Who was it that
was, that had the biggest influence on the way you thought,
the way you expressed yourself? Who was it that helped
you instill in yourself that self-confidence?
My grandmother. Your grandma. Okay. Yeah. That's great.
And Gary, what about you? Who is, and again, I'm gonna hope
you, you don't say Sagarika, who was your guru?
So to be honest, if I have to count, there'll be so many
because you learn smaller things from
everybody. Of course, but I'm going to put you on the spot. You have to
pick one. Yeah, I don't have one name to take. I think
as of now, and especially during the youth and
last few years, I think very less. You have to think about
anything to think whether this is happening right, wrong,
guru, not guru. I don't believe in thinking
too much, so I really don't know. Okay, that's fair enough.
That's fair enough. Some people are lucky enough to have
numerous gurus who steer them,
point them, guide them in the right direction. I'm
interested in understanding how the Indian
investigative market has developed over
the last 10, you
started in 2015, is that right?
15. So 11 years
or 10 full years. Tell me,
Sagarika, what are the most significant changes
that you have identified in either
appetite, risk tolerance? I don't mind, but give
me an idea so that people listening to this can understand
How does the Indian— and I'm making an
assumption here that most of your business is from Indian
corporates, but I know there are— we do a lot of work for high
net worths, et cetera. But what's the major change that has—
major changes that have happened in the investigative space
in India? I think, I mean, keeping humility
aside and not being shy to admit that yes, we've played
a role in contributing to this change, but I think the biggest change has been
the shift in attitude. Earlier when we used to walk in and we used
to be asked for a case study, okay, or to ask that have you solved
such cases before, people were expecting that you will say, yes, we have seen
such cases in USA, in UK, or in Australia. Now people
ask that, you know, okay, have you solved such a case with regard
to an Indian corporate? Okay, what's been your experience
of handling local cases? So people are recognizing
the fact that they need Indian solutions because it's homegrown
and it has to be customized and there is no one checklist
fit approach, and which we have not only seen in India, but slowly also
been seeing in the Middle East where people prefer their local,
you know, methodologies and technologies to be used. So that is
a real shift. And that is what makes the difference because no two geographies are
the same. So why should the methodologies be the same? Okay.
And what about you, Gary? You come from a very different
background. Is there any other
And you were in Pinkerton, so that was
a commercial profit-making business. Have you
seen attitudes change over the time since
you started working in the private sector? And if so, how
have they changed? Well, sure. And like I said, maybe I'll take it to
even a little older time. I started with Hill Associates
here in India back in 2003 when I created them. I
was the first employee of Control Risk in India. That's 2007. So,
so seen it, seen it for more than 2 and a half years, 2
and a half decades now. So one thing which is a major change in India
and South Asia as well. So the Indian mindset will
continue to fold hands and keep praying to
God that losses will not happen to me, frauds will not happen to me. It
is not meant for me. So very fatalistic. Yeah. So
now people have accepted, like for example,
if you, you need to secure a house, you need to buy a lock and
put it there. If you have more valuable things, you need to do more. You
need to put security guards. So on the investigation side, there's
a major shift that one, people have accepted that if
I'm running a business, losses, frauds are part of business. I
need to have a mechanism to put it right. Second change, which is
even far more encouraging than accepting that I need to do
investigation and it's something fact-finding. Second change is people
are doing preventive intelligence as well. Give me an
example. One, not accepting to at
least reacting and now even doing preventive. That's the shift I've
seen in last almost 2.5 decades. So give me
an idea. I've sort of touched on it, but
the 80-90% of your clients would be corporates, or
it's not as high as that, or it's a mix? What does
your profile look like? So yes, more than 90%
are corporate, some of the top Fortune 100 companies and Indian companies, but
also, thankfully, the team under Sagrika's leadership has made
a very good brand name that we even get some cases by Supreme
Court nominating us to do some work officially for them. And a lot of
other investigative agencies in India also do bank on us. In fact,
I can very proudly say that in Haryana, there's a
millennium city called Gurgaon. Gurgaon Police has something called Forensics
and Monitoring Unit, which basically does all their digital
forensics, cameras, signature analysis, a lot of forensics. So that has been
set up by IRIS and is also operated by IRIS employees sitting there and working
with them. So it's quite a mixed bag, but more than 90%, yes,
corporate. Excellent. And I'm going to ask each of
you to pick a different case. I want you
to pick a case that is notable for
you, either because of its complexity, either because it
was dangerous. Not more than a couple of minutes
at the most. But can you remember something? Obviously no names
unless it's been in the press, in which case I'd love you to name
names. Give me an idea of one of the cases that you did and why
it was significant to you. Sagarika, ladies
first. Okay. So yeah, I do
have the clearance to take the name, so I will. So I think we've all
heard the name of Vijay Mallya and Kingfisher, and we were supporting one of
the agencies, and I was the Chief Investigating Officer over
there. And yes, the case— Do you mean in-house? So this was while you were
at IRIS? No. So this was while I was in my previous role, and
it also then later spilled over. I did some consulting work also as a part
of IRIS because the case. Went on for a long time. But it's part of
your experience, what you're saying. Okay, great. Sorry to interrupt you. It was
an investigative exercise wherein we submitted our report.
And yes, then the threats even reached home. Okay. And there were
enough threats to tell us to drop the case or not to
pursue. And yeah, ultimately we could not stop the man,
but we know that our findings made a difference. And I think I
will forever remember the case because it showed you both
the power of investigative findings, okay, as
well as the dark side that nobody sees. Everybody just sees
the exciting light. Are you able to give us a bit more flavor in terms
of what the size of the fraud was
and how it was perpetrated? So Vijay Mallya was known as
the liquor baron, okay, of India. And he right
now is in UK awaiting his extradition. And
yeah, so So he had millions and billions of loans from around
12 banks in India, and it has been rated
as the largest fraud ever in the last 50 years.
Okay. And how did he go about perpetrating this, according to
you? Actually, that was the first case that woke us up to the fact
that how a person can significantly not
build assets in their name because they you
did fear that this business will go down. And so you are extending a
personal guarantee, but you have no assets in your name. Okay. So that was one
of the red flags, which as a guarantor, I mean, you're taking a personal guarantee
on what basis? What is the net worth all about? So, and of
course, it also showed us a lot of sides wherein we
saw corporate collusion, we saw the nexus
between bankers, we saw nexus between officials as well as the
private people. So yeah, so I think that itself is a case
study because for the first time we woke up to the fact that
a fraud is not just a straightforward market risk that you give money to a
business and the business fails. The fraud is also about where the
money has been used, whether or not it has been channelized,
misappropriated, okay, like siphoned off. So a lot of
people heard the word siphoned off for almost like the first time,
seriously. Oh really? I see. So using
money that had been borrowed for non-corporate purposes, this is one
of the first times that it become public and
the Indians, and they realized that that wasn't right. And
the fact that there here is a person who says that I don't have money,
and then we gave evidences of his son turning 21 and
the father gifting an island to the son and throwing a lavish party. So where
did that money come from? How do you differentiate the source of funds? So
yeah, so I think that was the case that really in the corporate or
the legal corporate terminology lifted the veil. Okay. To understand
that yes, there are many layers to fraud. Okay. That's
interesting. Gary, can you pick something and give us a bit of
flavor as to the case and why it was interesting or large
or important? Yeah. So I think the
moment such a question comes up, there is one unique case which immediately hits my
head, which we worked on the case for more than 5 and a
half years. Wow. And
each onion peel going away was presenting a new
scenario. One of the most interesting parts was not that there were governments
involved and there were large corporates involved. In that task,
we kept a set of people under surveillance for almost
4 years. And for 4 years, they couldn't detect
that, yes, they were under surveillance. So that was one of the miraculous
fieldwork done that if you're putting somebody under surveillance for 4 years. Let
me just get this right, Gary. You put people under surveillance for
4 years. Yes.
Amazing. That is what I call patience, right? The client clearly in
those circumstances was willing to play not just a
long game, but a long, long game, right? Yeah. And, and it
not only included the day, but day and night surveillance,
24/7. And if this person is, if he obviously has some
intelligence, is going to fly out tomorrow, then we'll
have somebody at the airport ready with a ticket. So that because
if you need to enter the Indian airports, you need to have a valid
ticket and ID. So we'll have somebody buy a ticket, go inside, see which
flight he's catching. Then we'll have a person ready in that city
to start the surveillance from that airport. And tell me,
are you able to tell me What was it these people
were suspected of? So they were very critical
players of a fraud that could have, although the exact value was
never available, but that fraud could have been close to $1 to $1.5
billion. And they were critical players, key people. And also
there were immediate front ends available that
can be analyzed to know
Who all further are supporting them. And obviously there was, there was
a large team working on it and all those analysis actually kept
telling our client that how exactly there were people
sitting overseas who were funding them. They were just the puppets
ahead. So a lot of those interesting inputs keep flying in. And so
without naming names, it was, was it
about internal
employees? Sabotaging their company or stealing? What was the
actual core wrongdoing? So there was
different angles involved. Definitely stealing from the company
was one, bribing the governments was
another, trying to use power of
authority within the organizations to suppress
others. At the same time, whatever you can find in the bad book,
those were checkboxes by these group of people who were
operating. And I know, silly question maybe, but
why did it take 4 years? What was it that you were
waiting for? Or maybe the better question is, at the point
in time where you said, eureka, we have
the evidence, what was it that you got at the end. Of that
4-year period? Evidence was available even in the beginning. The
challenges Our client had to create that environment when
all this information and evidences can be
effectively utilized in an international jurisdiction.
So, so just let me digest that. What you're saying
is, is that this was an international fraud
and, and the. Length of time— you are in UK
and you are a lawyer there and You are going to have a legal
battle in the courts of England and Wales, and you need evidences
from India. While the court battle is going on, you want
a continuous supply of intelligence
and evidences so that the court battle you continuously keep winning.
Because courts, again, there's one major judgment, but you're doing a lot of appeals
and things which happen regularly. So was this a case where litigation
was ongoing? Yes. Yes. I'm sorry. I
made the wrong assumption that this was a surveillance leading up
to a piece of litigation. This was a
parallel investigation that was happening at the
same time as some serious litigation. Yes. And you
can see that increases the complexity and sensitivity because other
parties are aware that somebody will try to do investigation on
them, surveillance on them. In spite of that, if team could pull that out
was really a, a good work. And I'm gonna ask you
this question, if I may, Sagarika.
How common is it for clients to instruct
you to look into and
to surveil and to monitor the
opposition when they are already involved in litigation? Is it a
common thing that you come across in India? I don't think there's a straight
jacket answer to that. Okay. Number one. Number two is that, you
know, and I speak on behalf of both of us, We
always assess the risk before we actually say anything of that
sort. So just because a client says that, yes, go do a surveillance,
we will not really go into a surveillance. We will actually be seeing
that what are the risk implications at all. And
yeah, but fairly, I would border on that's not common, not common at
all. How do the judges, I guess in a way I
know, but I just want to see the cultural if there is
a cultural difference, if a judge
in a significant piece of
litigation in India is told, or
the defendant or the plaintiff
complains that they have been surveilled or that they
have had people asking questions, what are the
judges' attitudes? Is it a very practical Well, I'm
very sorry, this is the real world you live in and you have to suck
it up. Or does the judge take a
rather jaundiced view
of investigations going on, even though, of
course— and it may be they don't live in the real world, lots of judges.
But what is the judiciary's approach to this,
Sagarika? So, Gary, I think surveillance is a very broadly termed coin
when it comes to India. Okay. So our Constitution
gives us the right to life, and that also includes the right
to bodily safety. So unless and until I
am encroaching on anybody's bodily safety, or
I'm outraging modesty of an individual, or
fringing into their personal space, it's almost like
I'm watching their public activities. And whatever you're doing in the
public activities, it's up for scrutiny. So yes, while we
are using the lexicon surveillance, but it's
actually just an on-ground watch. It's just that
somewhere or the other, me being an investigator, I am
more mindful of a particular person because, hey, that's my
job. That's what I'm getting paid to do. But you would also, in my
same position, by standing next to me, be observing the same person, but it's not
your KRA to observe, so you will not be noticing the little.
Nuances. So, Gary, when you— Plus, maybe I'll just add a small comment here,
Gary, that the surveillance itself is not the end
result. For example, if I'm looking at someone, it is only generating leads
for me that what I need to find. Surveillance may not
be the end game finding an evidence. For
example, if I notice somebody has gone to a farmhouse and this guy
is not returning government-owned or bank-owned or
somebody-owned hundreds of crores of rupees, but that farmhouse is
in name of his driver, right? So surveillance may give me
a hint where I need to look for. So surveillance is not always the
end result. Rather, it can also be a lead generation activity.
And it may not be done all the time, but these leads can be generated
during different other activities as well. Okay. So one other
question. Thank you for that addition. One of the
things that I wanted to ask you is to
what extent, Gary, how far
can you go with surveillance in India? Can I
sit behind you in my car
and drive and follow you to the office, wait
outside the office, follow you home, sit outside? What are
the boundaries on surveillance? And I understand Sagarika
says that the right to
Freedom is in the Constitution, but what are the practical
boundaries to what you can do in surveillance?
So the practical boundaries are twofold. As Sagarika already pointed
out, Constitution lays out clear rules. Obviously, there is
right to privacy, right to not get into
somebody's sort of data, and a lot of other details. So as long as it
is more like a public view, your surveillance is very limited to that
itself. And at the same time, like, as of
now, not only what law says, but also what
Indian law and other laws say, but as an investigator, you
also hold a moral responsibility of not
letting cross a line. So a lot of time, let's say,
when we work with the clients, it may not be just limited to Indian
law. Maybe they have their own policies. So a
US-based company may say, this is my US law which need to be followed, this
is my policy. So there are a lot
of situations when you cannot do multiple
things. Surveillance can be zero, pretexting can be zero. A lot
of these things are there. So as an investigator, we not only
have to be alive to what Indian law says, but a lot of international
laws, and at the same time, what these corporate companies have
made policy for themselves. So there are different lines and we have to operate within
those spheres. Also, I would like to add that there are also
a lot of social nuances, a lot of gender nuances,
age-related nuances. So different, different countries or different
even, you know, subgroups have different vulnerabilities. So you have to be mindful
of that as well. So, you know, whether or not certain thing
is permissible, it also depends on who's your target group.
It's women, it's children, it's elderly. Which religion? Are there
any cases that you two know of where
people have taken off for any
reason? The courts have ruled on what is or
is not an acceptable invasion
of privacy because, i.e., in the public
interest or when you are pursuing a fraud. Have there been any cases that you
two know of where the courts have, as it
were, ruled, made a decision about in this set of
circumstances, what these people did was okay? Well, not aware of any
particular thing, but I think I must also say that, yes, I
did mention about surveillance being one of the critical things we did, but it's not
that surveillance is happening every day, every time. Surveillance
is just one thing because a lot of what
does fraud accompany, right? It means illicit
gains, right? Some money being followed. So, so, so the digital
forensics, the accounting forensics, review of documentation, a lot of
these stuffs are there. So I think obviously we overemphasizing it right now.
I think there are a lot of other things which are, which are major part
of, part of investigation, but no, I'm not aware of any particular case
law available to provide that as a
mention. Let me pivot, as they say in the classics,
and ask you about training as
an investigator. Are there courses that you
can take and qualify as an investigator in
India? And if so, where do you, where can you take
them? And are they university standard or what?
Yeah, so that's, that's a very interesting part. Like I mentioned earlier, even,
even back in beginning of 2000s, or even when Sagrika in
2011 wanted to be an investigator, there were no official
schools. Somebody has to learn the hard way. And at the same time, it's your
own zeal which will make you learn more and more rather than an
official curriculum. But today, thankfully, in India, there are
full-time universities which are working on this
subject. So we have a National Forensics University. We have a lot of
state universities. We have a lot of private universities which are
even running not only graduations, but the master's. Or
the MBA courses within the space of investigations, intelligence, and
security. So this has become a
recognized career in India. I think if I try
to look at the numbers, we have definitely almost 8,000
to 10,000 students doing courses which are directly linked
to investigations and security. That's really interesting because
I don't think—. I would also like to add over here a slightly
different view of somebody who did not
study investigations but would like to believe that she did fairly okay
in it. Okay, that the beauty of investigations is that,
that the answer can lie anywhere. So no matter what you are
studying, you can use it, okay, for investigations. I remember that
I solved one of the fraud cases using something that I learned in
B-school, okay, or like a bottleneck case study. I,
I also did a small course in digital marketing, and that really helped me
with my open source, or as they call it, the OSINT research, because
I understand your I understand algorithm
tagging. So, you know, at the end of the day, it's not what you
have learned. It's basically, are you willing to apply yourself full
out? That makes you an investigator. I see. Okay. Well, that's,
that's a fair comment. And what I would like
to understand as well and share with
our audience is the question of what
information is publicly available in
India. From my perspective as an international
asset recovery and fraud investigative lawyer, you
start off with, okay, what can I get without any
court orders and without letting the other side
know? If it's pre-litigation,
generally, what can I collect? What can I have access
to that is, it may not be
something that everyone knows is available, but I can do a
search in this particular registry and find out
some interesting information about you. What
are those main silos of publicly
available information that is like Investigation 101? If I walk
into your door and say, I want to investigate
Gary Singh at IRIS. What do you do
as Investigation 101? So I think when you look
at India and a lot of other Asian and African
countries, surely the challenge is either the data is not
digitized or maybe it's not centralized. So I will say in India,
there are different buckets if you go for, let's go for
the first bucket, which is is centralize and digitize
data. The Ministry of Corporate Affairs has done a great job that all the
private limited and limited companies, every bit of data with
them, shareholdings, balance
sheets, ownership, beneficiary. Can I go
online now and look up, go into the
corporate database and type in Gary
Singh, and will I be able to see what companies you are
a director or a shareholder of? Yes. That's dead easy.
Yes. You could, you You can see, and obviously this data, the Ministry of Corporate
Affairs data is also available through a lot of private players who make it very
easy to search and all that. So you can see my all directorships straight
away without even paying for anything. But yes, if you want to
see, let's say, who owns how many shares, the balance sheets,
yes, there is a small payment. And this payment is what, £3, you
get complete company details. So it is very small
payment. So that's one data which is very robust, solid,
reliable, and can be used in the court of law as an evidence as well.
So that's all basically— Let me ask you this. Will it also
include your residential address of the directors and shareholders?
Will it actually identify where you live in terms
of jurisdictional base? Correct. It will have all
those data. Okay. So like we do in England.
We very often start off with that as your
basic starting point. And then you see, ah,
Gary's associated with 12 different companies. 3 of them
have dissolved. Oh, this is interesting. He's got an
address here, an address there, and an address
there. Let's go. And which is my next question. Is there
a land registry, centralized records that I can
go and check what Gary owns? Yeah. So before I go
there, I will also put in one more layer in between. Along with the Ministry
of Corporate Affairs, all the listed companies which are stock exchange listed
and all, they have a heavy regulation in terms of disclosures. So they
also provide all that data and everything is fine. Now, before we go to
the land registries and those, there's one more database which is very important to
talk about in between, are linked to the
criminal databases, linked to
to the legal records and
also certain Interpol-linked databases. So those are also
available, very much available. They can be done and they're
available handily centralized. Maybe you actually pay for
certain databases, you don't pay for certain databases, but all that is available. Coming to
now land records. Now land records— Hold on, just pause. For a
second, Gary, just pause for one second because I'm interested in
this. So in England, we have the criminal,
bureau, criminal record bureau check, but that's
very limited. In India, it sounds as if it might
be a broader, ability to check on
whether you or Sagarika have got a criminal record. Is that,
am I understanding that correctly or, or have
I misunderstood? So two things attached to it. There
are certain criminal lists which are
officially declared. That is, that is available. But at the same time— that
is available. Yeah, that is available. But at the same
time, like India, the way you have provinces, we have
states. So all the police records, all this land
records are a provincial matter or a state matter. So
which means if you need to do searches, you need to go to that particular
state, to that particular district. And one district may have multiple
land record offices. So some states have done great job of
digitizing these records. At central place you can look at, but a lot of other
times you have to do a lot of legwork of going to different registries and
finding it out. But you, you know, there
is another alias known for Sagrika. She's called the
Encyclopedia of Asset Tracing. So I think she's commenting on this. Will be
far better. No, that's not the point. See, the point is
not whether the data exists or not. The data does exist
in India. Actually know how to search it. Because as Gary said
that every state has a different rule, every state also has a different language. We
are a land of languages. And also every state
has a different way in which your family genealogy
is maintained. So I take my roots from a state which
is so-called matriarchal in nature. A lot of my, you
know, our property records does get tied down
to the matriarchal lineage of the family.
Whereas Gary actually takes roots from a state, Punjab,
wherein the property records actually start with the grandfather's name. So unless you
know his grandfather's name, you can't really search his properties. So there
are very different nuances. And unless and until you've
been on ground, and that is why I always harp this word that boots on
the ground, unless and until you've been there, you've sat with
the officers, you cannot learn how to search online. It's a
reverse. Yeah, more than the search and data, Gerry, I would also like to add
that I always treat these fraudsters
as experts. They plan, they rehearse, they execute their
plans very well, which means the fraudster may
not actually pick up a property in his or her name.
And that is a big challenge in India, which we
actually call benami properties. Benami actually means they are not
under the real name. Rather, there are people who are owning it
for somebody else. So finding that person. It becomes unique. Like
we have, we have seen situations when housemaid is a
director and owner of a 5-star hotel. We have
seen large farmhouses owned by drivers of the people whom they're
driving around. So, so that's a big challenge. And we also remember once we working
on a case, it was very sure that this large
business house owns huge amount of land in this area, but
not even a single square inch of land was under his name.
Name, and actually the complete village, they were used
to create land under their name. And when they wanted to put up a large
plant, they all just came and gave him the documents. Now it's yours from
today. So there are a lot of these practical challenges of some of the
countries which still have to get fully digitized. And a lot of Asian and African
countries are very similar to India when we have to have still
first know the game plan and then look at. Which data you need to
look Okay. And so we've covered corporate, we've covered criminal,
we've covered land registry. Is there anything
else that is peculiar to, or is there
a special approach to it in India? I get all of the diversity
that must make— it's a bit like China. Every single
state, town, city is, could be a different dialect, a
different language. What about the
question of of financial
records and credit checks. I imagine you're going to tell me
that state by state as well. If I want to find out— No,
no, no. Income tax is a central government matter. And at the
same time, India has got multiple credit
check bureaus when not only your bank records,
even if you're not paying your mobile bill in time,
is highlighted. So you're not paying credit card in time, you're not paying
your basic, these services also in time gets recorded. So thankfully India
has a very strong credit
check records now, but at the same time they are not available openly
to everyone. They are available to the financial institutions or
the nominated agencies which are working with the financial institution. They gain access to
that. But yes, these records are superb because they record all
your addresses, your mobile numbers, your emails. So these
records are, I would say, a huge data bank for anybody who's
got access to it. Are you able to, as IRIS, do you have a license
to be able to access that financial data? So
we have certain databases that we are subscribed to, but
not all. Not all of them. So there is a limited amount that only
the financial institutions are able to access. Yes. And at the same time, there are
multiple of these databases, not just one single database. But over the
years, Gary, we have actually, you know, got that credibility
that now, as Gary said, that we even get mandates under the
court orders. So when we get mandates under court orders in order
to investigate length and breadth, the court also says it by name
that allow IRIS these records. So then we can approach these, you
know, income tax or other bureaus with the court order and we can request
for the records. Okay. So I want to ask
now about the interplay between criminal
and civil investigation. When you
have a client that comes to you and says,
we suspect that these directors
have been stealing money from the company by,
for example,
inflating invoices, agreeing with somebody outside to pay money from the company,
and then they take difference between the
real price and the extra price. We
know that they are both
criminal offenses and civil wrongs at the same time.
What's the attitude, A, of you, Sagorika, and then
the client? Is it, let's go to the police immediately and tell them, or
is it, look, the police are only going to be able to do
so much, let's investigate it
civilly. And give me an idea of the interplay between
the two jurisdictions. Gary, I am a
fact finder. Okay? At the end of the day, the facts can be used
for the civil case, civil defense, or the facts can be used for a
criminal one. So for me, okay, I try to ask the client that what has
your legal said? If the legal says that any which way, we are not going
to get the money back amicably through settling of civil disputes, and it's a
clear case of fraud, but I'm happy that the person gets their due by going
behind the bars, then I will find the facts and it's up to the
legal team to actually present it in that way. But yes, there are times
when the strategy has already been decided that yes, we will
go criminally. At that point of time, we step in to understand that what are
the evidences that will help you in that particular strategy and we
present accordingly. Let's say for a recovery case, okay, the clients
are more interested to see what are the assets that they
can actually attach so that they can sell off and get the money
back, right? So they are more interested in finding tangible assets that
can be sold off. But if the same point for a criminal case wherein
they already know that no assets have been made and the money has been siphoned
off and they really want to put the person behind the bars, then we
go full-fledged to understand if there has been a mesh of companies which has been
used to launder the money, which clearly shows the mens rea, as we call
in our legal parlance, or the intent to
defraud. When you go to a particular
police authority, do you think they really understand
financial fraud? Is there, is there a degree of sophistication
in the Indian? And I'm sure like every country, they
have a financial services or financial
fraud unit. And is that in each state? How does it work
in India? India. So obviously the traditional policing
in India was more from a law and order perspective
rather than investigation perspective. But knowing the
present scenario, yes, not only
every district, not only state has an economic
offenses wing, but also now regularly there are
new cyber cells and cyber wings which are coming up. So
Indian police surely I will say, has woken up to
the fact that, that things have changed and they need to
also modify their practices. Yes, any government in the world has got
its own bureaucracy, so they're not able to mutate as fast
as the criminals are doing. But yes, huge efforts have been made.
So every district will have an Economic Offences Wing. These
officers undergo special training to how to conduct
investigations. And simply, there are There are special bodies made
for different investigations. For example, there is Central Bureau
of Investigation, which is a huge, huge capability in terms of all
financial crime, financial frauds. There is Enforcement Directorate, which
works on the specialist subject of money laundering, money siphoning.
So these special units have been made and at the
same time regular trainings and other details are happening. Yes, they're
close to perfection? No, but they're putting huge effort
to continuously rise to the new challenges that they're
facing. So let's look at some of the
psychological and personality aspects of what you,
we do. Is there a particular
technique that either of you have
developed, um, or works for you to
identify when somebody is lying
to you? You must have taken statements from or approached
many hundreds of witnesses over the last 10,
15 years. What's your— how do you
form that view when somebody's lying to you, Sagarika?
You make them believe that you believe in them
completely and make them speak, talk, talk, talk, because nothing is
worse than getting caught in your own web of lies. But how
do you know when, when it's not
an obvious contradiction? That's one way when you've asked them to say where
were they on Tuesday and they've given you two different answers.
Is there any other technique in terms of the
way you, they are responding, their voice,
their eye movement, their head movement? Is there something
in India that may not be the same in other countries? I think
people are same everywhere, Gary. I see.
Yeah. So we are all branches of the same tree. So of
course, body language is a clear giveaway. But yeah, there
are cultural nuances which of course play a huge role. But
at the same point of time, I think
being patient and not being too eager to show them that you already
know or you don't trust them. The best thing is to say that, yes, I'm
here to listen to your story. Oh, that happened. Okay, okay, so how did
it happen? Let's go a little bit deeper into that. So when you try to
just take notes and just go deeper and deeper in that, and later come back
to a point which they have forgotten, because it's very easy to forget a lie,
and you contradict them, they give a different story. But of course, you
do see at what stage their body language toughens, where do they
turn defensive, where do their legs shake more, where are they sitting
cross-legged or cross-armed, where are they drinking more water,
or how enlarged is their Adam's apple. These are the common things that you
actually see for across all geographies. But yeah, I mean, I'll
say that in, when we do it in Middle East, there are a few other
different cultural nuances to, you know, watch out for than when you do
it in India or when you do it in Singapore. So
yeah, those are different. And Gary, what about you? You've been in
the army. It's not necessarily
an obvious investigative unit, but
it is a place where you have got to assess
danger very quickly. And do you think you now
have a, a much more developed instinct from when people are lying to you when
you are asking questions? Well, I think
more than instinct, I've gone more factual. So before I get into
any interaction, there'll be a huge amount of spade work, which is already done by
the team. Team, and we have specific facts and numbers in front of us. So
what I try to do in the beginning of conversation, if I'm doing any
kind of investigative interview, is to go to some
very softer facts and
check whether they provide correct details or not. And
if they don't, that makes me go to a certain path,
know that they are here to lie, they're not open. So which means there is
more to be found out than we already No. Whereas if
I start finding that, yes, those facts have
been clearly presented and they say, no, I don't know this
and don't know that kind of stuff, then there's a different approach
that, yes, at least they're here to support and there may not be a huge
amount of other hidden things that need to be brought out. So generally, in the
beginning of an investigative interview, doing some soft checks which
help you to which path you need to treat is one of the techniques.
That we So you've both been incredibly patient. We're
getting to the end of the lollipop in, in the sense
of the hour that I had allocated. I just got a couple
of more questions and then I will let you
go back to your normal lives.
One is, where's the next— India is,
as everybody knows, going through a
huge boom. Generally, those of us and you
involved in the investigation
and fraud investigation business, they know that
after a boom or in conjunction with a
boom, there is huge corruption,
huge wrongdoing. Are you seeing evidence of that now in
India of projects that were, you know, built up
to be something, money raised or invested or
loaned, and it's starting to show itself, or is it
too early for that cycle in the Indian market?
No, I think India growth story since we
started opening up our economy in the beginning of '90s has
been very consistent. We've been very close
to 7-8% growth every year. So the growth which is coming up
has been consistent. So let's say
the so-called, the delta of fraud or the delta of investigation has
been there for quite some time. And I don't see it going up or down
as of now. So this is, like I said earlier, people have started accepting
that losses and thefts can take place. We need to have mechanism to stop it
or prevent it. So those things are there. So I don't see
any upsurge or a downturn either. So that, that's where
India, India stands as far as my assessment is concerned. Is that your, what's
your view, Sagarika? Do you think we are going
to be faced with a tsunami of fraud
cases as a result of, I mean, the amount of
money that's going into the construction
and also into high tech? I don't know. I don't know whether you
know how many IPOs there have been in, on the Indian
stock market in the last, let's say, 24 months, but
I'm sure it's more than there has been for a
long time. So what's your sense personally of when, you know,
they say when the tide goes out, people will be left without their
swimming trunks on. So that's okay. I mean, we are here to sell
the swimming trunks, so that's fine. So the beauty of our industry is that we
don't have a recession. So yeah, so if the, like, I'm like the
doctor who prays that, you know, yes, may there be all well in the
world, but secretly knows that the world will never be bereft of diseases.
So that's okay. Yeah. So bring it on. If it is there, we will detect
it and we will clean it up one investigation at a time. But yeah, I
mean, this is nothing, something that we have just seen. Okay. This is a cycle
that comes and goes. There are crests and troughs and it will continue, be
it India, be it any other economy. But that's why you have people
like IRIS. So yeah, and we will survive and we'll thrive. Okay. Good bit of
non, not too subtle advertising there, guys,
but I'll let it pass for a second.
Guy, I'll just take 30 seconds. You brought in a very, very relevant
point of IPOs because that's also a reflection of
economy. So if I go back in 2020, we had
only 15 mainstream IPOs, whereas in 2025 we have
more than 100 and more than 270 small
and middle-sized companies also going for IPO. So the total number
almost went close to 400. So that's been
the upsurge. And also at the same time, like I said Now, before
going for IPO, the checks you do, and once you do your IPO and you
list it, the amount of regulation you need to follow, disclosures you
need to do, all that is, is a good sign
of governance. Okay. What I want to end
our wonderfully entertaining session on is a question for each
of you, the same question, one
short sentence. If you are If
the young generation in, let's just say India because
it's more relevant, are sitting there looking
at this podcast, what piece of advice would
you give, let's say, an 18-year-old
at university, not sure what they want to do? What piece of advice would you
give them, Sagarika? Be sure. You always have
to be sure. Life does not happen till you
go. And you earn it. Be sure.
Okay. And Gary, what's the philosophy from you,
my friend? Well, my philosophy, I used to be a scout during school. It
was be prepared.
Be prepared. What are you going to do? Be prepared. Well, you have heard it
here, ladies and gentlemen, and I
really enjoyed sharing some time with both of you. Getting to know you
both a bit better. And, um, thank you so
much for joining me. Thank you for listening, and
if you enjoyed this podcast, please click and subscribe
to the Intelligence Advantage Podcast on Spotify
and other platforms.