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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.
Why is that? Why did you not look out for somebody that might be able
to take you under their wing, as it were, and
teach you? For two reasons. The first reason, that a
private investigator doesn't like to share. That's
easy. No, it's secret. See? No, I cannot tell you
that. No, no, I can. It's everywhere in the world.
Everything is secret. It's a very paranoid job.
And the second reason is that at this time, it has changed a lot.
The average level of the private
investigator was really very low.
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. And I'm also the chairman of the
IfG, a network of international investigative and
asset recovery lawyers. I'm delighted
today to be able to introduce and welcome Filip
Dlewski, who is a man of many countries,
if not nationalities. And you'll find out why as we
go through our conversation. Philippe has been
investigating all sorts of issues for the last 20
years in various different places. And I
came across him, actually, because I bought one of
his. One of the latest edition of his book,
which is called Offensive
Intelligence. So let's give the book a plug for Philippe.
And I was so impressed by what I read,
how clear it was and how useful it was that I
immediately jumped on LinkedIn and invited
Philippe to talk with me. And here we are today.
So welcome, Philippe, and it's great to
have you here. Thank you for inviting me. Thank
you, Gary. Really, I'm really glad to be here. My first question
has got to be, when you are helping me not
mispronounce your family surname, tell me about
background. It's not necessarily the most common
surname I've come across. So you have Eastern European
origins? Polish and Russian, Yeah. My
family came from Poland and
Russia. We. We don't know exactly because there were so
many wars at this time that one day, one Monday, it was Russia, Tuesday,
it was Poland. So my family mostly
come from Poland and Russia
and arrived in belgium
exactly now, 100 years ago. Wow.
And so who were the. Your grandparents, your great grandparents,
who were the original immigrants? My,
my grandparents were the. When they were very
young. Very young.
My parents are both
born in Belgium. As were you
? Yeah. Excellent. And
Belgium. I'm trying to
calculate and see where the immigration
wave was coming from, but I guess it was various parts of
Western Europe that was receiving waves of Polish
Russian immigrants as a result of Pogroms. I'm not sure
whether yours was as a result of the anti Semitic
pogroms or other. It was. I'm not sure it
was the main reason. But yeah, my grandparents were
Jewish as far as I know my.
I did. I never. I never known him. But I think that
one of my grandfather was a Russian
communist. Right. And for a reason I
ignore it, he, he left Russia after
the communist one. Strange. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know that he was in. In
Siberia arrested by the Tarpolis. That's all
I know. And he was freed before being
killed. Wow. And I suppose it. I suppose he
didn't like so much communism. I don't know. Yeah, no, no, because he still
was as far as I know, still communist in Belgium. I don't know. I
don't know. It's a mystery. So you never got the chance to meet any
of your grandparents? I had the chance
to meet three of them, only one I
never met. I never met the one who was in
Siberia and he died a couple of years before
I came on this world. Right. And
tell me a little bit about parents and your education
background. What business or what area did your parents
take up when they. I come from
middle class family. Family.
Nothing special. They didn't go to school more than
till 16 years old.
They had a small local business
in a working area and
since the day I'm born I'm
registered in a university.
Before even being able to speak or walk
I was already at university. And that's
because your parents were absolutely
determined that you should have a better education than them or what?
I think at this time most of the people thought that
success was related to
a higher education which is not the same situation
nowadays. Nowadays you're quite right. So
the emphasis of our parents,
my parents who are sadly no longer with us. That generation
and certainly the previous generation was definitely
you've got to get an education and then you've got to get a profession.
Doctor, dentist, lawyer, accountant. That was the way things
worked. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally, totally. But I never been
a dentist, nor a doctor, nor a lawyer. I
think they were secretly despair. But
they. They never told me. Well, tell us how you first
became aware of this industry and area
of business called investigation. What was your first exposure to it?
Movies series. Okay. And honestly
it's one series. One theory
would which decide me to jump.
It was a French. I perfectly remember at
this time I had my own company which worked
very well, too well for me because I like problems. I
think the
growth of the company was always Stable was the same
year. After years, I got crazy with that.
So I watched a series. It was a
French one about a guy whose mission
was to find missing people
for lawyers.
Okay. Okay. I thought it was
fake. It was not possible. Such a job couldn't
exist because I watched. Seriously? Yeah. It's. For me, that's
exactly what I want to do. And a couple of days
after, because I took it very seriously, I realized that it was
really, really, really possible. And at this time, I was
a headhunter. I. I was the manager of a head hunting company.
I've seen that. And I realized. I realized that
basically I wanted to be a real
headhunter. You know, hunt
people for real. So until you moved, until you saw
that movie, you were headhunting in the
traditional sense. And then you saw this movie on the series and you thought this
was. How old were you when you saw this?
34?
33. And before that, you had
absolutely no inclination or, or
aspiration to become involved in it? Inclination.
Probably because I was the boss of the company and you know, when you are
in a recruit, when you are in a, you work in your
recruitment company, only the
young, the newest employee search made
the head search exception, made me.
I wanted to do this job. You like to do the research?
I love that. I love to do the research. And I was fed up with
interviewing people. It was so boring.
But everybody was happy because the boss took the job that no
one wanted to do. Okay. So everybody was
happy. And so just going back, what. What made you go into
recruitment? You were. Came out of university having studied what?
Psychology. Psychology. Okay. Well, that's a good. That's a good
subject to study to go into any kind of business, but
particularly recruitment. Absolutely.
It's. It's simple. I. I study clinical psychology
for five years. And once I, I
had my degree, I received my first patients, which is
normal. Oh. As a doctor, okay. A doctor
received his first patient. A psychologist receive his first patient. I
realize, I really hate that.
What was it about the. The client, the patient,
doctor relationship? Was it the fact that they were dumping problems on you
or what. What was it that you didn't like? Imagine
you are explaining me that your heart is broken
because the love of your life left this morning.
Okay. And you are crying and you say we were so
happy and I don't understand why she
left me. I just want to answer because she doesn't love you anymore.
But I couldn't. You couldn't cut to the chase? Is that it?
No, no. I was too and patient
for such a job. I see. I see. I couldn't. I couldn't. I
couldn't listen to people who were explaining the
same problem that I had
because. Me too. She left me. Oh. I don't know who or when,
but it happened. And I was very sad and I cried the same.
The same way. And what, what can we do in this
situation? Nothing. Nothing. So there is nothing to
do when. You were qualifying or when you were becoming a
clinical psychologist? Is it like therapy? You have to go
into the consulting. You have to
have your own psychologist who you share your problems with
or. That's not how it worked in those days. It's suggested.
Suggested. Not compulsory. No, it's not
compulsory. But
I was supposed to continue my. A new degree in
specialization after my master degree, but I
realized, no, no, no, I'm not going to do that. So I
stopped. I didn't continue the training
during the weekend. So. No, no, no, no. Sorry. And I didn't like
the world, the universe,
the world of psychologists. The universe, the
conversation, the tone, even. The tone,
you know, even the head on your shoulder. Yeah. No,
no, no. Sorry. You
would be forgiven for feeling that you might not be the most
empathetic or sympathetic human being. Would
that be a fair description of you? No, it
would be a bad description of me because I'm a very
empathetic guy, but probably not
professionally, which is the opposite of
my former colleagues. Right. And
most of them, they are not empathetic. They just do as if
they're. They're very, as the word says, very clinical.
Correct? Yeah, yeah, that they are just professional,
clinical, whatever. But it was not for me, not
really. Later on I. I made a lot of professional
coaching and that was okay. And that was okay.
That was. It was really okay. With a high level
manager. Okay. Which of purpose,
with a goal, a target. Yeah, I. I come to
see you because I have a problem with this and I want to reach that.
Okay, let's do that. Five, six, let's, let's
spend together five, six hours. Paid a
fortune and it was great. So you
tended to be more comfortable and maybe also more
successful, certainly more satisfied when you were
using your skills in relation to
looking at psychology in the context of
achieving a business goal or some other tangible
result rather than just making someone feel better.
Clearly. Let's begin with how are we going
to. And not why. I
don't care why. You don't care why. And are you still of that
mindset, Philippe? You don't care how someone got to that position?
I'm still the one who say, how are we
going to. And don't lose our time with
why your parents are dead. Let's let
them in peace. It's too late.
Okay? You were beaten. You were even raped. Okay. It's
terribly sad. It's horrible. Okay. Okay, what, what are
we going to do now with that? Right. So that, you know, it
could come across as a little harsh, but I, I hear you. And,
and that's the beauty of the world. It's made up of all of us,
different creatures. I remember a great
line. Well, I thought it was a great line by
Lawrence Olivier, and I think it was in a film with Neil diamond
when they were talking about, in order to know where you're going, you need
to know where you've come from. And I know
that's not exactly what you're saying, but it's not that relevant to you
what that previous experience was. You just want to figure out how do you get
to the desired goal? Yeah,
absolutely. I, I don't say that knowing
about the past is useless. It's. It's
fascinating when you realize something. It's fascinating.
It's very interesting. It's
intellectually nourishing. Nourishing, yes.
Nourishing, no. It's intricate nourishing.
But it will not help you to get better.
Never, ever. Okay, so
you're in business. I don't know how long you'll tell me. You then go
and see this, this movie or this film, and
you, you have what we call a light bulb moment.
Yeah, absolutely. And you think, I guess.
God, I didn't know you could make. You could make a living
by doing this, is that right? Yeah, exactly. Exactly, exactly.
So I made my research. What was
legal in Belgium, and what was legal in
Belgium was to go to
evening school during two years.
And there were two school in the French part of
Belgium, and One of the two school was
situated 2 km
from my apartment.
So destiny code. And what were these
courses entitled? How to be an investigator. Very easy.
I just. Sorry. Yeah,
we overlapped each other. Oh, sorry.
You had. You were obliged to go to this school.
Yes. You wanted to be a private investigator in Belgium. So if it was,
I had no choice. So, okay, I went there. It was five minutes far
from my home. No problem. Two times a week.
And the level of the school was. How could I
say that? Primitive.
Yes, that's a good word. Primitive.
It was such a low level, I couldn't even imagine that
it could exist. What I
did during two years, I would have been able
to study in Two weeks. And it was only, not
only my opinion, but the other students in
the classroom felt exactly the same. It was extremely
low level and it had a great impact on
me because it's because of the low level of the school that
I begin to write. I see. So what's interesting
to me, having having come from an Anglo Saxon,
certainly English and then Hong Kong background, I don't
think I've ever been aware of a course
that people can go to to study private investigation. So
Belgium was either ahead of its game of the
world or in some shape or form
realized or considered that this was a skill set that you
needed to study for and in and
to qualify at. So that's interesting. Is that a
long standing, A long standing
course and, and reality in Belgium? Is it still going
on today, for example? I think, I think it's still the same, but I
left Belgium a couple of years ago. So yeah, at this time. And I think
it's still the same two times a week during two years.
For two years. And just. Can you remember, give me an example of the kind
of things, Two things. The kind of people that were teaching you
and the kind of things that they taught you. The
kind of. The teacher. We had a private
investigator as a master teacher.
I see. And most of the other teacher were
professional lawyers. I see. Okay. And the
main team, the team team of the
lessons were we are going to teach you
how don't be caught by the cops.
I see. So it was all about how not to be caught
by the cops rather than how to catch the person or what it is
you're investigating. Yeah, I remember well that the private
investigator was our main teacher.
He even didn't know how to switch on a
computer. For him, being an investigator was
to be in the street following a target
with a talky walky like a shoebox. Yeah.
How long ago are we talking? Because of course the advent of the
mobile phone is. It's not 20 years, but it's not that long
ago. I've been to school, I think
in 2004, something like that. So
about 20 years. For about 20 years ago. Maybe
a little bit more. A little bit. Maybe 2003.
I don't, I don't remember. No, but it still sounds as if,
to say the least, the, the level of
technical ability was a little
bit below that which every businessman was
using as far as they are concerned in terms of clearly, completely
telephones. Yeah, yeah, clearly. Yes. The student
used to, to teach the teacher. And what. So
you can do that? You can do that with your Computer, you know, you can
find information. You can do that. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh.
And so, apart from giving
you the impetus to become an author,
what was the most significant thing you can think of that you
learned from being at that course for two years?
No, nothing. Absolutely, absolutely nothing.
I was just there because it was mandatory by
the Belgian government. I had. I was obliged to
have the paper. That's it. There was no other reason. And the
pleasure. And the pleasure
to meet the other students. I see. All of them were
like me, second career. They were all
adults, so it was a real pleasure to go to school. I see.
And did you make some. Did you make some contacts 20 years
ago that you still know, today?
No, no, no, no, no. Some of them I. I've been in
contact for years, but nowadays, no, no, no one.
And so I understand now that you needed this
certificate, of course, to become a private investigator and
you had to register with a government department, get a
license, things like that. Yeah. After
you are graduated,
you can ask for your license if
you. Yeah. Follow up for your license, right? Yes.
And the day I received it, I looked
at it 10 times more than my
degree in psychology. And what.
What did it in reality allow you to do that?
Otherwise it would have been illegal for you to do those under Belgian
law if you did what.
Tell me what it is that this license enabled you to do?
Nothing. Nothing? No, nothing. No right at
all. I'm a citizen like another one. The
only difference is I have the right
to be paid for those things.
That's it. But I have no specific rights. So, for
example, it's not as if you were licensed to
obtain information from banks. It was
simply that you could not hold yourself out
as an investigator unless you got this license.
No, you have no specific right. But I must
say that my government had a good idea,
because before this law, the population
amongst the private detective was really
problematic to tell it politely.
I see. So in other words, everybody was getting into that game
and was in itself, it was becoming a problem with
deceiving people and conning them about what they could have,
couldn't do. And most of the time it was not
anyone. It was only the worst. I
see. So you would see, I'm a cop.
I'm supposed to finish my career as a cop. You know, to
be fired as a cop, you must at least
kill a lot of people. Not only one is not enough. But
I. I think that half of the private investigator before
this law, from 1992
was former cops who has been fired
from police. You can imagine the level.
I can imagine a level. And so they
introduced the legislation, you sat the exam,
meanwhile, you're still running your recruitment company. Yeah.
And obviously, because it sounds as
if it wasn't too demanding, you didn't have any real problems in
combining the studying with your business? Oh, no, no, no. Not only
me. Anyone would be in the same situation because it was really easy.
And so how long after you got your license did you then
suddenly start up as private investigator
extraordinaire? 10 minutes.
So you go straight out and you put your name in
where, how does it work? You put your name in yellow pages or whatever it
is in Belgium. Yellow Pages?
My great happiness Business card.
Means you can go out and give business cards. Yeah. I built a
new company which name was Agakure, which
is Japanese. So it was
such a new life. You see, I was a teenager, but
I was 35. I sold my company. I saw. Oh yeah, I
sold my company. You sold your company? Yeah, I saw.
I. After. After a couple of months, I had the opportunity
to. To sell my company. So I was
35, I had no real problem of money for a couple
of years. Okay, so what
was easy? Do you remember your very first case as a
private investigator? Sadly. Sadly, yes, I remember it.
So share it with us, if you wouldn't mind. It
was a Belgian woman
who has been married with an American citizen
who were a soldier for NATO. Okay.
And they were separated for 30 years. I think with
20 years. Oh my God. They never, they never, they never divorced.
I see. She wanted to find him,
to ask him to sign the papers.
I never found him. You never found him? So I
searched. It was my first file, so
I didn't even take other file. And I failed.
I know where he was. I know. I
remember. It was 20 years ago. It was in California. I
was sure I localized him
in a part of California, but
all my connection failed. I. I wrote to many
organization. Military. No, no. The
only way to go further was to buy a ticket and
to go over there. Yeah, but she didn't want
you to do that. No.
Seems a little short sighted.
Yeah, it was too expensive, too
expensive for her, but yeah, yeah, I still
think about that because first mission, first fail. First failed.
But clearly. And I know nothing about the rest of the
circumstances. Clearly she didn't want a divorce that badly.
And she'd lived in those circumstances for 30 years.
Exactly, exactly. Because you wouldn't stop
there even when you started business. Getting
an air, getting an airplane ticket was not a big deal.
No, but it was too much for her. And I really thought to.
I really thought. I refer to pay the ticket. But. No,
don't, don't. Don't start like that. No, no. So
you feel a little bit
disillusioned about the, the business or. Not really, you just.
No, no, I was sad
about myself, what you could
do, because if today I would have the same
file, I would probably find the guy in
two or three days. Yeah, probably less, maybe not. But
no more than a week. So I knew that I was
responsible of the failure. And the reason of my failure
was I know nothing about this business. Right.
I know nothing. Nothing. So I begin
to, to take notes, you know, to have a.
A plan. When I receive a new mission, I will follow
this plan. And I begin to. Yeah,
it was a plan. So unlike, unlike most people
that I have met and speak to, you
didn't go and decide to become
a student or at least taught
by an existing investigator. You decided to
teach yourself all of the tricks of the trade.
Yeah, exactly. And, and why is that? Why did
you not look out for somebody that might be able to take you under
their wing, as it were, and teach you?
For two reasons. Yes. The first reason that a private
investigator doesn't like to share. Okay,
that's easy. No, it's secret. See? No, I
cannot tell you that. No and no, I can't. It's
everywhere in the world. Everything is secret. It's a very
paranoid job. And the second
reason, said at this time, it has changed a lot.
The. The average level of
the private investigator was really very low.
They were, they. They were already dead
and still working. They didn't know they were dead, but it
was finished. They didn't realize
that technology will soon take
the power. As I was a newbie, of course I
realized it. If I was, I would have been an old investigator.
I would have been like the others, But I was a newbie, a rookie.
And I realized that I need to learn to use a
computer. The computer will be my,
my best friend, my second investigator, if not
my main. I got it. And so that's
why I begin to. I start to. To take
notes. Or if I go on this site, I can find this, I'm
going this side. This. Which tool,
I can use this to follow people. Thanks to
his car. There are different model. Let's try different model.
Let's study how to put it on the car, things like
that. Months after months. And
at this time, I was living with a beautiful lady,
and one day she was just behind me
and she said, what are you Doing I'm making some
notes for being better in my job.
And she said, but you are writing a book.
No? Yes, you are right, this is a book.
That's it. It was a book. Not
my decision. As very often in my life
it's not my decision.
My partner said, but you are writing a
book about how to spy. Yeah.
Not how to spy, how to investigate. Yeah,
but it's a book. Think so.
Yeah. And there is no one like that in
French because she, she. After that she made. She made
her research. No, there is no one. Okay, well, let's try it.
And so when did you publish your first edition or your. Yes,
your first edition of the book? Because I
didn't really trust her. I follow her
because she was my girlfriend. So, so
I, I made something like 50 copy at the corner, see,
right. I
sent some emails to professionals
and she said, you need to sell it
is very expensive. $60? Are
you crazy? No, $60.
Okay, if you say so you are the boss.
Oh, it was not said like that. But yeah, she was the boss.
So I print first 50, then 100 and then
200. And yeah, I sold them at
in believable price of 60 Euro.
And yeah, it was
a micro success because when you sell 200 or 300
books, it's not a big deal, but it
was something. And after I realized that
it was boring to put the book in an envelope, lick the
stamp, glue the stamp, go to the post office. No,
it's funny for your first sales because you're pro. But
soon it has been boring. And so I
send emails thanks to my new skills, how to
send 1,000 emails in five minutes. Because that was things
I was learning at this time to write the book. I used
my new technique to sell my book to French
publisher. Instead of putting my book in
to the post office and wait six months for an answer.
No, thank you. Not for me. I have no patience. So I just
sent email with a link to a summary of the book.
I think after two or three days it. It started.
Can you send us the full book please for
review? We could be interested. And
after one month or two, I had seven
proposals. I thought I was a new star in
this world. So. And
all of them were from Paris. So it was oh,
publisher from Paris. Some of them had a
great no in the world. In the publishing world. Right.
And I signed, I just signed with one
of them just because they offer me the best
coffee. I swear it's. It's the only
res. So did you go to Paris to meet them? Yeah, yeah.
I go. I went to Paris for a day to meet those who wanted
to sign with me. It was. Is it like the movies? Did they pick you
up at the station in a Rolls Royce and No,
no. Only one of them
offered me a coffee.
Another one told me,
okay, your book could be maybe interesting. But
remember, sir, you. Nobody knows you. You are not famous. And I
remember my ego was already working at
a high level. Just because he said that, I tell. I
told myself, I will never sign with you. I see. I'm not
famous. You told me that I'm not famous. I will never sign with
you. And I never did you? Never. So are you still
with that same company today that you signed with? No, no,
no, no. Only the first edition in 2010.
Right. And. And that's it.
I. I just published this book. It was unbelievable for me.
After that I published two other books.
Oh, so this first book is not the first edition of
Offensive Intelligence or it is, yeah. But I wrote about
others of other topics. Such as.
I've been also published by a French publisher or a book.
I. I don't know how to translate it in English. It could be
how to make your boss
life hell.
Yeah, you understand me? How to upset your boss, right?
Oh, it was more than upsetting. It
was. Yeah, to, to, rotten his life. I don't know.
Yeah, yeah, good translation. What? How to rotten your boss
life. Your boss's life. So now I'm really intrigued.
What on earth were you thinking of? What motivated you to write a book
about how to make your boss's life miserable?
When. To be honest, I don't think you ever had a boss.
No. Yeah, I had. Just after my graduation.
I had a boss, but he was very kind. I had no problem.
So what motivated that kind of book.
At this time? I told you I was
still a consultant in human resources. Not only private
investigator. I continue. After I sold my company, I
continue to give training in communication and management.
I see for big company. And every
day, when I was a coach or a trainer, I used to listen
to workers, even manager, who
complain about their boss every day. And I hate that
so much. So I start to take notes.
Stop complaining about their boss. You don't like your boss? Why do
you tell it to everyone? Ex exception made
him. Why? Why you don't tell him that?
I don't know. There is a problem because
he's going to fire me. No, he won't.
No, he won't. So it was too much
pressure for me to listen to this set
stories every day. So I begin to take notes.
The same as my. With my first book. Begin to
take notes. And then after a while
with my girlfriend, which was still the same at this time,
she thought it was really funny and she said you have
another book. Okay, so what was the single
most successful technique of
really making your boss miserable that you can remember? There are
so many, but some of them are so easy. Easy,
easy, easy. Imagine you. Oh, you.
Okay, you have business meeting
in foreign countries, I suppose. Let's say
you. You. Oh, let's say you go for the US On Friday
evening. Yes. Okay. It's possible.
No, Yeah. I stop your
bank card Friday evening.
Just stop it. It's stolen. Two or three.
Easy question. And you. How do I do that
as an employee? How do I. You're my boss. How do I stop your credit
card? You call. You just have to
know some information. But not so many.
Difficult. No, no, no, no. It's really easy. It's based
on trust. So
you are now in New York, it's Friday evening, and you have no
more money. During this time,
I took a picture of your apartment, of your house,
and put it on sale.
I see. Okay. Yes. Very, very, very easy.
And in this book there were
hundreds of tricks like that. Why?
To show you. To prove you that you are
stronger than you think.
It was not a crazy guy who wrote that. It was
my first real act of therapy.
Okay. I really help you people. Look, read,
read that. And you know that you are strong. Your boss
can do nothing against you. Just
imagine you have an employee and your
employee in public, very gently tell
you, boss, when you are talking to me, I feel
harassed. Okay.
It's a very bad day, which is beginning. Yes, it is
a very. It's a beginning of a bad day. Yes, it's a
beginning. You know, it's easy. You. I want. I just
wanted to show to people, ladies and
gentlemen, you are more powerful
than what your parents told you. Okay, that's really
interesting. Let me just break that down, because on the one hand,
I see you as this white
knight who is going after and finding
out and solving problems for people
who need help. Like a. Like a Robin Hood.
But now I was. I was like that when I was a kid.
I didn't have problems. And now
your second book sounds more like, how can you be a
mini terrorist? Pacific.
Not even pacific. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why
would you think with the knowledge of clinical psychology,
that this is the right way to behave? Because before
you clearly intimated that the right way to behave with
a boss who is a pain is to sit down across and
say, look, boss, you're making this more difficult
for me. You're abusing this relationship. But
the conduct of stopping his credit card, apart from
anything else, involves if not some criminality,
at least some, some morally bad
behavior. So how do you
reconcile those, those dynamics,
Philippe? I, I wrote this
thinking and it was true that
nobody will take
the book as a real manual.
And it was true. Nobody use it as far as I know.
I wanted to write something that people
read, laughing, imagine what they
could, could do and will never
do. So, it
was totally therapeutic. Therapeutic. It's okay.
Therapeutic. Yeah, absolutely. Now, now I understand where you're
coming from. It's, here's what you can imagine
you could do and how easy it is.
And by imagining it and reading it, you are getting out
all of that frustration that you feel. Yeah. Stop
thinking that you are weak. Show. Read, read this book.
How can you think that you are weak after reading this book?
You are the master of the universe. And how many
sales did you make of this book? I don't know,
but thousands. Thousands? Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Wow. Okay, so now I'm really interested. You actually did
another book after that. Or was went back to
a novel. Yeah, a novel. What was that about?
20 hours of life of two drug
addicts. Wow. Okay. And was
that based on any kind of real life experience?
Absolutely. I wrote it with a partner, my best friend.
Yeah. With social worker. Right. And who
used to work with drug addicts in the streets.
So he knows that I wanted to write a book about
ordinary people having an extraordinary,
extraordinary life. And he say,
hey, just come work with me
two hours and you'll see another world, an underworld.
And it was an underworld, you know, thousands of people living like
rats in caves. Wow. It,
it's, it's not imaginable. So I follow him
a couple of times, a lot of time. And we decided to,
to use his, his experience to write a novel,
but a very speed novel, you know, hour after
hour, during 24 hour. Ah, I see.
Like the TV program 24 hours. You go for hour to hour
to hour. Of course, the title is inspired
by this program.
I see. And what did you personally
learn from writing that book and going to see all of
the, the sad lives of these people
who were drug addicts. What did you learn personally, Philippe?
That you, you can be living and invisible.
You can be totally invisible. There is. And
it's, it's not only in my town, which
is a very poor and dangerous town. Charleroi, Belgium.
Right. But the same thing is
existing everywhere in the Western world and probably other world
too. And there are thousands of people who has
a life. Well, I don't know if we can call it
alive, but yes, it's alive. And it's an
underlife. It's something under
your feet. They live in caves, they die in
caves. And that's what. That's what I saw.
And it was a fascinating experience.
Wow. And. And how did that
experience affect you personally,
emotionally, psychologically? It didn't.
I was. I was like a photograph, a war photographer. I'm
protected by camera and I was protected
by. By my screen, by typing it. It was
not a real person, it was a
hero of the book. It's not a,
I was not writing about something I saw or my friend
told me. I was writing a story and it was protecting me
from
suffering because it was professional, like
a, like a war photographer. That's how they die. They don't see
that the. The tank is. Hey, dude. The tank
is firing it 10 meters far from you. No, no, no, it's okay. Click,
click, click. That. And what is
it? That was it within you that
led you to. It must have been for the ordinary
person, incredibly upsetting to see
the people living in this way and being.
Wasting away in front of you. Yeah.
What is it? Were you trying to deal with some therapeutically?
Because that seems to be a theme that we've
talked about. But the book had an impact because it was a
great success. So we were, my friend and I
were invited everywhere. Tv, radio, newspaper,
every. Everywhere. Everywhere. Wow. Yeah.
Belgium, France, everywhere. Because.
Because it was so raw or because there was a happy ending or what?
Maybe because all of that. And was there a happy ending? Was it
your friend rescuing or you rescuing somebody? No, it was
the story of two persons during 24 hours. And ev. And
at every page you think that they are going to die next page,
but they don't. They survive like most of the addicts in the
street. Most of them, they will survive. They are not going to die.
They find incredibly resilient.
Wow. They can live in with rats,
beast. They can be beaten,
stab, whatever you want. They can have
appetite, aids, whatever you want. Most of them, they will
survive. And how did that make you feel when you went
through this process? Did that give you more faith in human life or less
or none? It didn't affect you at all? It didn't affect
me. It was.
Writing was a protection. Right. It's not Real
life. It's a story. Even if it's about real people. It's a story.
It's, it's a job. It didn't affect me.
Yeah, yeah. On, on, on, on the X.
A moment when I was in an abandoned
house with no stairs and it stinks
and have every blood. Yeah,
yeah, of course. Yes, yes, yes.
When I enter in the house and I, I realize that 10 guys
had the gun and not me.
Yeah, of course I was affected by the fact
that in front of me there were 10 guys with a gun. And they
really looked crazy, but they were so
crazy that they think that only two crazy, super crazy guys
will enter in a house without gun. And so they run.
They ran away from you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So in the meantime, you're still investigating as well. You're
writing, you're investigating your clinical site. You're doing two,
three, four things at the same time. Three, three. And I,
three. Yeah. So tell me about
the most interesting
missing person case that has ended up
successfully. But it's a set sad story.
Another story. Yeah. You must know something. And what.
It's one of the reason I, I didn't want to continue with personal
case. Right. It's when, when you, when you work for family.
It's not like on tv. It's absolutely not. It's not.
No, because it's, it's. It's always, always, always
finish badly. Okay, so tell us about that
story. Well, it's a story among
25 others. French woman
in her 50s or 40s. 50s I think,
she has been adopted when she was very young.
Had a very happy life,
very good parents. Her parents just died.
And as a parent just died, she
began to ask herself why
my mother left me.
Got it.
Oh. She asked me if it was possible to find
her. She had some, some
very small intel and. But okay,
I found the mother, the biological mother. It was
unbelievable because it was
just the same woman, but with 20 years more.
Right. Facially looked almost identical.
Facially, identical. So I didn't want to cause
problem to the. The mother. Yeah.
I must tell you that in Belgium and in France, it's forbidden by
law to give an address
without the authorization of the target. You cannot do
that. It's forbidden. But I found the mother
and I decided not to call, not to
write. I decided to go thinking that she would
probably possibly be married with kids.
Okay. So I build a story in case of.
But I didn't have to ring the bell. Lady, come.
It was funny because just before, even before I opened my
mouth she knew. She just got that psychic feeling from
you. I don't know, but she knew. I know. She
just says I know, I know why you are. Why you are here. Right.
And. And say if you give my address to this
lady, she said, this lady, I will call
the cops. Oh, wow.
And so that story ends with you not being able to give the address
or what? No, I. Of course I didn't give the address.
I just. I couldn't. I could. You know, it's
easy for me to understand that a very young lady, 18 years
old, pregnant, in a certain time, certain,
you know, bad environment,
she. She cannot have this baby. I can't really.
I can understand it easily how hard
it. Yeah, it was, but now she was
in. In her fif. 50. No, more, more,
more. She was 70. 70 something. Yeah. 70.
I see. Okay. I understand she's married, she has kids.
She didn't tell the truth to her husband. I understand
that perfectly. Don't tell me you
are going to call the cops. So I oblige her to write
a letter. I see.
To her daughter. Yeah. Explaining
what? Dear madam,
I'm happy to know that you have. I'm glad to
know that you have a happy life. We have nothing in
common. Please do not try to contact me. Best regards.
Wow. And at
least you took that back with you. Yeah,
I. I gave the letter to my client and she was very
happy. Wow. Really? Yeah.
And did you ever. Were you ever
retained to do something for
somebody who you then realized was going to use
the information for an improper purpose? In other words, to
do harm to somebody? But I
didn't finish the, the file. Someone hired me because
my client was shooting the legs. Shot in the leg.
Was shot in the legs. And wanted me to find the shutter. The
shooter. Wow. Okay. But I. I knew why,
so I said no. Both criminals. Yeah.
No, no. Call the cops, okay? They
don't give a shit, me neither. Okay. So you didn't
take the job on. No, I didn't. And one time
in my carry. Only one time, I lied.
I lied to, to a client. I see. And what did you lie
about? A very old lady dying.
Asked me to find the love of her life.
Formal love of her life. But now that her life was ending,
apparently it was the love of her
life. And she asked me to just first to know if
he's still living and then have
last contact before dying. Wow.
Yeah. And what happened? I found a guy.
He was still. He was still alive. Very
alive. And what did you do?
You tell me. Oh, yeah. Oh, Yeah, I remember this
lady. Yeah, well, I don't care. It's an old story.
So he was the love. He was the love of her life, but she
wasn't The love of his. So let me ask you,
where was the lie? Who did you lie to? You lied to the client
and said I couldn't find him. I said that he was
dead. I see, I see.
So there's. Would I be right in saying there's a very clear theme
in the cases you took on were
for people in individuals in really
distressing circumstances. It doesn't sound as if you were
in the business of tracking down somebody that stole money from
a company you tended to. To. No,
I did. I did that. I did that a lot. Also my job was
debt. I see, 90, 95%. But if you
ask me question about that, I have nothing to say because it's not funny.
There is. There is no fun. No, I. I
received 100 file. Can you find those guys? They owe
money to our banks. Yeah. You think that they are in
Spain. I send email to my colleague
in my network and I wait.
There is no fun. So. Oh, but that means you were not doing the actual
investigation yourself. You are. No. You were delegating it
to somebody else. Yeah, yeah, it was cause of, it was
one of the cause of the success I had. It's because
I built a network of private investigators
specialized in the search of missing people.
So. So, you know,
normally it's the job of, of a government to do that or
maybe the police or I don't know. Yeah, they will took three
years to do that. They will find you. They will find you. Three years.
Three years. Okay. After three years you will receive a letter, sir,
you owe money to our bank. If you don't pay immediately, we will
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay. Three years. So you can
change, you can go to another country
and they will find you again. Three years later.
But with my network instead of three years, it was three days.
Wow. And what did you do once
you found them? Were you ever used to go and negotiate the settlement or you
just hand over the information and say no, no, no, never,
Never. The guy is there. The guy is there. I
see somebody else. Somebody else did the heavy
lifting. Yeah, yeah. That's why it was
totally unemotional. Right.
So as we are creeping even beyond the hour,
I want to end on an
investigative story that you are particularly proud of.
This is the impact you had on somebody's life or on your
life by doing the investigation.
Let's do this. If we Were friends. Okay. Yeah.
I received a call from Greece long prison in
Greece. And a guy told me that he
has heard about me in I don't
know which country, police, I don't know. I understood nothing.
And he wanted me me to reopen his case
because he had been condemned for 12
years in jail. Okay,
yeah, but for what, sir? Yeah, but
I've been convicted., but I'm innocent. Yes. Yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah. In what? In trafficking of
child pornography material. Oh my God.
Okay, but I'm innocent.
Yeah, so die. Die.
But I didn't say die. I told him that, no, I'm a private
investigator. I'm not a lawyer. I find facts or
I don't. It's just a question of
facts, right? He said, yeah, I will
send you a big, big, big, big file and you will see that I'm
innocent.
Yeah, send me the, send me the, the file and, and, and some
money too, please. Just to take a look at your big,
big, big, big, big file. I took a look at his big big file,
which was full of crap, right?
99, 99% of this file was
okay, good for the rub.
There was something not normal.
I say, okay, I take your
file. You say, but
you, you need to work quickly because there
is a court of appeal in Athens in six months
and I want to go out from here.
My, my, my, my cool, cool, cool. The
people who is living in the same cell, they say
that cool. Just go, go. That prison
prisoner, yeah, My, my
mate, pre co. prisoner just killed himself in the
cell. I want to go out of here. You know, they think that I
kill him. Please help me. So I
made my research first. I, of course
I analyzed the first judgment and it was
unbelievable. Really unbelievable. He was,
he has been contact convinced as being
the boss of a pedo criminal
material network. Right.
He was the boss of two different websites
located in the U.S.
The problem is
the two sites were closed and the owners of
the site were well known by the justice. They were
in jail in the US it you didn't need to be a great
investigator to know that. So it couldn't be the boss of those
sites because the boss has been arrested
in the U.S. okay? And convinced
20 years in jail. Okay? So I
say, okay, I will come to the court. So I,
I, I, I, took a, a ticket to
attend. Yeah. I went to the
court, I was received as
an expert. Apparently very common. Yeah. And
I realized that all the investigation by the local police
was so
unprofessional. They put his
ex wife under pressure. But Heavily.
And she wanted to testify about that. That everything was,
her testimony was a fake. The fact that he was
managing the two
pedophotographic side was a fake.
At most he was customer of those sites. But it's not.
12 years in jail in most of the country
is one, right? I think it's one.
So I went to the court and I
realized that in some case, I don't want to
generalize justice, justice means nothing because
the cops trafficked everywhere. Everything, everything
was fake. Everything. And it was easy to see. So
my client has of course a bunch of lawyers,
the most expensive lawyers in Greece.
But they were so useless.
Why? So I don't know. They were so low level
for my criteria. So
I testify not as a lawyer, but as
an expert and a witness. So I just
explained what I, what I saw. They say, yeah, it was
a part of those two sides. He was also trafficking on
the Internet to sell movies on
eDonkey. You know what eDonkey was? It's. It's.
It's. It was a file sharing site.
I see. Okay. You. You cannot sell
something on eDonkey. It's. You put a file and people
download it if they want, but there is no money. I see.
I explained because nobody knew a damn
thing about Internet, about anything. So
it was.
They say, yeah, but he was on pornographic site.
Yeah. And I turned myself to the. To the whole. There
was more than 100 people. 150, I think. No, I
just. Yesterday I read a paper on your country, or your
beautiful country saying that one third
of your population is on those sites. Which
means that we have 150 people in here, in this
place. And one third of them
this morning on the pornographic side. So they are.
Are they going to jail? All of them or no one.
The judge stopped me. He said
he was speaking perfectly French, which was very
special. Perfectly, perfectly. He said, okay,
so it's. We don't need more. We don't need more.
It's enough. So for Christmas the guy was
out. Completely finished and
his, his conviction set aside. For this
case. But what I didn't know there was another
case.
Also against him? Yeah, and it was more. It was about abusing
child. And I put it, I put him out of jail.
Oh my God.
And he didn't ask you to set aside the conviction on that one?
No, because he couldn't.
There were law of letters written to a girl
of 12 years old. Oh my God. But how did he get out
of prison? Was he not serving both sentences at the
same time? Yeah, but he made seven years
and it was. It three or four months later
it was finished. So he had finished the sentence
for the real abuse?
Yeah, there were no real abuse.
It was not clear at all. Oh, there were no abuse.
They were. He was in love, he wrote letters.
But there was not sexual abuse. I see.
He was. You and I would call it.
You and I would call it grooming or not grooming.
I don't know the word. Grooming means developing a
relationship with an underage child
in a way designed to exploit them sexually,
physically. No, I don't. I'm not sure of it, but I
think. No, I think his brain. I'm not sure
because I didn't interview him about this case,
but I think in his brain he.
He was a child too. Now,
forgive me for this last question. You are an
investigator. You've been brought on to. To
identify the fact that he had been
totally. The police have been totally. If
inept, if not inept, corrupt. Oh yeah, more,
more. How did you not with your investigations know
that he was not in prison for a related
offense? I didn't know. That's it.
Okay. Yeah, I'm still thinking about it.
He loved me, so he left me. He loved me so much he wanted to
give me an apartment. He wanted to invite me on Greek island
on boats and whatever you. Wow. Well.
Lucky, look, lucky. And I.
I follow him years after years. He never been in jail after
that. Okay, well, what
an amazing. And his own. Or his
own daughter said it's a fake.
I was there and it's a fake. He never. What is a fake? What was
a fake? He never touched the. The. The.
It was his daughter. Friends, you know. Oh, I see.
So it was also. Was there. So it was also
a potentially set up job as well.
Potentially. Yeah. So I never. I will never know. But as
far as I know he continue 15 years after to invite me
for holidays or. But you don't
go to. No. Oh,
well, Philippe, what can I say? That hour and a bit went
the fastest that I can remember for a long time. You are a man
of so many interesting and
complicated stories and all I have done is scratch
the surface. Maybe not.
Maybe you know it, you know it all. Maybe I doubt it
though. But I want to thank you sincerely for being.
Being my. My companion on
this story, this traveler in arms. And
it may well be that I come back to you and
say let's do a part two and see where
that leads us. Welcome, welcome. First, thank you.
Thank you for inviting me, Gary. And it was
really a great moment for me too. Great. I
really appreciate it. Well, me too.
So have a lovely evening and thank you so much. I will let you know
when we are ready to go public. Okay,
Gary, see you soon. Thank you so much. Take care. Bye. Bye.
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