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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.
Is there anything that happened where you all in good conscience,
you said, and you made a decision saying, on balance, I think this is the
right thing to do, and then turned out that you'd made a.
Not horrific, but you'd made a decision that you didn't feel comfortable
about. We did have, have four of our people kidnapped in, in
Angola. Wow. So we obviously made
not a mistake, but we put people in harm's way there and they
were kidnapped. I have all had a philosophy that secrets,
secrets are not secrets. In certain places, every secret is a secret, but some
places not a secret. Yeah. A man's secret from his
affairs may be secret to his family, but not to the men in the golf
club sort of thing. So you need to identify where
the secret is not a secret.
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. I welcome a very
dear and long standing friend of mine, Patrick Grayson, to
share stories and experiences with me.
It's difficult to sum up in just a couple of lines Patrick's
experience in this space. He has either guided,
met, worked with all of the leading
CEOs and owners of corporate investigation agencies over
the years. And he is the point of call
for anyone in the industry that needs wisdom
and guidance. I'm thrilled to have you with me this
afternoon, Patrick. Welcome. Thank you, Gary. I'm delighted to be
here and I hope I can live up to some of your kind, generous
introduction. No problem at all. That's the easy
part. Now, I
know because I have known you for a while. I know
that you started off in Her Majesty's
Armed Forces, if I may refer to them, the Irish Guards,
in fact. And having done a little bit of research,
what appears to me is that it may well
be, and the Irish Guards, who you're with, is a famous
group all of its own. But you've been in interesting
places at very interesting times.
And I want you to tell me a little bit about
how you turned up or ended up in a place and it just
happened to be a hotspot or a few examples
of what's happened to you in the
army and in your postings. Thank you, Gary. Well,
yes, I joined as a regular officer and I was
actually joined in 1960. 1960.
And I was the first in the first intake in Desantis that was post
national service so all those ahead of us had all been co
opted or most have been co opted proportion and
we were the first 100% volunteer intake to Santos intake
29 so that was an interesting time.
Santas was then a two year course and a tremendously good training and
one thing which one should know about the British army is that the people who
teach you your skills and your trade are not the other officers, they're
the non commissioned officers. And anybody who's been to Sandhurst will be in
awe of the tremendously wonderful
non commissioned officers. Warrant officers who taught us our,
our skills will scare the out of it most of the time but that's, that.
Was something we see on, on the screen
about staff sergeants and don't call me
sir, call me sergeant and giving everyone a super hard time. It's the
same in the British army as it is in the American Army. I
don't, I have been with the American army but I'm not quite sure. But the,
the famous day Fr. Sanders when the sergeant Major talks to you
he says I call you sir and you called me sir. The difference
sir is that you mean it sir and that's the sort of relationship but it's
a wonderful extraordinary relationship that until you've experienced that you can't
imagine it. The bond between officers and non commissioned officers and
the soldiers, it's extraordinary bond and it never leaves you. Really
stays with you all your life. You were talking about interesting places. You
were in the Suez at a particular. No, no, in Aden
maybe. Yes, I caught, as I always say to
people, I caught the tail end of the Empire. Everywhere I went they pulled down
the flag. Yes, well I want to hear a bit about flag pulling in a
minute. Well I was in Germany first in the British army of the Rhine as
it was in the Cold War 1962 when we really felt we
were facing a threat from, from East Germany and we
were on the Weser river to sort of hold the line should they come across
the line and, and it was, it was
serious soldiering then. Quite, quite nerve wracking actually. Shots
fired across the Rhine. No, no, no, no, no. It was
tense but the Cold, Cold War st of course was
Berlin isolated and we used to do train trips
into Berlin taking resupplies into Berlin through East Germany.
That was very interesting but that was also peacetime
soldiery. I was lucky enough from Germany to be
pointed to Kenya to send to Kenya in 1963
and that led up to Kenya independence in late
63 and that was an interesting time for Kenya, or
Kenya, we call it Kenya. And there we
had a violent. Was that a violent birth? It wasn't a
violent. No, it wasn't actually. There had been a mutiny by the
King's African Rifles, the armed the Kenyan
army at the time we arrived there and we joined we the
Irish Guards. A company of Irish Guards joined the Scots Guards there
and they were. When we arrived in Kenya they were spread around the country helping
to bringing line the mutineers. So that was
tense and we were. I wasn't actually involved in that. But then we were there
throughout the Uhuru, as they call it, independence. And we
were scattered around the country during the actual
ceremonies to keep a low profile, quite rightly.
But it went very smoothly. And Kenyatta at one
time terrorist was only by then the new president, which
was extraordinary event in many ways. And
I was there when President Kennedy died and like all of us, we always remember
exactly where we were when we were when he died. And I was walking up
the stairs in the officer's mess when we heard the radio playing and I thought
it was a play like a lot of people did. And that was Kennedy's death
and that was a big moment everywhere in the world, particularly in Kenya. And
I found myself a few weeks later standing in the
castle cathedral in, in Nairobi as an
officer with my sword around a coffin representing
Kennedy. And my right wrist was on Kenyatta's
shoulder, which was quite my brush with. Wow. Do you still have
that photo in your archives? I do indeed.
From the front page of the East African Standard. Wonderful. I tell you,
I now kick myself for not being better prepared, Patrick, to say
I want a photo of you in full regard
regalia. But there you go. So. So I
mean if you want to go briefly my career then I was back in
England for Britain, back in Germany again. And then my next
serious posting overseas was to Aden, what you referred. Yes. And
that was 1966, 1967, when again
Aden was still a British colony. And we were, we the British
were being. They were
local pressure groups to try to get us out of it. Yeah. As was the
colonial style. And there was a terrorist
group, insurgency group that was
terrorizing Aden and terrorizing the British there. So it
was really quite, quite unpleasant.
There were shots fired in that part of Ireland. Yes, yes. We the Irish
guards left behind 23 dead there. Wow.
Buried in Aden, one of them,
four of them were in a own goal. We had a horrible gun
accident there which killed four, which was tragically part of. Of the
active service. Wow. And we lost some in ambushes, etc, so
that was a nasty time. Unpleasant time. And growing
up, what lessons? Sorry, let me, let me ask you this
because it's always these things sort of just appear momentarily
being you training, you've got your.
Whatever it is, Staff Sergeant non commissioned officer and then there
you are with. With people sadly
dying, et cetera.
What's it like for somebody, you were still
relatively young. Is it like a massive
earthquake to your system or are you so well prepared
that it's business as usual?
Well, people in more recent times, having had
a far more difficult time than I had, could probably speak to that
and I listen to them a lot. But when you're in a situation
like that, it is of course exciting. There's no question that's what you're trained for.
Your adrenaline is up and because you're surrounded
by comrades and people close to you
feel a tremendous esprit de corps. That's what soldiering in any
army is all about. And that buoys you on.
And as they always say, your training kicks in.
That was hard. Wilderness. I surprised myself that
when things were difficult, training kicked in. Right.
And, and the relationship you had with your, your soldiers around you, your
fellow, the whole team, it was extraordinary. And that
put you. To really test you. And, and those who've had far more difficult
times in more recent times in Afghanistan
etc, have really found it very hard going and
I understand that. And, and they talk about. We were
less sympathetic then to, to stress.
Post stress syndrome. Yeah, it was still a little bit of stiff upper
lip. Not necessarily saying was good or bad, but it was just
different. Just what it was. Where after Aiden.
Well, then I spent spells in. In UK and then I
found myself going to Hong Kong. That's right. And that's an interest. That was
a really interesting time for Hong Kong and China, wasn't it? Well, it
was, it was during the Cultural Revolution. I went there in
1986 when the cultural Revolution
was at its peak in China and Hong Kong.
Always been isolated, but was very isolated then. Where were you
based? Because of course I was in Hong Kong for a number of years. Well,
you were in Hong Kong? Well, we were based. Well, I spent
two stints in Hong Kong. I was there for two years as the adc,
the Age of the General, the command of British forces, who
had been itself an Irish Guardsman. So I was sort of close
to the. The source of. Where were
you? Well, then I was in Flagstaff House in Hong Kong Central.
Yes. Hong Kong Island. Yeah. With a. With a Whole household of. Of staff
working for the general, then the commander force, who was the number two to the
governor, very senior position. So that was for me, who was. The governor at that
stage. The governor was governor called Trench. But the. My. My boss was
someone called General Sir Basil Euster. Okay. Who'd been
an Irish Guardsman himself. And he had distinction of having been
a young officer in the Irish Guards when they were on the. No,
the Norwegian expedition at the beginning of the outbreak of the war,
when the Irish Guards were on a ship sailing to Norway and
the ship was bombed by the Germans and most of the officers
were killed in one explosion. Wow. Young Euster, as he
was, was a second lieutenant or lieutenant, I think, and he found himself
stark naked in the sea, having been blown overboard. Pleasant. Let
me. Let me ask you what stood out to you
in that first stint you were in Flagstaff House, and the next
stint was how many weeks, months, years later? Well, two years
later. I was there for two years doing that job. And that was tense because
we were the army were then pretty sure we were eyeball to eyeball
with the Chinese army pla. At the border from the
right, across the border. So where were you stationed then? Still at
Flagstaff or not? No, Flagstaff is always then, but that was that then.
And then I. My own battalion, the Irish Guards, were posted to Hong Kong by
happy coincidence. So I was already there. So after a
brief stint I stayed there. And then we were based in Stanley. Fort
in Stanley. Gosh, you got some really peachy postings. I
did. I did. Stanley was wonderful. Oh, wonderful. Well, now it's a.
It's a plaque barracks, I believe. But. But then we
had a. My wife and I had a house that you would die for on
the peninsula of Stanley, but we spent most
of our time up on the border. And that was quite. It had its
moments, to put it mildly. Anything particular
comes to mind of some weird scenario of someone scrambling over.
Oh, yes. Oh, yes. I had a. I would
say they'd almost start to the Third World War, almost personally.
There's a village on the eastern side of the border
where the border hits the sea called Chateau Kok. You may
be familiar with it. And this village, famously the.
The border between British Hong Kong and China went down the main
street, little village street, and there were
bollards down the street demarcating the border.
And it was very much an enclave. And there was always a British company there,
company soldiers, often it was Gurkha Company,
and it was a real hot spot. And as you came along the border
road. The road came into Shatta Cock and then you
had to turn right to stay in British territory.
So it was so dramatic you couldn't get it wrong.
And to help there was usually a PLA soldier standing
by the wine shop, it was called, with his gun, looking at you as you
drove down. So you turned right and waved at him and went along the border.
But it didn't come for the Irish guards who
turned left. We had a truck that went down
there. You weren't in charge of that truck, were you Patrick? Well, it was
my truck, but I wasn't driving it. Okay. It was a terrible
mistake. No doubt about. Was a Land
Rover and a truck behind with in total 8
guards were on board. And unfortunately the PLL
soldier had gone for a break and he wasn't there.
And the driver got it wrong and turned left. And I'm making light
of it, but actually it was very serious incident. They disappeared
down Chung Ying street and I was in one of the observation
posts and I heard a shot ring out, bing, bing, bing across the
rooftops. And I thought disaster had happened. What did happen was that
they were immediately surrounded by a group of very angry
Shatokok residents from the Chinese side with knives,
et cetera. And they disappeared into Shatukok and were taken
prisoner. And the shots were fired by. Well, it
was a misfire by the Chinese, but it set the alarms going. I see.
And there was a mini riot right on the border with people on the toes
of the border and I was there with a Chinese policeman trying to
calm it down, which we did. And then actually it went right
high up the political chain of command. It would be an
incursion and it was our fault. And
it reached Peking as, as an issue. And James
Callan, the Prime Minister. Yeah, it was really dramatic and it was a great
mistake on our part, an accident. But for 24 hours I
was alone in Shadowcock with my soldiers not knowing whether,
you know, it was going to come out right. And then negotiations happened
right up the line. And then three o' clock in the morning we heard the
trucks revving up right behind Shadowcock in the night. And then
these eight rather shame faced cars and came
came back. But it was not with some take.
This is really cheeky, isn't it? Not with some takeaway food. I guess they've been
well treated. But it was very alarming and
a mistake on our part. And give, give me a time anchor in
terms of cultural revolution. Are you there
at the beginning of. My history
probably is not I was there 68.
68 to 72. So
we're right in the middle of it. Right in the middle. Right in the middle,
yeah. Hong Kong was very, very tense and what vibes.
What to what extent would you. Of course, you're on the border
a lot of the time. But what do you pick up out of
the Cultural Revolution? Are there of. I'd say obviously. Are there
people that are trying to escape and getting across to Hong Kong or what.
What do you as a soldier learn about history, about that period
of time? Oh, well,
it was the Star Contra and
I've been also on the border in Berlin and I've been to
Panmunjom on the Korean border. Right. And
every case as you peer across the border or cross
the border, the change is discernible.
You feel it in your bones. And as you looked across the
paddy fields to north. To the north side of the border in Hong Kong, you're
looking into a. An alien territory and people under
a different regime and tilling the fields. And it was
extraordinary sort of view into a different other world. And I know the.
And in Panmunjeong, when I went, when I was in Hong Kong, we had
a. I was attached for a period of time to the U.S. 8th army
in Korea and was on the, on the
DMZ with them, which was interesting. And, and went to
Panjong itself. And there, there was, you know, the ever increasing bigger
flags and bigger flags and it was quite scary. And there was. There. There's a
3.3mile codon sanitaire in Hong Kong. There wasn't. It
was just a fence and we used to have Chinese
soldiers presenting, patrolling with their weapons. As
close as you and I would be, it was really. And you. Did you
have any, any instances of.
Of people that were being
maltreated as a result of the
goings on who were escaping to Hong Kong and you had
to give them back or not they did escape. I never
experienced that person. But what we did find was very unfavorably was
bodies coming down the belt Pearl River. Wow.
And that they used to. People on picnics from Hong Kong used to see
bodies in the river. Said the very real in your face.
And to what extent. I mean obviously you see that.
But was it something that as an
outsider that you sense
that there was because there was huge disruption and
people were being
persecuted and imprisoned and murdered. Was it the scale
of it something you were aware of or. Not really. Not really. Because
Hong Kong was in the biggest scale of China was a dot
on the rump. Yes. And the vista from China
was from Hong Kong was very limited, it was a hot spot. But, but there
wasn't great massive force there. The PLA were making their point, they
were there and we always knew that they could come across.
Who knew. And of course it was also the time of the Vietnam war
going on. Down there, of course in the 60s, in the 60s. And a lot
of the Americans were taking their r and R in Hong Kong. Absolutely. Were
they not? Yes, they were there massively. And when I was the
aide de con, we used to have to organize
willingly, happily organize parties for visiting U. S
Warships and the officers would like to come for,
invite people onto the, onto the carriers or the
warships. And of course the American sailors wanted to let off
steam in, in Hong Kong, in Muanchai,
So that was, but they were, you know, we all
recognized that it was the war we were not involved in, but we
sympathized enormously with them and they needed their breaks and they were happy,
happy, you know, welcome visitors. Okay, so let's
segue now from armed forces, albeit
in some really critical, critical
times in really interesting places. You start to think
about leaving the comfort, if I use that word
cheekily of the army and decide that actually you've had enough
of borders and revolutions, you're going to go
for the quiet life. When does that happen? Give me a fixed time wise.
That was when I was, in 1974,
I decided to quit the army. I was going to the army staff college which
was an important point in
officer's career to get to the staff college. And I was lucky enough to pass
the examination and get a nomination at staff college proved that I
wasn't, wasn't a dropout. But that for various reasons, family reasons, I, I.
Various reasons including family reasons. Yeah. That I, I left.
Had by then three small children and money
was tight. So yeah, a number of reasons I left.
So yeah, so I, I quit of my own volition
and which was a sad moment for me, but I launched myself
into the blue. 1974, if you do your thinking
history. It wasn't a good time to be looking for a job as a really
unqualified civilian. Yes. What's interesting, I'm
just thinking now you were changing
your entire Persona from
member of the armed forces looking at at
civie street. Yeah, I was just
coming out of 74,
75. I was in my final year at university.
Yeah. Wondering having already applied for job one,
wondering what on earth was going to happen. Because if I'm not mistaken,
74 was the minor strike, absolutely. Three day
week and all that stuff. Three day week. And I remember studying for my
final exams at LSE under candlelight.
I did, yes. That doesn't surprise me. It was a three day week and it
was really. So you coming out of here's me as a, as a
spotty kind of not, not
long teenager looking and thinking, what on earth is happening
to this country? And you'd come out of. After defending the country
and protecting it to, to, to disaster.
Yeah. I took it. It was like paradise. How I had the
courage to do it, it staggered me now because it wasn't, it wasn't good
timing. It wasn't. So what did you do when you first came out? Well,
I, I was offered a job. A job was lined up for me in a
financial services company. Would have been a disaster for me. I would have
been hopeless at that. Right. One of those sort of financial
advisory company. But. But as I left the army, I rang up my.
My friend and said, I'm out now. He said, oh, damn, I meant to call
you to say the job's off. I mean it was that. Oh no. Yeah. So
I was literally up the pedal, up this morning by the paddle. But to cut
a long story short, I ended up working, joining Imperial Tobacco
in the marketing of Imperial Tobacco. Ok, Imperial Tobacco then. Were
anybody's familiar with this? It was a really two big tobacco companies in, in
operating uk, British American Tobacco and Imperial Tobacco.
And way back in history they sort of carved up the world and Imperial
Tobacco stuck to UK and Imperial. BAT
were introduced. Were you doing any investigations in that role?
Well, not that I never knew what investigation was in those days,
but. But yes,
foreign intelligence was important because you had to know what was going on with the
other brands. I see. And so that's where you got your. First
whiff of probably literally, to coin the phrase. Yes, yes,
yes. I'm clearly my brain is not working because
I didn't really mean that. No, no, there you go. Yeah. I used to have
traveled all over Europe because it was. Well, I was a thing in
a thing called Imperial Tobacco International, which was a
small group of Imperial that was tasked with recovering brands from
BAT under some complicated arrangement. We had to take back some brands.
The BAT had to reluctantly hand these brands across to us and they were
pretty sort of low brands. Right. And we had to
not only take these brands back and learn to market them
in places, territories that we as a company were not familiar with, but then
also we were then licensed, as it were, to develop our own
international. Brand and did you. Did you come across any
skullduggery between brands and between
salespeople? Oh, yes, kickbacks and things like that.
There was a lot of that, but also, yes, intelligence. You needed
to know what the opposition were doing, the new brand they were
planning, or you need to have your ear to the marketplace to know
what was going on. And of course there is a tremendous trade
or was and still is, I'm sure, in contraband
cigarettes. So we had to fight the. The smugglers and the contraband.
So we became very adept. I could take a cigarette packet
apart very quickly and tell you whether it was real or not. So was. Was
marketing a pseudonym for foreign intelligence
investigations? Not really, no. Marketing. I was a straight
brand manager. I had a brand and my job was to market it,
really, from the whole market cycle of brand development to
packaging to advertising and blah, blah. But there were
departments in Imperial Tobacco and.
And I think bat that were operated on the ages of. Of.
I'm not going to say legality, but they had to deal with the. This
you fight the. The smugglers and the
counterfeiters and they were rather especially good. I wasn't in that, actually.
No. And where did you go from Imperial? What was next
stop? I had a moment of conscience
over tobacco. I had been a smoker as a young man, but by then
I wasn't a smoker, but I had smoked. I knew what they're all about.
And I learned a trick that smokers absolutely
infuriated other smokers. I could have a cigarette and enjoy it and not want another,
which was amazing. Still could if I wanted to, I suppose.
But then I left Imperial Tobacco and
joined a company called Heclo and Koch which made
guns. Gosh, you certainly. You couldn't
get rid of that sort of dangerous lifestyle, could you? From the
army to cigarettes that could. Turn into guns that do.
Ironic. Ironic, yes, it really was. And that was interesting because
I joined when I got the job. On the day of the Iranian embassy siege,
I was walking up, walking up St. James's street, having
decided in a meeting of Imperial Tobacco
brand managers or something in a big advertising agency in James's
Square, I suddenly felt, what a dopey subject
we're discussing. A lot of bright, intelligent, creative people and around a big table
looking at some advert for some young girl. We were pitching a
brand, 22 real girls or something. I thought, this is not right.
And I really had a sort of come to Jesus moment in that moment,
mentally, I left and decided, I've got. To go and sell guns. Well, no,
I didn't decide that at all. I decided to get out of it. Yes, below
it, but not far from it. And I walked up St. James's street and coming
down the road the other way was someone called Alistair Morrison
who was. And had been. He was being. He was in the Scott
Guards in Kenya and he'd been with the SAS
and done deeds of daring do in the SAS and very distinguished deeds of daring
do. He was one of the SAS officers who was sent by James
Callan to storm the aircraft in Mogadishu.
Kala Halid, the German Paris. Okay,
lady. So they came to him, SAS officers to. Well,
friend. He was coming down from James street and he said,
I've been trying to reach you. So I said, why aren't you in St. James's
Paris storming the embassy? He said, no, I left the SAS
and I've just joined Hecklin Koch and I've had permission to join, to get a
part partner to join me and I'd like you to join me. So I joined
Heckland Cock there and. Then with
real spontaneous. It was completely spontaneous. We walked into
a club in, in St James street, had had lunch, went around the corner
and their offices were in Piccadilly and I was signed up to Heckle and Cockville
and there. So for three years. It sounds as if there wasn't too much
HR protocol in those days. Oh, no, not on it there for three years.
Alice and I, interesting time at Heckland Cochrane. We
laugh about. Well, we don't laugh about gun, but we still just need
guns and good ones. And the Germans produce very good
weaponry. Selling to the British army at the Special
Forces. What did you learn that you hadn't learned before
out of your time at the gun factory? If
I can call it that, that. I hadn't learned that. What I did learn.
Yeah, but I learned a lot about Germans from Swabia. I won't be
about that. But the, the Swabish. Swabish are
very tough breed of people and
they make, among other things, they're very efficient and they produce this
extraordinary machine tool process. And in Novadorf
they, they build superb weapons.
Handguns. Yes. Do you have any, any pangs
of conscience in terms of who you were selling to and who the company did
business? No, no, I didn't. No, I didn't know. I
recognize that Buckingham Palestine needs new rifles,
so armies, police forces, other
agencies need weaponry, as we well know, and they needed
good weaponry and they needed. And we needed to put weaponry in
safe hands. But you were a private company you
weren't exactly a government deciding to support so were there not
dilemmas there in terms of do we sell arms here, do we not sell arms?
Yes, there were. I was level. Was probably above my pay grade at that point
but there was at the higher level in German
which politics kicked in and do you
sell guns, weapons to certain African countries or not? Was
there an incident that happened or was there a transaction that
you look back on now and you say I didn't feel comfortable with that.
I can't remember. It's a very good. Wish I could answer directly.
I don't remember in Hackercock any particular incident
but I do remember tensions over a certain African country
where we had been selling weapons and there was a regime
change and what you sold, you sold and then the
question of did we go on resupplying this, this. This regime?
And the answer I know was taken no enough. I
see, okay. Weapons were silver. I mean I'm not, I'm not applauding the trade
but no, but it's not like gun on arms dealing with. Which is
dealing, you know, with people and you careful of selling into
third parties because you sell to some in some
reasonable end user but you don't know what the end user is going to do
with it. Oh absolutely. So you and Alastair are together
there for how long? Three years. And then
who goes first? Alistair goes. Well we. We
plot to set up a company. We plot
to set up a company and Alison and I together
perceived of a company which we would now call it a private military company
but then they weren't so well established and recognized. Right.
PMCs, private companies, you've all heard of them in Iraq
and other places. Would I be right in saying
you understand now what the market is like in terms of manufacturing.
You also know who is buying it at the end game and
you saw an opportunity to add some value. Yes, absolutely
that right. And we also recognized which other people have done of
course over years, the value of British army training
and what that can bring to the party. So with our
concept was to set up a company drawing upon mainly
ex Special Forces but not entirely ex Special Forces, Royal Marine
Commandos, SAS and other
specialists, helicopter pilots and the rest and offer our services
to accompanies in difficult places. As for protective security
in the same way that is now massively common in
around the world. Right then it was so common you had mercenaries, real mercenaries who
are paid by foreign governments who gunslinged.
Did you ever get asked to train mercenaries and people like that, Patrick
or you can't Recall. I can't recall mercenaries. And if we did, we'd
be probably shied away from it. But we trained foreign
security services. Yes, we worked a lot in Angola
for De Beers and De Beers had sort of
vast enormous areas of.
Of Angola where they were. Had gold mines and
they had to protect the gold mines and the illegal gold
smuggling and they had to have their own sources
and we did train them and that that's was. Was
helpful because they could be out of control and they had. They
were armed and we brought, I like to think an area of
sort of self discipline and command and control
in. In those days. Did you have to be licensed by the
government and things like that in this country? Not. No, no. The
whole, whole issue when it comes to investigation world. But. But no, we didn't have
to be licensed. And so did you have. Did you and
Alistair ever have again, that pang of conscience
or someone comes to you and says, I don't know, a diamond company, I
won't use the DB and say, look, these people are doing
this. And you two sit down and think, well, I don't feel
comfortable about it. Definitely. Absolutely. It happened.
Africa is usually the place that happened. And
we took some decisions that were commercially attractive, but. But
morally we felt, and commercially dangerous. And is
there anything that happened where you were all in good conscience? You
said, and you made a decision saying, on balance, I think this is the right
thing to do. And then turned out that you'd made a. Not
horrific, but you'd made a decision that you didn't feel comfortable about.
Good question. I did. I don't recall. Not that we were perfect,
but I don't recall. But we did have four of our people kidnapped in.
In Angola. Wow. So we obviously made
not a mistake between we put people in harm's way there and they were
kidnapped. And I was not directly
involved because I was running our Middle east business by then. But. But Alice, I
had to go through a lot of negotiation to get them back, which he
did. Was it a ransom kind of request or something?
Yes, it was ransom. Right. And also
it was for. We were working for De Beers at the time, I think, so
they obviously were our masters. And so between us, we. We got
them back safely, but it was, I think it was more, you know,
don't mess with us sort of thing, you know, a shot across our bars.
I see. Okay. They got out okay. But that was. Was
edgy and out of. Right. And how long were you in the PMC
for? For about three years. And then that took Me,
we work in Africa, as I said, but we also worked in. In the Middle
East. And I went home, ran our Middle east business. So we set
up in. We had a little headquarters in Cyprus, but then
we had a joint venture in Jordan, in Amman, in Georgia. Okay.
And there we teamed up with the former
deputy chief of the General staff, who'd been retired from the general staff and
he'd become the commissioner of police. And then he left with police
joining in, obviously. And a very senior man. He was a general in the police,
in the army. And he set up his own security company.
And we teamed up with him as a joint venture. Again
bringing together to ask, because every other location
you've been in, there's been a crisis. What was going on in the. In the
Middle east while you were there? This is in the.
In. Well, the Iran Iraq war was going on.
I see. Okay. And that was edgy because
it wasn't my business. But, you know, it wasn't the business I was in.
But. But weapons would be reaching the. The various
sides in that conflict. And a lot of it was going
through places like Oman.
Right. But our job was
protective security. We tried to stick to that. And we got a
job protecting the US Embassy in Amman
provided this morphed into dsl.
It was dsl. Yeah. And
so I covered the whole region. I was based in Jordan, but
also I was working in Dubai and Bahrain.
Yes. Little outpost. And in
Bahrain, I secured a contract with the US
Embassy there to provide a third guard force. In other words,
they had their US Marines inside, were themselves
targets, and the local forces outside. But
they wanted a third force, the buffer force. I see Green.
And I came up with the suggestion of Gurkhas,
former Gurkhas. And they didn't know much about Gurkhas, the US
security apparatus, but I convinced them of the value. So I
found myself going off to northern India and Nepal
and recruiting former Gurkhas, British army and Indian Army.
Gurkhas. Right. And the gunk is a very special soldiers,
as you know. Yeah. You must have seen them in place in Hong Kong and
other places. And I not being a former Gurkha
officer, because they had British officers in the Gurkhas, as you know.
But this is again, a very special edge between Gurkha
soldiers and their British officers, which is very close bond.
And I wasn't one of those. But the fact that I had been a British
army officer and I could wear. Enabled you to bring the
group together. Yeah. So I arrived with a sort of
law of friendship and
authority and I recruited 100 Gurkhas and marched
them, as it were, to Bahrain. And Seth, any particular incident that you
can think of that an impenetration of
the. The security setup that was worthy of
note while you were protecting people? No. You see,
you're longing for me to find some sort of bombshell out of the.
No. Because we did a good job. They got very good. The only thing they
weren't allowed to carry their cookies, the big knives they had.
That was a step too far. That was a. No. No. Okay. No, no. Yeah,
that was scared. Anybody? So let's, let's move closer
to the transition from DSL
into both Kroll and the UK because I know
that's where you went next. So tell me a little bit about that
transition and how it happened. Well, that's
a strange story in a way. I was working in Jordan, as I said, and
with these Jordanian partners. And there was a young man
there, a Jordanian who became rent. A very close friend.
And he said to me one day we've had a request from. From an American
to learn a bit about a hijack that had happened.
I think a Kuwaiti Airways jet. Well,
I can't remember the airline, Middle east airline jet had been
taken off in I think Kuwait and landed
Dubai and taken off again when it was hijacked
and hijacked and taken to Iran
Tehran airport where the combination was that the
U. S. Pilot was shot dead. Wow, horrible
experience. And that's. I think the background to this was a
lawsuit in the States against the airline by the
families, I think. So they needed to understand where the weaponry had come
on. You can imagine how for legal. But you're the lawyer.
The legal. Legalizes of how this came about for insurance and
etc. So the Jordanians said they
think they. The Americans think we know everything. We certainly don't. And you know Dubai
better than we do. So go to Dubai and try and get to the bottom
of it. And I was able to do that through my contacts in Dubai.
I won't go into it, but I. I got the answer. They were looking. Well,
an answer which was very valuable. So I wrote that,
wrote up that report and gave it to my Jordanian friends. But they might put
my confidence. There's a report. This report found its way
by securities means to the desk of one Jules Crow in New York.
Whereupon Jewel said who wrote that? And the American said I have no
idea. Some Britain. And Jules was representing one of the
parties. He was representing, I suppose the lawsuit.
Yes. Yeah. So he found this report, but land on his desk. And it was
a very compelling report, apparently. And so, as it were,
they pulled the threads in and I was on the end. Right, you're on the
other end. Are you able to tell us anything about how you track
down the supplier without, of course,
compromising? I. I can't. I can't. I. I
had in Dubai because my job was security.
I had very close contacts with the. The
senior intelligence officers, UAE intelligence officers, and they
were. They're very helpful. I can't go beyond that.
Okay, we got the answer. So. So Jewels apparently said, I want to
beat this guy, right? So I was tracked down. And I still have somewhere
in a Filofax, a message I received
long before. We only had telex in those days. Called Mr.
Crow C R O W.
So I. I got this message, I don't know how. So I called
Mr. Crow in New York. And this telephone answer the search.
I said, can I speak Mr. Crowe? They say, Do, Mr. Crowell. I said, well,
maybe. And then I found myself being bidden to New
York by Jules Crow. I hope he flew you first class. Patrick
did come and meet me, so I was intrigued. Did he fly
you first class? I don't remember his first class, but
when choose a style. He probably did, but I don't remember. But I
certainly. I was intrigued. Of course, I took time out, went to New
York, went into this funny little office in. On third Avenue, which
was above the. The place where they tried to murder
Gotti. Literally, a little Italian cafe in the floor bars,
great location, which is a small office, 20 people in a small office, where
I met Jules and. And other Crow characters who still
around today, I guess. What did you know. What did you know about the.
The private investigation industry at that stage?
Anything? Absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing.
So when you went to see Mr. Crow, it
was just a kind of again, spontaneous decision,
saying, I may as well got nothing to lose. Let's go and talk to him.
Absolutely. But I said to Jules, I said, look, I've got a job with
dsl. It's all going fine. And he sort of said, don't worry about that. We'll
fix it. So it was complicated. And we happily
negotiated with Alice and my partners. Jules wanted me to join them.
So I said to my partner, so that's what I want to do. So I
joined Crow, left dsl, joined Crow.
I couldn't come back to England for tax purposes, so I was in Paris for
six months working for Crow
on and off. I mean, I was retained by them, and I didn't do very
much or it wasn't asked to do very much. And then I
found my way back to London where they just sent across
someone called Dan Carson, a lawyer working with
ex prosecutor working for Crone in New York to put a stake
into uk, right. And he was one man and
a secretary in Leadenhall street, just behind the bank of England.
I pushed the door open and there was this chap looking rather like Woody
Allen actually remind me saying that opening a box. And he said,
who are you? And I said I'm Patrick Grayson, I work for Crow. And he
said, well, so do I open that box. You know, that was the beginning of
my time in Crow in London. Then Dan.
Dan Carson, that didn't. Really wasn't confident in London,
but he did a good job. So we get the thing right. Then he said
as soon as he could, he handed the parcel to me and said I'm off
leaving me. And was there. Was there like a. I don't know,
a rule book, a guidebook that said Investigations 101. This
is what you do. You pick up the phone. No, no, no. On
job. It's an extraordinary time for me, an extraordinary break for me
because I was given a carte blanche by Jules
with vague control from New York. I don't picked
up a few tricks along the way, but we were very much to own
devices. Jewel used to come across a lot and take me to meetings with him.
And I learned the spiel from Jules.
Who were you targeting? Was it anybody that would talk to you or was there
a particular focus? Yes, because Jules, you see by that point he'd
become Wall Street's private eye. I see.
There was then an article in the New York Times, I think
suddenly a headline. Jules with his feet on a desk and a big cigar and
his big suspenders. Right. Wall street paradigm. Jules had
perceived of the investigators. Not men in shadows or women
in shadows. Men dressed up. I happen to be
suit and tie now. So we were suddenly dressed up and acceptable
in the boardrooms of Wall street. And Jules was. And it was already then
becoming the word of
mouth that if you had a hostile beard in a acquisition
or something or some big problem investigation. The person you called with
Jules Crow. And that's where he started.
But then he entrusted to me,
but potentially entrusted to me the
carving out the space in London. So that was carving out new territory. And this
comes back to the. We talked of the whole
industry. That's the right word. Sector that now is occupied by
a massive number of players. There were other players here There was people, you
know, Mike coma of network. He was already on the
ground doing sort of work. John Ferris Smith of Arjun. But
they were doing it rather low profile. Right. Jules is up there.
Yeah. And he was definitely out there and up there.
So what was the first big investigation that you got involved
with in Crow? Well, when I
joined we were looking at baby Dr. Vallier,
baby Doc. Wow. Baby doc. And tell me a
bit about that scenario. Well, I, I fell into that. Dan Carson, who
was very clever when he was in London still before he
hightailed it back to back to uk he was I think
running the case from London. So I learned a lot from him and essentially we
were doing asset tracing on his ill gotten gains from the,
the people of Haiti and, and he'd stashed it all around the
world. So you were acting for the, for the government of hate of
Haiti at the time? Yes, yes. Kind of looking, kind of. It was
very complicated. But yeah, we were tasked to try and find where he
stashed the assets. Right. So you know, I'm going to ask you, Patrick,
that you're not going to get away with just that. What. Tell me a bit
about what you were able to do because this is not, you
know, high tech. How did you go about this exercise? What,
what was involved? Well, this was. Remember
talking about 1986 before the days of
the, the Internet and, and then it was still
was and actually remains today still a lot of, of
foot. Foot shoe leather. Yeah.
Force intelligence was the key to it. So we
had to work very hard. We had something called Nexus and Lexus was the only
sort of database we had this those days. So it was all
heart finding sources, finding substantractors,
knowing where the bodies as it were, might lie, the
assets might lie and developing human resources to go and
get the answers. So it was men in Mobuto, men
in women, sources in Monte
Carlo, sources in Geneva, sources in Switzerland. You had to find these
sources and proper intelligence work of
winkle out of them to the extent of their knowledge. And people often know a
lot more than they think they know. So you've got to sort of see. Behind
was there a particular, not a name? Because I, I know
you well enough by now you're not going to say, yes, it was Mr. Smith
who lived at 19, whatever it is, but an
individual that, that either
for their own reasons or for other reasons, opened
the door either a little or a lot and gave you access
to a real
cachet of assets. Yes, there was.
And that was in Monaco
who we. I can't remember how we could find him. Him.
Doesn't matter how you found him. Yeah, yeah, he, he.
I. We had a name for a code name for him. I can't remember what
it was, but he was the, the, the bird
we needed to sing. And he was very, very helpful
with, with them. I can talk if you talk more about asset tracing settlement,
same as another one, which I was much more clear. Was this fellow
for Papa Dot? Was he your classic
intermediary? Absolutely was. He was incorporating companies,
opening bank accounts, that kind of thing. Yeah, that kind of man In, In
Monaco. In Monaco. He. He. He was a
open. A Pandora's box for us. And that was a big
breakthrough in Tavadock. Did you, did you. Were you the one that
got the information from him or was it one of the team? No, it was
subcontractor. We did it through sub, sub. Subcontractors. Okay.
But it was. Just tell me, in those scenarios. Yeah. Everybody,
particularly when you, you see so many movies, everybody is
concerned about the information being trapped back to them
and them being. Of course. Yes. How does that work? How
do you protect that person? First of all, you have to be very conscious
of. Well, what, what's their motivation for telling you? First of
all, backing up. I have all had a philosophy that
secrets, Secrets are not secrets. In certain
places, every secret is a secret. But in some places, not a secret.
Yeah. A man's secret is from his affairs may be secret
to his family, but not to the men in the golf club sort of thing.
A crude example. So you need to identify where the secret is not a
secret. I see the office of the producer. It's not a secret. And then
secretaries know, the people know they were dealing with. You need to identify the
little sort of buzzbox of where the secret is. And that's a
task in itself. Then you need to, to. To
find somebody who knows that and you've got to find that person
who, who would have the, the
means and the motivation to share that. Right. Perhaps
unknowingly. So it's against the game, perhaps just. Because of boasting
about, oh, I act for so and so. And I opened an account. I see.
Yes. And you had to be. You know, we, you know, my. All the trade.
I've been in this business, we try and do it right. It's not
big brown envelopes. It's often you can find a motivation that isn't.
You don't feel uncomfortable about. Right. If you're, if you're paying someone to
breach their fiduciary duties and so on. You're in dangerous areas
there for them and ethically for you. And
in the being, of course a man that lives and has
lived in the various court systems. With the Papa Dot case,
was there was this totally out with the
legal court system or was it a combination of legal action?
Combination. Combination. We know
because you and I work together the, the best.
We always said in, in, in, in. In my, my business, if
we can work alongside a law firm, it gives a much greater power and
capability. Of course. And, and the strategy can be so much
better. I mean investigators who go wild
can get into real trouble. Yeah. I mean not. You just get to get it
wrong. We have to be guided by. But I
like to be guided by law firms. But something as big as Papa Doc
clearly would have had international political
implications. And was there was. Were there times in that
case where you were able to as it
were, call in aid some
of the government who were affected
by Papa Doc who wanted to help you? Yep. Well,
if I could switch the conversation from Pav Dog who I which I wasn't
central to. Okay. Into a similar
case of Saddam Hussein. In the Iraq where you were central to. Oh, absolutely.
Yeah. Right. Okay. Yeah. That became later. So I was
a bit of a newborn the block in the value days. So that's why I'm
a little hazy. But very much under my watch we got
the assignment. And here I talk about how we
as a company CROW worked,
probably do still do in the United states, often for U.S.
agencies. U.S. agencies are far more inclined to recharge
the private sector in the United States than in this
country and probably elsewhere in Europe. Help me here. What
chronological timing are we talking about? How long after Saddam
Hussein was toppled or war? No, this was, this was the height of the
Iraq of the war. The height of the war. And the American
forces and the allied forces are bombarding. Absolutely.
Height of the war. And we were, we were retained by
the ofac, the Office of Foreign Asset Control,
which is the task on behalf of the Kuwaiti
government to go after the
supply financial supply stream to the Iraqis. They were
being funded. Right. And where was. How are they funding
here? Because there were a lot of forces that were trying of
financial process to try and discover where the
source was, how are they getting the money in and out.
And we were tasked to do it. It was a global assignment forum for
crow, but we were playing central in UK
with Europe on our doorstep. And we soon
identified Saddam Hussein's brother, Tarzan
Alta Criti, who died, was killed
later on and he was Saddam's brother in law, I
think. Yes. And he was the United nations
ambassador. Ambassador based in Geneva.
That was his quote role, unquote. But he was
actually operating in Geneva.
Siphoning out the funds. Exactly, yeah. So that's. We had to discover who
he was tasking, who he's dealing with and
we had him under surveillance. Right. Again, surveillance
is a whole subject so people get twitchy. But I'm. I'm quite
clear in my mind about surveillance, its values and its risks and its dangers.
Right there. There's obviously verified reason to see
who he, he was meeting and who he was dealing with. So
bearing in mind as a foreign country, we had to conduct ourselves properly, but we
had him under surveillance to be able to track down who he was meeting
in the lobbies of the hotels of Geneva. Right. And
that was quite a, you know, extensive exercise and not
cheap exercises as you well know. And
also source intelligence about the scuttleback in the communities of
gen neighbor, the gossips and the restaurants and hotels. You know, we
really got under the skin of the Geneva community to find out how
this man was living and working in. In Geneva under
you know, auspices that were plainly
concocted and what he was doing. And we managed
to discover, I won't name it, but the Fiduciaire Company
that was the, the junction point. Right.
Did that by. Were there many of those
junction points? This was an absolutely major junction
point. It was like a major terminal and there were
local Swiss mansions and otherwise. On the
face of it, legitimate and well respected organization.
Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. And that we absolutely nailed it. That they
were the organization that was funding it. And then what we discovered
in passing was that amongst other things they had
been instrumental in taking a very large
slice of Hachette, investing a various. Under
investing in a large size of the French publishing company Air Group
Hachette. And that became public
whether by intent or mistake. I probably by intent.
It was announced that it had been discovered that Saddam Hussein had
80% of Hachette sizable
mistake in her shed. But of course in the middle it really hit the
headlines. And did the name of the middleman ever get
revealed in the litigation or in the criminal prosecution? Yeah, yeah,
yeah. He his name. Well, the aftermath, you're going to ask me, but I don't
fully know the aspect because like a lot of these things in our business, one
of the frustrations is when you've done the hard work, it sort of goes into
you, into the legal sort of
world and you never quite hear the outcome and it takes a long time.
So the question was whether the Kuwait is ever recovered. What they should have done
is a good question. And. And the answer probably they didn't do
act as they should have done, thus forcing. Well, you've got. So you've got that.
You've got what he took from Kuwait, but then you've got what he was
squirreling away Iraq for many, many, many
years. Yes. And we discovered a lot. Lot clearly this, this fiduciary
company. We discover a lot about the fiducia company.
I just asked you and you said yes, it was named. Are you. Are you
unable to mention the name of that company? I don't feel
comfortable to do so. You don't? Okay. No, no. Okay.
And do they still exist to this day?
I don't know. I see. No, I think that they did
become public, I think. And did they. Did
anyone get prosecuted for that or you just don't know? I don't know the answer
to that. But what I do know is that Hachette were
deeply embarrassed by this and it caused a major
for all. And I had an interesting aside about
this because I was in New York about this time and I went to a
social event in New York with a friend of mine and as I arrived at
the door, she took me to one side, said, by the way, just so you
know better because it's all in the news over the corner there, the North
American head of Hachette. So I said, okay, fine.
So what. He was then introduced to me and I said,
I'm crow thinking he would be elegant
in sort of whatever. He grabbed his wife's
hand and as only French can, he flounced out,
left the party. I just want to say it was not my fault,
but it was rather funny at the time. And do you recall at
all the amount of the value of that which you
were able to either track and. Or recover?
Ah, Gary, I'm going to fail you. I. I don't know. Okay,
that's fine. But that was an interesting. That was a pretty. That was a pretty
impressive scalp for the Grayson belt, if
I may use that expression. Yes, yes, it was.
And the next one, it was me. And
one of my people in London who, you know. Yeah. Who.
Who did that. So that, that was a. That
was a what I call a major set piece investigation. The
whole firm was involved in that one way or another. It was a
major. Was there any. Any other investigation that was
difficult to find something as high profile? But what was the
next high profile investigation that you were
engaged In. Involved with.
Well, over time, we. We did a lot of work on Poly Peck.
Oh, with Nazare Nazuladia. Yes.
Both before and after. He did a runner from
his office in. Just by the corner of Barclays Square.
Yeah. Hidden in a. I can't remember, In a fruit bat box or something. Is
that right? Yes, he did. Around. Yes, yes. And then we followed him
to Northern Cyprus, where.
Anyway, that was a set piece
exercise. Can you tell us anything about
what happened in that. That you can
anonymize other than in. Somebody said this. And we were
able to then track him to a particular location.
No, actually, I'm feeling. I can't. No, no,
it's okay. Yeah, but
it was. We sort of knew it was happening before. Before the.
The whatnot hit the fan. We were very aware of what was going down.
So for some reason, I can't remember quite why we had him under surveillance at
the time. Right. And we missed the time that he
did a runner from. I can't what airport he got away from,
but, Yeah, I.
No, I'm not. My memory is not good. And I know we're
getting closer, the witching hour, but. Yeah. And we'll have to
concertina things, but you go, you leave Kroll.
You've done your time and you've had at least a
couple of huge investigations, and then you decide
that you want to have your own shop. Yes,
yes. And you do with. You do that with
the blessing of the man of. Of jk. Yeah, perfectly
agreeable. Yeah. And you start a company
called gpw. No, that book, that came later, actually. Oh,
okay. I am. When I left Crow, I set up a
small company called cx. Oh, that's right.
With a colleague of mine from. From Crow. Right. And we were there together
for two years, and then for various reasons, we split. And I spent a
period of time then operating entirely independently as an
independent consultant, because then I knew pretty much all
the heads of all the companies in London by then there'd been a
starburst of other companies look alikes from Krill,
and it was healthy because competitors were.
Nothing is more complimentary than a competitor or imitator. And
they're all over the place. And you know a lot of them, and I think
you probably interviewed some of them for this program. And
so I operated healthily,
my business. I was the person that if people knew of me, they came to
me first, they being clients, institutions,
investment banks, law firms, even said, here's this issue.
Where can we get the best value for our buck in
this sector, you. Were the respected broker. Yes,
I was. So I knew how to interpret a client's need
into language that investigation firm would understand and get the best value. So
yeah, I was on occasion tasks to go out and get
investment bank in New York said to me gave me a task that we want
four quotes for this work. So I went to names I can name went
to Kroll, Alico, Confro, Wrists and
Hacklered individual like getting quotes for a building site
and then was able to assess those
and make recommendations and the clients acted upon my recommendations
and that and I took my fee from the client and also backhanded
and so I did that. But then you got itchy feet and you. Or
itchy backside and you said I needed to get out there again. Not itchy
feet, I got curl feet. Always.
Operating by yourself as anybody who's done it will know that it's. It's good news
and bad news. It's quite. So I decided to.
To set up my own company again. So I moved to an office in the
West End. Yeah. And found myself bumping in, literally bumping into
two colleagues from Crow. They're still at Crow but I discovered they leaving Crow
and they were younger than me and, and. And I had the.
Some. Some age and some experience and a book of business
and they had young men leaving Crow decided to
find a landing pad and I was a landing pad and they were. They have
a gpw. Peter Pender,
if you had to pick. One particular
investigation that you did with your GPW hat on that you
can tell us a little bit about, which one would that be?
Ah, let me think. Oh, we did so many things
there. We. We got to be involved. Well can
I mention a couple of. Yeah. You've talked months
before about moral judgment
and there's some cases that we did at GPW when we really had
to make a. Take a. A view on the moral morality of what we
were doing. But you need to flesh it out because I understand
everyone's got moral dilemmas. Well one actually
this Crayola. We took a decision here. We were working
for a come for a law class action suit
representing the victims of
asbestosis. Yeah. And that was
people were dying of asbestosis through monstrous
misbehavior on behalf of the. Of the companies involved. And
our job was to try and track down the asbestosis sufferers
and get them together. And of course became very apparent to us
that the client actually was dragging their
heels was the asbestosis claimants were dropping dead rather
quickly. So there was Suddenly impetus to get these
people get. Move the case along
while they were still alive and well enough to benefit from the, from
the event. And it was a real issue to us that
the. The other side. But this was still at Kroll. I wanted you
to have a sonnet at gpw. Yeah, well, there was a. One case
was we were working for a major lawsuit for. On a
lawsuit for a UK
bank and the other party was a. A Russian
oligarch, a name familiar to many of us.
And we had to serve him papers which was
absolutely critical in the whole case. And he like many of
those people was surrounded by serried ranks of bodyguards and very well
conducting protection. And it took us six
months to serve him, to find the moment when we could throw the
documents into his hand. But we knew any day of the week
we record him in London taking his kids to
school. We knew where he lived and we knew where he took him
to. And this man, to his credit was in the
habit of taking little kids to school in a London street. Yes.
Would have been easy as pie to go and serve him over
his little kid's head. Right. We feel very, very uncomfortable about that
and we took our own decision. No, we're not going to do that
and we're going to tell the client if we don't feel comfortable. And to their
credit, the client said, you're right, we don't want it done on our watch.
So I felt good about that and the fact. How did you serve
him by hurling? Well, I. Not
personally. We penetrated the security
team, distracted them and
he was getting into his car in a certain well known
place and the man just got through the security
cordon, opened the door and handed it a paper and he took it.
Okay, you've got to tell me what the distraction was. That can't be a
secret. Well, did they cause a. I think
a bicycle fell over. A bicycle? The motorbike
fell over. So a staged pretend accident. Exactly. It was
really well done. And the car stopped and everyone goes. To
help the poor victim. And then you nip in and you serve the
rascal. Well, there's an interesting. You see that the. The security staff of
the man went to help the victim. What they should have done was ignored him.
But that's. That's natural instinct. Natural,
yeah, exactly. We played on their good instincts, poor things, and they fell for
itself. There's a bit of a game. Were those English proceedings you were
serving or. In this town
around me here. Okay, now we're getting really close
to the witching hour. Sorry I want to ask you,
have you ever been
cross examined in court as a result of investigation
activities that you or the company you were involved in?
Has that been something you've had the displeasure of facing? No,
never. Myself I think we have provided
expert witnesses on occasion. Right. In.
In my cruel days, we also vested in
investigated the death of the Italian banker.
Help me. Oh God's banker.
God's banker. Under Blackfriars Bridge. Blackfriars Bridge.
And we were investigating his. His supposed suicide
and our person, I can name him, Jeff Katz, he's
now sadly died. He had to give a bad witness in that
because he'd done a very deep. Well, we managed a very deep
investigation but he was my case manager on that. You even had
a model in the office of the Blackfires Bridge and
it's scavenging and Jeff had to give witness statement in
court. But not you. You've never been cross examined?
No, luckily I wouldn't want. Wouldn't you? You on the other
side either? Well, sadly, because
I'm you know, just a poor relation of the barristerial
solicitorial combination. I'm always there sitting
comfortably as it were while the barrister does the real heavy lifting.
Before we part company, at least on this
program, let me just
throw something that
often is asked of people who have been in the
business as long as you have. As
Frank Sinatra would say, regrets? I have a few.
Yeah. Not
many. I've enjoyed very much my career in
this but I think that.
I think that I could have if I'd
stuck with the smaller companies and grown them more rapidly. Yeah.
More cannily. Not cannily, very more cannily. I could have
been probably more successful. Right. You mean
financially? Yes, well in every way. I mean GPW
became too big right. Quickly, which is a pity. We
started a small company, just three partners and a very small team
and we were doing very well but we overstretched ourselves and got too many people
and then had to downside which was really bad and that was a
mistake and I learned that mistake. So I
would have been small and lean
and I think, I mean the company CX that I set up would. Go as
foundation so small, lean and mean and not get
tempted by being too big. That's right. That's right.
Is that the advice that you would give to people starting. I would,
yes, absolutely. Know young people who've been
worked with many people and I'm proud to say that many of the people I've
worked with have now gone on to great success and it's A matter of
pride to me. And the ones who. Till today, I've got half a dozen,
probably half a dozen I know well, who are operating very well by
themselves. And can
you throw up. Throw up a name or two. I probably know them. Who would
it be that you say? They've kept it lean, kept it meant,
and they've got a real solid and successful business. Well, there's a
girl called Jessica. Jessica
from Crow. Jessica Miller. Jessica Miller. Yep. Your
name say Jessica Miller, who is with us. One of our
star players at Crow. No, no, no to
gpw. I see. Okay. And she set up herself and she's done very
well indeed. And she's got lots of languages, this young lady, which
helps. And she's done terribly well by herself.
And of course, Aliko did very well. But they were not necessarily your
disciples or. They were. Oh, very much so, yes.
So that was the obvious answer because they've just been bought out by
private equity. Yes, they have. Yeah. Well, they. I mean,
I can say it because they were. You may be interviewing some
Amber. Amy Lishinski. Yeah. Who just retired from. From.
From Grow. She was one of my first American
implants, or exports, whatever you want to call it, from the United States. And
she arrived in London when she was 26 years old and became one of my
star players in London. I also employed, at about the same time,
Ambrose Carey. I hope, Patrick, that when she
signed an Ambrose on the dotted line for all of that
money, which I know nothing about, but other than it must have been a king's
ransom, that she raised a glass to Patrick Grace. And I just
hope she did that. I. She did, actually. Excellent
on that. I'm very, very proud of them. There is no
nicer, happier note to end
a wonderful sojourn
through the very small smatterings of the
life of. Of Patrick. I'm sure there's many more, much more
to be covered, but what a lovely point to
end the success of others that came through
and were guided by you. There is no better feeling. So,
Patrick, thank you so much for sharing some of your
journey with me, and I'm really
grateful and I wish nothing but
continued success for Patrick and whatever you're doing.
It'd be my pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you, my friend.
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