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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.
What makes a good investigator a good investigator? And
I think it boils down to a few things.
One of them is just natural curiosity, you know,
you just can't replace that. And then the other test I had is,
oh, the client himself was the client. So
the person who perpetrated the fraud. Oh, my God. Tell
me the most dangerous life
threatening scenario you were, you were faced with in
Mexico. So we were working for a
very large drinks manufacturer.
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 want to welcome today a good friend of mine who has
been in this business for, well, almost as long as I have,
and he has been with some of the leading investigative
houses both here and in the
USA, namely Kroll and K2, and has
now recently started yet another incarnation of
his career with Forward Global, which we'll hear about
in a little while. But Charlie, welcome, long time no
see. And I want to ask you this question.
What would you have been had you or would like to have been had you
not been an investigator extraordinaire?
Actually, I don't think I could think of a better job
for me than the one I doing. But if I had to
do something else, I began my life
really interested. And in fact, the way I entered into this industry
was through the art market. I always thought I wanted to be in
the art world. I was doing research
for an art dealer on Bond street at the time
and this friend called me up and said, well, could you help us track this
Picasso? And actually a
huge bit of luck, which you need in investigations. I
said, yeah, for sure, I can track it. I had no idea. But then I
just walked past the gallery on Cork street and there it was in the window.
And so I went back to my Kroll contact and I said, I think I
found it. So,
you know, how does it end up in the shop window of a legitimate art
dealer? Yes, well, it's a good story actually, because
what had happened is the client of Kroll at that time was a
Spanish individual and he
was doing an insurance fraud. So he declared the
painting had been stolen, meanwhile trying to collect the
insurance. Meanwhile, he'd smuggled it through customs
into the UK to resell through a
third party, and it ended up in a Cork street gallery,
unbeknownst to the gallery that had Been stolen with
fake providence. And. And I happened to come along,
but they'd hired Kroll to show to the insurance company
that they were doing all they could to investigate.
So you were the insurance. Were the insurers your client at that time?
Oh, the client himself was the client. So
the person who perpetrated the fraud. Oh, my God.
So he was using you as a means of pretending.
Thinking we would never find it. Thinking we would never find it.
And there's. What do you do when you found it? And suddenly
the game's up. I mean, of course we have to get rid of our
clients, and you do yours from time to time, but what was that
confrontation like when you said you were lying son of a gun?
Well, at that time, I was aged, like, 24 years old. So I see
turn to my boss and say, what the hell do we do in this situation?
And I do remember the client's face just went white when we said
we found it. And I think the bosses at the time at Kroll
actually ended up reporting it at the police. Right? Yeah. And did the
guy do any time for trying to.
I think he had stayed in Spain after that, so I don't think
he really. But I don't know what happened in the end.
Okay, so that was. That was my introduction to Kroll at the time. Okay,
but before that, you didn't have any inclination
or were towards investigation? Were you dreaming of becoming an
actor in Hollywood or something at the time or not? I mean, I had
no idea. I mean, literally no idea. I studied theology at
university. Theology. Okay. Where did you go at
uni? Exeter University. Okay. People say to me,
you know, that's a strange choice, theology. How does it relate to
what you do today? However, there is a relationship.
When you're studying the New Testament or any
Testament, old or new, you're dealing with fragments of pieces
of information, and when you try and reconstruct those.
And so one of the courses I did at university was the Quest for the
Historical Jesus. And so you're working
with texts from all different sorts of sources and
periods, and you've got layers of philosophy and
theology and sociology laid on top. And
as an investigator, you have to work out what's the truth.
So it's very similar in the end. I have to say,
though, Charlie, you're the only person that
I certainly. On podcasts, but I cannot
think of anyone else I've spoken to that has done theology. So
when you're at your school, your secondary school, and you're
sitting there looking at your O levels. And you're discussing with Mum and
Dad, what should I do at uni once I've done my A levels?
How do you end up with theology? Well, I
loved history. I see. And to be quite honest, it was easier
to get into Exeter with theology than it was history.
History is always very popular, isn't it? Yeah. So theology,
the grade requirement was a bit lower and I knew Exeter was a good
university, so I thought, wow, it's close to history,
right. Why not? Let's give it a go? And I actually loved it. And you
were pleasantly surprised. Yeah. Well, it's philosophy, history,
religion, it's all very interesting. And then when you
graduate, what's your very first paid job after
graduation? I moved to Spain because my
father gave me one piece of advice. Learn a
language. So I went to. After
university, I went to. Because there's no job. I wasn't going to be a priest
or anything, so I went to Spain and I started
learning Spanish. And I think the first job I got was teaching
English as a second language. Whereabouts in Spain did you go? In
Madrid. In Madrid. So I spent nearly two years in
Madrid doing that and I had about eight different jobs.
Trying to make a living, not supported by the family. You were
on your own, Jack, basically, were you? No. I mean, once you finish
uni, you're done. Right, okay. So your parents. Your parents sound
like they're a bit like me. When. Once you finished education, guys, you're on your
own. Yes. Yeah. So we were living. We were living in a one bedroom
apartment with three people in it in Madrid, 92
to 94. So it was a fantastic time
and great experience. And I learned Spanish and
one of the jobs I got actually was working for an art dealer
in Madrid. I see. Okay. And then. So when I came back to
London, I started working in the art
world, thinking I'd like to do that. And then I got that case
with. With this friend from. From Croll at the time, and then they offered me
a job. And so I did that wonderful case at the first.
First piece of. First assignment. And then they must
have thought you had the golden touch, Charlie. You hadn't even got a proper job
yet. Well, in Croll in those days, it
was a really interesting environment. In London, So
you had some of the greats. You had Abe Bendor, who was
former head of Shin Bet. You had Michael Oatley, who was
former head of MI6 Europe,
Patrick Grayson, Tommy Helsby, Charles
Ogilvy, Forbes, Ray Adams, I think you know
the policeman John Cunningham.
So it's an amazing cast of characters. And then they
gave me my first research assignment and they go,
well, you did this great case. And then this piece of work is so bad,
they put me on. They put you on probation. They put me
on double probation. Well,
it shows that if you came back from double probation,
Charlie, and made the career that you have, it shows that
if nothing else, you've got resilience. So what?
It's a really interesting point. What's your fairy dust?
What is it that you believe has got you through all of these,
these ups and downs in life and that people look at or that
you are you that's able to distinguish you from most
other investigators? I mean, it's a, it's a super
question. And I've asked myself, and
when I work with people and I've hired lots of people over the years,
what makes a good investigator a good investigator? And
I think it boils down to a few things.
One of them is just natural curiosity. You know,
you just can't replace that. And then the other test I had is you
take the work home with you. You're not asked to do it. You have
to solve the problem. You know, so I often wake up at two in the
morning in those days or even today. Oh
my gosh, that piece of information suddenly occurred
to me. And so if you've got that mindset, you will
crack a lot of cases. And I'm not sure that can be taught
or you can train people up. But if you have that little
curiosity and this scratch that won't disappear, which
is very much like, I'm sure we'll talk about Mike Comer, but Mike Comer
was the all time guru in that. He would wake up at
all night long and study a problem. You know, he wasn't getting paid
for it. It was just a pure passion. So I think if you have that
little ingredient, it can take you a long way
in this industry. That sounds like a constant
theme. Everybody that I've spoken to uses the C word.
Curiosity. Yeah. Nosiness, yeah.
They're all different dimensions of the same
sort of leaning and, and DNA. It's
almost in our DNA when we. I can't accept
it can't be done. I can't accept from me that I
can't get to the end of a particular problem or whatever. And I think
that's what drives investigators. Did that come from,
from anything that your mom and dad did as jobs or whatever? Did
they have any relationship to the intelligence or the investigation?
Well, my grandfather, my grandfather was
in the Second World War, was in charge of double
agents. Oh my God. There you go, look, talk about it. Have
you ever revealed this before? Charlie, go and please say you haven't.
So he, he was a wonderful
grandfather and he. I don't know, he
didn't really talk much about it, but he was in charge
of getting German spies, converting them to
work for him. And so this is all part of Churchill's
sequel. I can't remember, but it's the precursor. Oh no, it's not the precursor to
the sas. It's the intelligence division, the Double Cross system. It was called.
Oh, Double Cross. So it, I think it had this thing called the
2020 Committee. So two crosses. I see. So
the, you know, so double crossed and in roman numerals,
that's 20. So it's called the 20, I think. Wow.
That was his job. So he would go up to German spies. I remember one
story told me, and there's a pub called the Bunch of
Grapes next to Harrods on in Knightsbridge, right
road. And he once took me there. So I went to this pub and
this is pre Second World War, I think, before.
And I cornered. We cornered this German spy
and I went to the pub and I bought
him a few drinks and he was a charming man, this guy, and
bought him a few drinks and he. By the end of the evening
he had confessed that he was a German spy and he
needed some help. And Tommy went up to. He
says, well, you now work for me. Tommy Helsby. No,
no, tell me your grandfather. Sorry. Yeah. So Tommy
converted him and he had that charm of being able to
convert people to work for him. And you know, and
he had a. He ran a string of agents throughout the Second World War. And.
Gosh. Has anyone written anything about it? There's been a few
books that. What's his name? Ben
McIntyre. Oh, wow, he's written a few books. Yeah.
Wow, that is some serious pedigree in
the family. So did your father in any shape or
form follow in those footsteps? No, he was an oil
trader. Okay. You know,
he was a geologist and an oil trader. Ah, well, geologist. Now that's
interesting. That's also to do with investigating,
analyzing, thinking. Yeah, yeah. And what job
isn't, Gary? I mean, your job is very similar as well.
I mean, it's. You're looking at
problems and solving them effectively.
Yeah, I would, I would like to think, but who knows that if I
hadn't found law, which I did as an. At A
level because I was a pretty rubbish student, I
Would like to think I would have found the investigation industry.
But to be honest, in those days, which is about 15
years prior to your beginning, your education,
you just. Nobody mentioned the investigation business.
It didn't exist. So I suspect I would have been a
hairdresser, because that's what most Jewish boys did.
Or they went into their family business, which I was loathe to do. But
anyway, enough about me. So your dad was in the Orbas, which meant
you traveled extensively, Charlie, or what? Oh, no.
Very English upbringing. Born in Oxford,
raised near Oxford School. Near Oxford. Okay. You
know, so. So can you track the cars back to, like the
17th century and things like that, or what? No, I mean,
the. They're from northern England, the cars, I believe.
Okay. You know Carlisle, I think, somewhere up
there. Okay, so you've got. You've got some good English stock in you,
is what you're saying. Really? Oh, no. My grandmother's. My
father's mother. She was. She was more exotic, you
know. Where was she from? Scottish and Irish. And her.
Her father immigrated. Family was Scottish,
and they emigrated to Australia in one of the first
ships. Not slate, not prisoner ships. He was a
doctor, 1821. I just want to make sure he wasn't down
with shackles on him. He was a doctor. And he
was. He was the doctor for the Governor General. And he retired
in Australia, in Sydney. And they offered him a piece of land.
This is the story my grandmother told me. Anyway. Offered him a piece of land
in the 1830s, I think, and it
was now half of downtown Sydney,
so. But he swapped it for a huge farm in
Tasmania. So. All my cousins live in Tasmania
now. You see, you're full of surprises. I don't know many people
that can pronounce Tasmania, let alone have got
family there. And I happen to know that the capital
of Tasmania is Hobart. That's right. And that's only
because I used to date a very pleasant young lady from Hobart.
But it's like the pimple on the end of Australia's bottom, isn't it?
Is that how. Yeah, no, it's. It's beautiful. It's beautiful place. Yeah. And
I don't know whether it still has Charlie, but back in the day,
used to have a casino in Hobart. Oh, I don't know that. Yeah.
Yes. Anyways, back to the. And then. My
mother's American. My mother's American. Ah, okay. Yeah. So
she's. She. She grew up in the United States
and then she traveled because her father worked for Procter and Gamble. So
they. So you didn't I mean, I imagine, I don't know
why, but the oil business sounds very exotic.
You didn't think about going into that business? I mean, not
with Dad, I wouldn't imagine. Your dad was drilling for oil in your back
garden. He got me a job in. When I came
back from Spain, right. I was trying to get into the art market. I was
earning like a hundred pounds a week and I thought I can't
survive. So he got me a job, my father, on the ipe, which
is the International Petroleum Exchange. Oh, okay. In
which in those days was open market. You know, it's like outcry
system. So you're on the exchange and they're trading oil futures
on the exchange. So there was a company called Kidder Peabody. Yeah,
he knew Kitty Peabody. So he, he got this job for me to be a
runner. Have you got one of these jackets on? Oh yeah, I had one of
those jackets on. Excellent. And, but you
know, it was open outcry, so you're screaming trades
into the pit, right? So you take a phone call from, I don't know,
BP or Shell. So buy me two lots
of Brent Oil contract in future
in November and sell me
WTI contract in New York. And I
don't know, all these crazy things. Anyway, I was so bad at it, I
got fired within like a month because I did it all wrong. I
knew that world was not for me. So you probably,
I don't want to tar you with the same brush as Miller, but you're
probably not that excited about numbers.
I mean, we have to deal with them in the course of, of any kind
of investigation. But you weren't leaning towards
mathematics and economics and stuff like that?
No, I mean, and in, in our world, the,
the forensic accountants that we work for, with and
for and assist us, you know, I mean, I
admire them so much, they solve so many cases, but yeah,
that's, that's not the way I solve cases. And
you know, so mine's more, more like my grandfather.
It's a more sort of human side of things.
Right. And understanding human nature I think is.
Yes, well, I'm sure you learned some stuff in Spain.
I know you're young, but, you know, there are not that many people
who take the opportunity of living overseas. I did
it at the age of 22. You did it a bit earlier
than that. You went straight after uni. So you must have been saying same sort
of same time. So do you think. And I know you spent
a lot of time in, for example,
Italy, you've been there for eight, nine years, haven't you? Well, no. So
that piece of advice my father gave me of learning language changed my career
because when I joined crawl in the 1994,
no one really spoke Spanish. So
we were getting these really significant mandates from
Spanish banks who were on the acquisition trail. And I was the only guy
who spoke Spanish. So I got thrown in the deep end because
I was the only person in the company that spoke Spanish. So I would go
and meet the CEO of a huge Spanish bank, and they'd say,
we're going to buy a whole
chain of banks in South America. So I ended up
really progressing my career just thanks to the Spanish.
And then I built relationships with a wonderful guy called Tom
Cash. Have you ever met Tom Cash? Cash. The only
Tom I remember from the UK, at least, was Tommy
Helsby, who I know was one of the original. Tom Cash was the head of
Kroll's Latin American business. Okay. So he was obviously
based in Miami. Was he based in Miami? But he's a former real
Cirrus chief in the DEA at the time,
and he. He was one of the group that put Noriega in jail.
Still around or has he since passed into the. Oh, he's still around in
Miami. He's a wonderful guy, and he's, you know, one of the first
mentors I ever had in this industry. So Tom.
I was working a lot with his team and so said. Tom said, come over.
And I ended up spending four years in Mexico City
thanks to Tom. Wow. Not in Miami, but in Mexico. In
Mexico. So, Tom, I was age 28. He goes, you're good enough.
Go and open up our office in Mexico City. And so
tell me about that. I mean, everything I hear now, and I don't know whether
it's got better or worse, but everything that I hear about
Mexico City is that, you know, you've got to count your fingers every
time you've gone out to buy something, and it's dangerous. Mexico
City has changed a lot since. So I was there from 99 to
2003. Okay. And it was.
It was pretty wild in those days. But Tom gave
me a colleague, a former DEA colleague of his called Tony
Ayala. And Tony Ayala was
sort of effectively my bodyguard in Mexico City.
But Tony was, again, a wonderful guy who used to work
with Tom in the dea, and he'd retired. And so
Tony and I set up the crawl business in Mexico
City, which is still going strong. The crawl business.
I mean, it's. It's, I think, a very significant business.
Now because Mexico's a really important economy
actually. Absolutely. But we had some crazy cases
there, you know, totally crazy. So tell me the most
dangerous life threatening scenario you were, you
were faced with in Mexico has to be with cartels, right?
Well, they're everywhere. So we were working for a,
I won't mention the name, but the, a very large
drinks manufacturer. But like all problems, there's
some dispute of some nature. So this was a family
dispute, but it's very significant. So we were working
for one part of the family that was fighting the other part of the family
and effectively the other part of the family was totally infiltrated by
the narco traffickers and they were distributing
products throughout the whole of the world, but
principally to the United States. And so slowly,
it was a three or four year investigation. Three year investigation. So
slowly with Tony and myself and getting information, we
unraveled a complete network. At that point I was
pretty worried, you know, about. You ever get threatened? Never got
threatened, but we were touching nerves.
It was beyond my pay grade. So we were working with
the authorities, but you never know who to trust and so on.
So it was a bit hairy at that time. So did you leave
Mexico before the case finished or. No,
we finished it off. There was a resolution, it was all resolved. Very
successful case actually. Hopefully without what they
call the Mexican standoff. Hopefully there weren't too many
bodies enough strewn around the place.
Not that I think so, but no, this is a sort of
more, let's say, but Mexico, they're very honest in their dishonesty.
You know, that's interesting. It's very
direct. Whereas the Italians
turned, let's say, not necessarily dishonesty, but into an art form.
Okay. The Mexican is a very straight and direct, you know,
I'm going to steal from you and that's it. Whereas the Italians are talking to
you, say, well, hello, you know, I'm your best friend. And they'll,
you know, do it in a different way, probably through a Luxembourg offshore
system. But you're fluent in both languages? Italian. And then I went to go
and live in Italy. Yes. After Mexico. So are there
any other interesting
examples or interesting cases? I'm sure there were many. But
of particular note, because
Mexico has got such a exotic feel to it, certainly
for me, I don't know for anyone that's in the investigative business. So
anything else that sort of hits you from your Mexican
experience in those days, you
know, money laundering was enormous in
Mexico. So this is the early 2000s.
I say, okay, so rules and regulations.
And there was I was working quite a lot with
the Mexican banks that had been brought by the Spanish
banks, and that had US Exposure, and
literally money laundering and
infiltration from organized crime was
just literally everywhere. So it was. It's a huge
task, and it's still an enormous task that's
still relevant today. But in those days, it was really trying to unravel
and protect clients from this exposure. So you had
a lot of US Investment coming in, and they were
totally worried about how they were gonna protect themselves or
resist or deal with these problems. And so there's just
countless problems always emerging, bubbling up.
So it was an exciting time,
you know, in depth investigations, you know, and
there was always some colorful element to each
case. You know, there's some individual that
clearly was inappropriate for a. For a US Fund or bank
to do business with because, you know, and then I said,
their honesty is quite. Their dishonesty is quite honest
because they. They weren't sophisticated. They put their wife or their brother in as the
intermediary, and it wouldn't take too much to crack. I
see what you mean. It's quite. The frauds or the. The ability
or the mechanisms were quite unsophisticated.
Yeah. And because, you know, the rule of law was. Wasn't so
strong, and I'm sure it's improved, but it was.
In those days, it was. It was pretty wild. And living in Mexico is an
amazing place. I mean, I bet it is. I bet it is. What did you
learn from. I mean, so, of course, it's. The
language is Spanish, but there is a difference,
I imagine, between the Spanish you met in Spain and the Mexican
Spanish. How would you describe the different
cultures and approach to business, for example? Well, the
Mexican, I suppose, is more American. The influence is deeper.
American. Yeah. Makes sense. Yeah. And the
Spanish are held with a little bit of content. You know, there's a sort
of colonial residue, of course,
that makes sense in that sense. And they're very
proud people as well, the Mexicans. Right. You
know, on the whole, amazingly colorful, wonderful people, but
always you have to be on your. On your guard.
So you didn't ever go home thinking you might be getting too
close for comfort and that, you know, you might be treading.
Yeah. And after a few years, it wore you down. I
see. Okay. Stress. And I. I said to Jules Kroll at the time, I
said, I got to get out of here, because you're always, like, kind of like,
looking over your shoulder. I see. You know, you're always. You know,
even random acts can happen, and you Know,
so it's a quite a stressful place to live. But I was single, like no
family. I was young, you know, you could. You definitely
had the energy to do it. But it was. It wouldn't have been
difficult, I guess, you know, talking about counter surveillance for
somebody to play some senoritas within your
social circle or whatever. And I mean, it must have been.
It must have been. Well, if they did, I'm sure I fell for it. Always.
Well, that's good to know. That's good to know. You made no distinction. That's
wonderful. So how big was the office when you left? Had you
built up the mix? About 20 odd people at the end.
Wow. Okay. Oh, yeah, from. From just Tony and I,
we. We developed it to about 20 odd people and then
handed it over. And I think it's still going strong. Yeah, I bet it
is. But you didn't. What was interesting, you didn't then go to
Miami, because that's, in a way, and I would have thought a natural
fit in heart of America. Well, not physically, but
certainly the crossroads, I should say, between Latin America and
mainland America. Yeah. But instead you went to
Italy, So Italy, I'd never
understood Italy. I'd never been to Italy. So Jules said to me, you know,
where would you like to. And they just opened a new office in Milan.
So you've got to tell us, just a short story, the romance. How
did you meet your wife? What was it? Was it on an airplane?
Was it somewhere something super romantic? No,
it was pretty normal. It was my
colleague, Matteo Bigazzi. He was dating
a girl whose sister was introduced to me. Now
I understand. So you are married to the
sister of Mateo's girlfriend. That's right.
Okay, excellent. Now, so that's. So I ended up, you
know, loving Milan. And 2003 to
2006, I spent three years there and then came back to
London. And that's where we really started. And that's where I met
Mike. Coma? Yeah, the. The. The first. The
second mentor of my life, I would say. I mean, you haven't mentioned. Sorry,
you have mentioned Jaws, but you haven't actually mentioned
his impact on you. And
maybe I'm wrong, but I would have thought. I mean, you've mentioned
Tom, who clearly had a huge impact, but
Jules had an even greater impact on you, didn't he? I mean, Jules I
worked for for 23 years. I mean, it's. I
learned from the master. Did he recruit you? Jules? Was
George your. No, no, the recruitment was in
London with team there. So there was Tommy Helsby and
Patrick Grayson and that crew in London
in. So when you joined, Jules didn't know you from a bunch of.
No, no, no, no. In fact, the way I got to know Jules,
yes. So before I went to
work in Latin America with Tom Cash In
97, there was a London crew
that lifted out and set up the Risk Advisory Group.
Yeah. If you remember. Yes, I do. And they were
trying to decimate the London office and they offered everybody
a job, including me, even though I knew they didn't like me.
Just wanted to stop the opposition. Right. And so I
said, no, thank you, that's very kind, I'm staying here.
And so it was me, Tommy and
Barbara Lincoln, who was one of the secretaries.
There was three of us left in the office and that's when I got to
meet Jules. Cause Jules flew over, I think in Concord to
deal with the situation. Anyway, I got promoted three levels in one day.
I've gotta tell you, Charlie, you have got the bloody Midas touch.
You walk along the road and you find a painting.
You happen to be in the right place at the right time for the
Risk Advisory Group. I gotta stay close to you. Are you a gambler? Do
you like to go to. No. You're not a casino man?
Oh, no, no, unfortunately not. It's just a question is. For me it
was like, Kroll is the company. Why would you want to leave
Crawl? I mean, it was the company at the time.
Still is, I think, in certain respects. But it was the name and the company
and. Yeah, you know, but you hadn't met. You hadn't met Jules
before that time. I think I met him one time.
Wonderful case, actually. Another art case. Right.
So this is really kind of 96, so this,
you know, Google. And none of that existed. Yeah. As a researcher
you'd have to work the phones. Yeah. And so we had this client, a
Norwegian client that had a significant
art collection and he had a
family dispute and his brother went into the family
vault and sold and stole 14, I think, high
valued paintings. And the brother, through the lawyer,
came to Kroll at the time and said, can you help us track this down?
We don't want involved. It's a family private matter, et cetera, et
cetera. Because I was the art guy, so I was the Spanish
and the art guy. So it landed on my lap and
we managed to slowly crack a few cases because they were
sold at auction and you know, we. And there's one
very, very valuable painting. Edvard Munch, the Scream.
Yeah, I love it. So there's three versions of Munch.
There's the. The oil. The Famous one is 1893,
which is in the Oslo Museum. That's been stolen a few times. And
then there's a pastel version which I think is 1895,
which was held in private collection. Anyway, that painting disappeared
through this family dispute and they didn't want to find it.
Anyway, I was working the phones and I found out that the
Washington National Gallery had taken possession
of this painting but never exhibited. The Washington
Gallery did nothing wrong, but the brother took it to the painting,
to the museum. But I did a little sneaky number because
I'd never been to New York. So I called up, I'd said
to my boss at the time, I said, I think it's in the United States,
but I gotta go and talk to somebody. And in New York,
even though it was in Washington, because I wanted to meet Jules.
Ah, okay. So I, jaws to this
day, know that you engineered that case to meet him. Yeah, yeah, he
does. Okay. But he would have. He would have slapped you on the back and
said, that's what I. Because we found the painting and the client was. And I
introduced the client and. And so it was a double
whammy. Yeah. So I got to meet Jules, went to New York for the first
time in my life, and we solved the case.
Did you actually solve the case with Jules? In other words, you worked on
him to the client and everything, and it was a wonderful relationship.
Wonderful. Yeah. So that's when I met him and we became
friends ever since. Yeah. Because when I look back
at some of the people that had a
particularly close relationship with Jules,
you are the closest, if not one of the closest
over the years. I can't think of anyone else I know
that he had a. He had. Did he have a Tommy Helsby?
I remember somebody always. He was. He always. He always
loved Tommy. So what. I think you've answered this
when we chatted earlier, but just for the sake of. Of the silver screen,
as they say. When you met Jules, you've got this company of.
It wasn't necessarily that huge, maybe. But
were you in awe of this man before you met him? What was
your sense of the human being? I mean,
when you see Jules in action, you know, and it's still,
I'm sure, the same today. He just has
an innate feeling of a situation and
beyond anything. So not just building businesses and making
money and so forth, but the operations of understanding clients,
problems. He just has this feeling
and it's very hard to describe and he gets it in a
second and he has antenna
around him that's picking things up that you and
I will would never understand. And seeing
that in action, you know, was pretty awe inspiring.
Was Jaws. I think he was. He was a prosecutor originally as
well. Was. He did that for a while and then he.
I think he went back into the family business and realized that there was
a serious procurement problem. Yes, I remember that
story. Yeah. And people were tapping his dad for payments
and all the suppliers were putting the squeeze on, basically. Is
that right? I think that was the origins of. Of Kroll at that time. He
certainly thought there's a business here. Aside from his
business acumen and building companies and you know,
which is a different talent he has. But as a. As a client
problem solver, which is the area that I work mostly with him,
he just had that antenna that was very, very
amazing. I bet. So I learned
a lot from him, you know, and how you work with clients, how
you question them. What sort of. What sort of. Because most
clients have a problem, but they don't really understand what the problem is.
So that the way we can help them understand the problem and
then get to the solution is what Jules always taught
me. And was there any. Is there any one
piece of advice. Was there any one piece of advice that you
remember Jules imparting to you
in the way that your dad said, go and learn a language, son. And that
made you. Is there something you learned watching
Jaws that you think after every meeting
he would say, what did we learn in that meeting?
Every single meeting he'd say, what did we learn?
And that was. Because that's sort of the
critical question. And so that was something I
always had said to myself, what do we learn in that meeting? And
then I asked my team, the younger ones, I'm sort of. And they. He
would put it on me because he wanted to see whether I actually learned what
he understood. And so it's a very good question of post
meeting. And so that was a great habit. I
mean, when you went to do these things was Kroll, I remember
was. Jules would have probably been.
No, my father would have been much older. He is.
Oh, no, hold on. How are his 1880s? In his early 80s.
The. Was there, for example, writing everything
down? Was. Was he a big. No, he wasn't.
It was all up here. Was it? Yeah, I get it. Writing.
No, no. Yeah. In
fact, the briefings were the funniest briefings. We'd always laugh.
You know, we would get a. Maybe a
napkin with a name on it. Here's the new case
and you go, can we have a briefing? No briefing. Work it out,
you know, I love it. Yeah, I love it. And
so did you start up the crawl office or. No, it just
opened in Milan. So you joined. So we did Milan and then, then.
So, you know, in terms of mentors, it was Tom Cash.
And then I met in Milan, I met Mike Coma,
who tell you, and I got to know each other. Yeah, but you. So
you weren't actually either ever or often
working in the same office as Jules because he was. He was pretty much
based in the States and you were in different locations, right?
Yeah, no. Sort of running around the world, sort of chasing
clients and businesses and so forth. So in
Milan we had this big internal fraud investigation which I think
Gary, you helped out on. And this was in, I think,
2003 or something and. Or
2004, and the client brought in Mike
Comer as the fraud investigator because there's a big, big fraud, an
internal fraud job. And that sort of opened up a whole new chapter in
my life, which is understanding how you do fraud investigations, you know, and
yes, in fact, you touched on something that I was just thinking of in a
sen of. Of course, there are many dimensions
of an investigator's world, but the world that you
started off in primarily and the. Or the world at least
that Jules curated was this
world of proactive, in a way, proactive
advisory work. Who are you doing business with? Who can you trust?
What should your systems look like to help protect you?
And so he was building his tunnel coming
from what I call the pre. The
proactive advisory work. Whereas Mike was coming
at it from. Right, how did this happen? And how are we
going to get to that middle point of where the cause of the
fraud is? So it was like meeting in the middle because
they're very similar skills, but they're not identical by any means.
I would say that's very fair reflection, actually, because Jules
is like business transactions, corporate contests,
that type of world, which is effectively
business transactions. And Mike came from an investigator
fraud point of view. I mean, they meet in the middle. But
how you crack a fraud case, internal
fraud or small or big, you know, is a completely different
set of skills than chasing down a corporate contest
or a business transaction. And so Mike
introduced me into that world of
how you methodically go through a
case to get to the solution of who stole the money or what
the problem was. And he was a master, as you know.
And I'm just thinking while you're talking, I wonder
how I would have fared in the
world that Jules was more familiar with at that
stage because it's much more,
as I said, proactive and understanding the
mechanics and the financial benefits. The
flow ebbs and flows, whereas I've always been
more comfortable with looking at the broken down car
and trying to figure out who cut the brakes, et cetera.
So. And I always found chasing something as
opposed to thinking about how I could make money out of
a deal, more exciting. So, I don't know, did you
find the bug of unraveling a fraud was more
exciting than going to working for a
huge bank that was about to take over another bank and trying to find out
how you could protect them, or were they both the same? No. I
love problems. You know, I love
problems. A problem is a fraud or it's.
There's a specific thing that needs to be understood
and once you crack that, you can make solutions. But the
problem. So it, I mean, the client comes along to Mike
or to us or to you, and says, you know,
someone's stolen them tens of millions of pounds.
What do I do about it? You know, how did it happen? What do I
do? How do I get that money back? Or how. So
it really is a, it's a different mindset, isn't it, from what I call the.
Which listen, Jaws is probably
the only person so far in history that's managed to build a
public company out of the investigation
skill set. And it's pretty much,
in my very humble view, due to the fact that
his vehicle for doing so, the engine room, was
deal making. Because you and I know that when you're about to spend
50 billion on acquiring whatever it is, an oil
field, doing a deal with the Mexicans, you want to know who you're doing business
with, you want to know what the risks are. And
any day of the week you're going to pay that premium for
something that you anticipate getting. Whereas the
area that Mike and I have lived for the most of
my nearly 50 years has been the. You've lost
that 5 billion. And dealing with that mental
attitude of you have to spend some more money to
be able to understand whether you've got any chance of recovering
that 5 billion. So it's a very different, it's a different economic
equation as well, isn't it? Trying to get money out of a client that's lost
money. Oh, no, no, totally, yeah. No. And
clients, you know, as you know, well, you know, they,
they hate that position where they have to spend more money on,
on trying to solve a problem. But then in the end,
you know, we bring them with us because in the end
there's no alternative sometimes. So yeah, it's been
fascinating learning from all these, these guys
and you know, Mike was, was really good at the,
the fraud and taught me a lot. Enough that when I ended up
at Crawl, my last job at Crawl was global head of fraud
investigations, you know. Wow. Where were you based then? In the uk? Was it
in London? London then. So we were doing
a lot of fraud work. And during that time.
Sorry to interrupt you Charlie. During that time, when did Kroll
do this reverse deal or take over Marsh
McClellan or whatever it was? While you were there? Yeah, yeah, that was
19, sorry, 2004. So. And where
were you? Were you in the UK then? I think I was on the cusp
of coming back to London. So it was. So I did some
time in Milan and then I came back to London. So that must have been
great news for Charlie Carr. Whatever shares you would have had, if you had any,
you would have, you would. I mean, you know, I
think I had some options which I forgot about that were tucked in the
bottom of my cupboard. And then, you know, there
was something, it was nice but you know, it didn't change your
lifestyle. I don't do this job necessarily for the mom. I do it more for
the money now. But in those days it was pure passion.
But the, did life change after the, the
combination, the merger? We moved to this God awful
place near Tower Hill. Oh my God. This
sort of Marsh McLennan offices. Yeah. And
you know, we sat in cubicles and things like that. It was awful.
So when Jules, I think he
tried to buy it back a few later, didn't
succeed. And so then he and I, with his son and
Matteo Begazzi, we set up K2. Yeah.
In 2009. I think it was Jaws. I
mean what you may or may not know, you may or may not want to
share, but what was going through Jules's mind when you look at
it now and you think talented, creative
fairy dust with an insurer who
like will you, you know, like batter you to death with,
you know, detail, detail, detail, detail, everything written,
everything ticked. How did he think that was going to work?
Well, I think it did work in sense of the Crawls,
you know, it worked on one level. They sold it I think
1.9 billion. I know it's a just
a feat of, of miraculous business, but what I'm
saying is is what did he think that the end product would come out of
when you merged? I Mean from our point of view, but if
you're sitting in New York, the world looks very different,
you know, transactions big companies.
So I've never really
understood but the, you know, the New York mentality of
deal making is huge and
so bolting things on and putting things for them
is every day of the week. Whereas you and I may think, well, that
makes no sense, but it's
almost de rigueur in New York. You've got to go and leverage and try
and leverage off of somebody's success or lack of it or whatever,
you know, And I see that all the time and they're always somehow successful.
I go, how did that happen? You know. But anyway, they did well, they're not
always successful, but anyway. How long did you last in the
merged conglomerate? Four years, I think.
As soon as Jules is non compete had expired,
we. We set up 2009, I
think. And what was that like? What was K2? That was
again another wonderful adventure. You
know, we had of course
the brand a bit still. Yeah. Because brand
means a lot in this, in this industry and brand
of course in any industry you have to earn and
been in. In the good days of crawl, the phone would just
ring. Yeah. You know, we would always try and sweet talk the
receptionists to make sure they passed the phone call to,
to, to us. So we would get the credit for
bringing in the case. Yes. So the business development was
taking out the receptionist for dinner. You know, I love that,
I love that. That is just such a great story. Is that the brand was.
You didn't need to do any bd, it just was. Yeah. So
that's what had been built through the brand of Kroll. And do you think that's
still the same today? Do you think it's. Yeah. Okay. All the time we,
I get, you know, oh, we need crawl on this
job. You know, this happens still today. I mean even,
you know, even the company's changed a bit. But.
Well, it's no surprise because when. What is it?
This is standard and pause that bought Kroll
a few years ago. Right. Santa Paul's is a big brand but
they changed in the name to Crawl. So Crawl brand
was bigger than Standard, Standard and Poor's, you know, so. And that's a
big part of, of the crawl business, the grading of debt and
stuff like that. Yeah, he did a separate thing there. Oh, I see, I see.
So K2, we still had that brandish which
we developed. So gaining clients and business was,
was not from scratch. So you know, having Jules and
Jeremy involved was obviously
A head start. And that. That's turned into, again, another
wonderful adventure. It's amazing. I
can't finish a session
with Charlie Carr without asking you about
and understanding completely why you would have done it. That magical
photo experience. We did this case in Bahrain
and it was a very successful case. I
was running this case, it was a big case,
working with the Bahrainis
and solving frauds, finding huge frauds,
working with international law firms, bringing the case. Anyway, it
all got to the sfo, right? I had invested
four years of my time. I mean, I would be flying back and forth
to Bahrain at the weekends and this is a K2, isn't
it? Yeah, crawl. K2 or crawl, cross.
It sort of overlapped. Overlap.
Anyway, when this person was being
interviewed in, I think it was
Southwark Criminal Court, a
moment of passion, you know, was.
This is the culmination of four years work I've done.
So idiot me just takes out my BlackBerry and
takes a photograph for my own sake. For no nefarious reasons. No,
as a memento. Anyway, so I get seen doing this
by, I think, the guy's lawyers
and then they make a big, big thing about it.
Anyway, I fell on my sword in front of the judge, said, I'm really
sorry, blah, blah, blah, and he said, no, I understand, fair enough, just say
sorry. And that was the end of it. Right. So it's just again,
talking, sort of bringing us full circle. It's the passion that
drives us and this time is a little bit inappropriate. But, you
know, I've got to ask you, I've got to ask you, has there been
any other situation that you are. I mean, I can't blame you if you're not
prepared to share it, that your passion has got you into a little bit of
hot water. Not like that,
but, you know, you get older and wiser.
I hope that's how you all do and you
don't try not to make so many stupid mistakes. But.
But it's tough though, I mean, because we're pushing clients agendas
and we're trying to bring something different. And
this is why I like this new enterprise, Forward Global, because
you've got more tools available now when you're on your own,
you're fighting hard,
but with this venture, this new for
me is new, but the company's not going well, but it's expanding heavily. But it's
bringing quite a few interesting synergies together,
which give you a bit more tools and a bit more firepower
to really deal with the client's problems.
What do you Think because you've had more than
a glimpse of talking to the forward global people,
what's the future of the investigative industry look like? Is it
rosy? Would you go out and say to people, come on in, the water
is warm? I think there will
always be a demand for you
and me and knowledgeable
experience know how. So the drive of
technology and AI will gutter some of the
lower end services and
but I think it's, you know that someone told me the other day
50% of one's
profile, so your profile.
So if you stuck Gary Miller into AI today
50% of what it produces is material that you've
produced yourself. So its response
is still dedicated by self
produced material. So your LinkedIn and so forth.
So but understanding that you need
humans, you need humans to understand situations and so
forth. So all scenarios and problems ultimately end
up with experienced people looking at the problem and
finding a solution. So I'm all for technology
and AI. I find it immensely powerful. However
it's got in our world, it's got to be harnessed by good decision
making. And so I think that world is
going to only increase. So do you think we're actually the
beginning of like the rest of the world,
a new, a revolution in not just business
because everyone's cutting costs because of AI, that
the investigative world also by definition is going to go
through a complete rebirth as a result of
AI. If you sit above AI in terms
of what you do, you're going to be in more and
more demand. If you're sitting below AI,
AI can do your job better than you can, then your world
will change. But if you're sitting and
interpreting AI type information,
which is never going to change that no matter how
sophisticated these things become, you know, a problem, it will not
be solved by AI. So I've got to ask you this before we leave. How
many minutes, maybe hours
a day do you spend on something like a chat GPT?
My favorite is Claude. Ah. Now
Claude comes from whom? Claude. I don't know what it is but
it's far superior writing
because I use it for writing. Ah, okay. For
preparing analyses or reports. Yeah, well reports or
just so we produce information all the time
and some of us really complex and very large
and you, you can stick it in the Claude or chat or any of these
things and you interrogate it like a database and it
comes up with, I want a precise timeline.
You know, it's like having the power of 10. Oxbridge
University Yes. At your fingertips. It's
amazing. You are probably using some form of forget about
Google, because I know that is a form of GPT, but you're probably, what,
a couple of hours a day using it or more. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Easily, easily. Amazing. Well,
I know I have, particularly because of the rather
techy Internet. I've dragged you further apart beyond the
hour than I intended. But I wanted to say what a
wonderful experience it's been. I've known you for many years
and I've got to know a deeper and different part
of Charlie Carr. So I really appreciate it. I really appreciate it.
It's and fun to be invited and I will
send you all the bits and pieces so that we can both. We can help
you build up this next
iteration of your career. So it's really exciting. Oh, thank you,
Gary. All right, good. Take care, buddy. Bye bye bye now.
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