Private investigator cases scam artists
Private investigator Steve Braden's face cannot be shown due to his undercover work. • Photo by Tom Victoria
By Tom Victoria
Steve Braden found himself in a real-life horror movie.
The private investigator was conducting surveillance in a wooded area filled with Nazi flags, styrofoam heads adorned with German SS hats and mannequins wearing Jewish crosses while hanging in trees.
Steve was checking out an insurance claim at the Western Pennsylvania property. He spotted the apparent white supremacist, who was supposedly injured, building a roof to a cabin.
Tension rose after wildlife set off chained dogs. After the man under surveillance jumped off the roof, Steve opted to leave rather than risk dealing with possible gunfire.
“I go running,” he said. “I just haul.”
While racing to a vehicle, Steve could hear one of the dogs being let loose. He made it just in time. The dog rammed into his car, denting it.
“It looked like a scene in ‘Cujo,’” Steve said, referring to the horror movie about a rabid dog terrorizing a mother and child. “It’s one of the few close calls.”
“I’m in the business of helping people.”
Steve, 52, operates his agency, Check Your Mate Investigations, in Butler City, Pennsylvania. A former corrections officer, he now travels internationally for a variety of cases.
Among his clients are people checking on their spouses’ fidelity as the agency’s name would suggest, insurers wanting claims verified and locating parents for Butler County Children and Youth Services.
Steve said it’s often someone other than the individual he is trying to find who becomes irate at his presence.
“It’s not even the person I’m investigating,” he said.
Steve said simply knocking on someone’s door is enough provocation.
“I just had a guy who wigged out on me,” he said.
Once the man became physical, Steve subdued him.
“He said, ‘You’re on camera.’ I said, ‘Good. It shows you attacking me.’”
Steve said some clients, male and female, not just want to ensure their spouse is faithful, but their own side affairs are as well. He cited the example of a man who pays for a mistress’ apartment, but does not want anyone else benefiting from it.
One of Steve’s clients repeatedly hires him to check out an unfaithful son-in-law. He said every time the subject leaves home to work in the Caribbean for a spell, that man has an affair.
After Steve obtains proof of the infidelity, the couple breaks up. The husband always comes back.
“The girl’s mesmerized,” Steve said about the cheating man’s wife, his client’s daughter. “She keeps taking him back.”
He said the use of technology provides significantly more information than when he started his business more than two decades ago.
“There’s a lot more intel,” Steve said.
His clients come to him with such evidence as numerous texts from a loved one or GPS tracking.
Steve said cheaters wrongly assume erasing messages eliminates the evidence. He pointed out the person paying the phone bill has access to all phone records.
“People are oblivious to leaving a trail,” Steve said.
Steve said the use of technology provides significantly more information than when he started his business more than two decades ago. • Photo by Agence Olloweb on Unsplash
In some cases, decoys are employed. They don’t try to entrap the subject, just provide an opportunity, including sitting at the same bar to see if the person will attempt to initiate an encounter. Steve said that tactic often yields results.
He uses subcontractors, who are all able-bodied unlike some token security guards, to cover the entire time frame required for some assignments.
“My guys are all qualified, capable people,” Steve said.
Multiple times, he has found evidence of women harming themselves to set up the fathers of their children to gain leverage in custody cases.
Before taking such cases, Steve ensures the client’s background does not indicate a history of being abusive.
“I won’t do the work for some creeper,” he said.
If Steve decides there is a chance the man is not lying, surveillance is conducted.
In one case, he was stationed in a spot to record video of a child exchange. His client arrived a couple minutes late. While hidden, Steve witnessed the woman lose control.
“She just starts punching herself,” he said.
Steve then interrupted the scene to inform her she could no longer try to set up his client as there was recorded footage of her actions.
“I have the luxury to be choosy ... I still take every case I feel is justified.”
Through separate cases, he once found a woman scamming numerous men she had no intention of marrying. Four jilted men under similar circumstances randomly called him.
The woman took up to $40,000 in total from the duped men.
“I realized everything was identical,” Steve said.
Although he was able to track her down, the woman claimed all the money given to her were gifts, so she was not obligated to return any of it.
Steve pointed out it is not illegal to be engaged to be married multiple times.
“You can get engaged 50 times,” he said.
Steve said he enjoys his work.
“I’m in the business of helping people,” he said.
Steve said no case is too small if he believes someone was wronged. If there is evidence to the contrary or any bad vibes, he will turn a prospective client down.
“I have the luxury to be choosy,” Steve said.
He said he has no regrets becoming a P.I. He feels the same eagerness at the beginning of every case.
“I still take very case I feel is justified.”