Speaker 1: Welcome to the Miami P.I. Chronicles podcast where the world of private investigation comes alive. Join your host Francois McKinnon of McKinnon Investigative Group and Oscar Santamaria of Optimum Investigations as they tap into their combined 60 plus years of experience in the industry. From real-life cases to insider tips, they bring you the stories, insights, and expertise that only seasoned pros can provide. So sit back, listen, and enjoy the show.
Francois McKinnon: Welcome back to the show, Oscar. Happy 2025. Today is the first of the year, 2025. How are you today?
Oscar Santamaria: I’m doing well. It’s pretty fitting that our 25th episode falls on the first of the year.
Francois McKinnon: Yeah, I know. We were going to do it yesterday, but things happened. We do a show every week and we try our best to get it out on Monday or Tuesday. So you had a nice New Year’s and a nice holiday time?
Oscar Santamaria: Yeah, it was pretty uneventful. Yesterday morning at about 6 a.m. I got a call from a P.I. friend of mine who was involved in a terrible accident. He sounded really messed up. He said he was involved in a horrible accident and I needed to get his gear because they were transporting him to the hospital. It turns out it was very foggy out and somebody had just left a car in the middle of the road the night before. He didn’t see it and totaled his car. That is something every P.I. needs to be careful of because surveillance investigators are always on the road early or late at night.
Francois McKinnon: I’ve been in circumstances where I was very close to falling asleep because you’re so tired. Around here, you’re in the fog every day. If you can’t see the car ahead of you, you should pull over away from people and turn your signals on.
Oscar Santamaria: Accidents are part of the job. Every investigator I know who has been doing this for a while has been in an accident at some point. Luckily, I have not been in any major accidents, though I did get hit in a parking lot twice. Once, a guy hit my bumper while I was on surveillance and tried to drive off. I had to chase him down and call the police. He ended up having to pay for my bumper.
Francois McKinnon: For 2025, I want to better myself and be as aggressive as I used to be in the business. I’ve turned down executive protection jobs recently because I didn’t have the proper team, but now my guys are back in Miami and I feel like I have a really good team ready for protective details in January and February. I want to move forward and grow the business.
Oscar Santamaria: That’s a good thing, Francois. I know you used to do a lot of executive protection for wealthy people and billionaires, traveling with yachts and planes all over the world. I remember once when I was in college, I met a guy with a telescope who would watch yachts from the beach just to see what kind of craziness went on. Is it actually true? Is there a lot of perversion on those yachts?
Francois McKinnon: I can’t really elaborate on the perversion, but I’ve seen everything. I used to work for organizations where I controlled everything: the personal wellbeing and physical safety of the entire family. I’m talking about protecting children at school and parents on their yachts and jets. We had teams of 30 or 40 people. It was an intense part of my life that I miss. Once, I had to run a background check on a company employee who turned out to be a genius at building bombs. He admitted to lighting a house on fire because he was angry at a girlfriend. I had to have him escorted out and shut down his access immediately. Executive protection is exhausting because the work never stops, even when clients are awake for 20 hours a day, but it is extremely rewarding.
Oscar Santamaria: I couldn’t deal with that type of work for more than two weeks. I also wanted to talk about weighing the risk and rewards of getting specific video as a private investigator. New ones think that if they get someone walking to a mailbox, they’ve cracked the case, but you shouldn’t move in too quickly.
Francois McKinnon: You’re right. If it’s the first day of licensed surveillance, you should get the lay of the land first. Piggybacking into a private community on day one is a great way to get made. New investigators need to learn to use their brains and not get burned early on.
Oscar Santamaria: Exactly. Don’t push things on day one if you don’t have to. If it’s day three and you haven’t gotten anything, then you push. But if you already have video of them at Burger King on day one, don’t risk getting made just to see them walk into their house. Use day one as exploratory. Mistakes can be a great learning experience, but you have to learn from them. This is a results-driven career and you want to get results for your clients.
Francois McKinnon: Well, Oscar, I think we’ve covered it all today. Happy 2025. Thank you to all our listeners; we’re almost at 20,000 followers. We’re having a great time doing the show and please share it with friends. See you next week.
Oscar Santamaria: See you next week, Francois.
Thank you for listening to the Miami P.I. Chronicles podcast. For all of your investigative needs in Miami, please contact McKinnon Investigative Group at 954-513-7414 or visit us at www.miginvestigations.com. Please remember to share, follow, and like.
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