Miami Pi Chronicles — Episode 6
Guest: Oscar Santamaria, President of Optimum Investigations
Francois McKinnon: Welcome to the Miami P.I. Chronicles podcast. I’m your host Francois McKinnon from McKinnon Investigative Group.
Oscar Santamaria: And I’m Oscar Santamaria of Optimum Investigations.
Francois McKinnon: We created this podcast with the goal to educate, inform, and entertain aspiring, beginner, and seasoned professionals in the investigative field. With over 60 years of combined experience, we offer invaluable insights and lessons learned. While we may not have all the answers, our knowledge can certainly benefit anyone interested in this dynamic profession. So sit back, listen, and enjoy these episodes. Please don’t forget to like, share, and follow. Welcome back to the show. Hi Oscar. How’s everything going?
Oscar Santamaria: Pretty good Francois. How about yourself?
Francois McKinnon: Everything is good here. A long week. And I want to tell you that a lot of people have loved the show and they sent an email to McKinnon Investigative Group telling us that they love the show and they’re supporting the show. So I was very excited about that. We’ve been putting in the effort and the work and I wanted to share that with you.
Oscar Santamaria: Well, thank you. And how’s your week going along? You’ve been doing surveillance?
Francois McKinnon: Yeah, it’s been a busy week. Same thing. You sound so excited. Same thing, different day. And it’s very hot right now. Oh my God.
Oscar Santamaria: Yes, it certainly is. It feels like it’s 105 degrees. It’s really, really hot. And it’s tough on cars also. I had a little bit of an overheating problem this week. I had to get some radiator hoses replaced, but she’s good to go again. So we’re back on the road.
Francois McKinnon: That’s because you’re running the AC all the time while you’re doing surveillance to stay alive, not dying.
Oscar Santamaria: Pretty much to stay alive. Yes. That’s the reason I do it. It’s tough. It’s been a costly week as well in repairing. Yeah. Well, listen, it’s an occupational hazard, so it’s going to happen. You’re going to lose your ACs. You’re going to overheat. You’re going to go through alternators and batteries because you’ve got all sorts of things plugged into your car. So you just got to expect it and leave room in the budget for that. Part of the expenses.
Francois McKinnon: And since we’re talking about surveillance, what do people just starting out in surveillance have the most difficulty overcoming? That’s a question that one of our listeners sent us.
Oscar Santamaria: In my experience, I’ve trained several people over the course of my career. I think that right out of the box, the most difficulty people have overcoming is the paranoia that the person they’re following actually knows you’re following them. And so that just causes them to want to break off or stay too far back and end up losing somebody. You really have to overcome that fear if you’re going to be a good surveillance investigator. So what I would suggest for people who are having that difficulty getting over that paranoia, I would suggest they go to the local grocery store and then just follow people from the grocery store home. Obviously, they’re going to, in most cases, live in the general vicinity of where that grocery store is. I would start following older people. They’re less aware. And then as you go, you go a little bit younger until you get rid of that fear.
Because more often than not, people are clueless. I mean, they’re so distracted these days. They’re on their telephone at lights. They’re too busy looking at the road in front of them. Maybe they’re talking on the phone. So you just got to overcome that fear. And I think that the most important thing to do when you’re on a surveillance is really getting the people out of the neighborhood without them seeing you, noticing you. In most cases, once you get them out of the neighborhood and onto a main road, you can blend in with vehicles and you’re just going to be just another car. But if they see you behind them, leaving their neighborhood, just you and them, they might notice your car at that time. And then they might notice you later on.
So what I would do is let them get out of the neighborhood, try to be as discreet as possible. And then once you get them onto the main road, if it’s a multiple lane highway, I wouldn’t stay directly right behind them. I would probably stay to the right of them. It’s kind of their blind side. To the left of them, that’s really their driver’s side. And right behind them is really never good either. Because whenever you get to a light, they’re going to be able to see in their rear view mirror if they’re paying attention and if they keep seeing you. So try to get a cover car or a blocker and try not to stay directly behind somebody. Try to stay in maybe another lane. If you’re going down a neighborhood and you’re familiar with the neighborhood and you have the ability to parallel down the street, I would do that. And if they’re going into a mall area or a gas station and there’s another entrance, I would try to use that other entrance.
Francois McKinnon: Got you. Well, I did a job years ago in a very tight neighborhood. And what I would do is once I followed the car out of the cul-de-sac, I would turn right, flash it, turn right, and then just barely turn right and get right back in and turn my lights off and then continue a bit. And then do that if I had to, in case they stop at a light, they look in their mirror and they see me again. So either you make a left turn, you make a right turn…
Oscar Santamaria: Oh, yeah. Make a quick little right and then like a quick little U-turn at the same time and then maybe turn your lights on and stuff. That works. And that’s why I think we spoke before about these automatic driving lights. Sometimes you’re not able to turn them off. So my preference is to have a vehicle where I can turn off those running lights and you can change things up. You can put something in the mirror like hanging from a rear view mirror. You can mess with your sun pass, turn it on, take it off, maybe throw some things on top of your dashboard. Just give it some different looks when you’re behind somebody, especially if you’re following somebody for quite a long distance.
Now, where I would suggest you not give a lot of blockers and maybe stay directly behind the person is when it’s bumper to bumper traffic. In those instances, I would probably say you should probably be right behind them because you have a couple of people coming in and all of a sudden you’re six cars back and there’s a light coming on and then you’re out of the ballgame. Aside from bumper to bumper traffic, try not to be directly behind the person. Try to be on the right side of them if possible.
Francois McKinnon: So you want to stay on the right side of them.
Oscar Santamaria: Exactly. And then when you can have a blocker or a cover car.
Francois McKinnon: Can you tell us what a blocker is?
Oscar Santamaria: Well, it’s just a car that’s between you and the person you’re following. People also call them cover cars. Take advantage of those things. And sometimes you’re able to tell when you’re on a surveillance when the light’s going to change by looking at the pedestrian crosswalks. They have a countdown. I think they started maybe at 30 seconds or 25 seconds. And if you see that countdown happening as you’re approaching that intersection, you can evaluate, do I need to speed up? Are they going to make the light? Am I going to make the light? If someone does happen to get through a light on you, the best way to recover is you want to make a quick right-hand turn and then a quick U-turn. And if they made a left-hand turn through a light, you can make a right-hand turn and you’ll have the right of way and you can catch right back up to them. There’s little things that you’ll learn throughout the years, but that’s what I would suggest.
Francois McKinnon: You know, it’s trial and error. There’s a lot of practice. We’ve been doing it for a long time, but for newcomers at the beginning, it can be a little frightening, but I think the advice you’re giving is very valid and very smart. I used to do the same thing. I would get the new interns and to see if they could follow somebody, I would have them set up at a Publix or a Food Lion or something. And then they would follow the vehicles to a residence. I would get them to film, to get videotape of them arriving at the house and then I would tell them to return until I saw the video and see how much better they were getting and how much further they followed the target. So it’s very good training for the newcomers. And we’re here to help the newcomers because we’ve done our time in this industry and it’s time to share some of the knowledge we’ve acquired over the years.
Oscar Santamaria: You know, Francois, let’s shift gears here a little bit. This podcast is not only about investigations, but it’s also about personal protection. And I know that’s not something that I have too much experience with, but I know that you do. And you have some very funny stories.
Francois McKinnon: Yeah, that’s why I’m not doing it for very long. That’s painful memories.
Oscar Santamaria: So how long have you been doing personal protection?
Francois McKinnon: I’ve done personal protection since 1998, so almost 30 years.
Oscar Santamaria: And how does one become a protective specialist?
Francois McKinnon: Well, in the state of Florida, you must be licensed under 493 as a full private investigator. And that’s the only way you can become a private investigator and a bodyguard, which is also known as close protection officer, CPO, or executive protection specialist, EPS.
Oscar Santamaria: Oh, I did not know that. I didn’t know that you needed a special license. I know private investigators could do it, but I wasn’t aware that that was the way you had to go.
Francois McKinnon: I believe these days a private investigator intern can work as an executive protection officer, but there’s a certain amount of hours that they have to be supervised by their C-licensee, which is the private investigator license that’s sponsoring them. It wasn’t possible way back when we started out 30 years ago to do executive protection when you had a CC intern license. So things have changed, and I suggest for people to go to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and look at the application for the statute 493 for private investigators.
Oscar Santamaria: Let me ask you this. I’ve always heard of threat levels. Are there different threat levels in your type of work?
Francois McKinnon: There are, and they’re rated up to five, five being the highest and one being the lowest.
Oscar Santamaria: And what is the usual job that you get?
Francois McKinnon: It’s probably a two or three, and it involves wealthy individuals that are looking to get some security to go out to clubs or special events. Auto shows, boat shows, they’re very wealthy and they have drivers and Ferraris. So they need to preserve their wealth, and they’re afraid people will try to mug them. So the close protection officer’s job is to always be with the client within two or three yards to be able to react quickly. If they’re walking in a mall, let’s say, and you have three CPOs, you’re going to have one walking in front of them and one on each side. It’s preferable to have four to make it a full diamond. You have the team leader up front. Then you have the right and left side. Then you have the one that walks behind in case somebody were to assault them from the back. But the threat level is usually a two or three. I’ve been in situations where I had a head of state, generals of foreign countries, and this was pretty up there. We were working with the Secret Service and other Secret Services of other countries.
Oscar Santamaria: Are the different threat levels a different pay grade, or is it all the same standard hourly rate?
Francois McKinnon: It’s fairly all the same. These days, the prices are crazy. You can get a true professional to work and charge $120 to $175 an hour, and that’s based on a 12-hour shift. Also, you can have somebody that really wants to work full-time, so the agency will hire them at a rate of, let’s say, $100 an hour to guarantee 40 hours a week.
Oscar Santamaria: Are weapons always used in these types of cases?
Francois McKinnon: Most of the time, if they’re legal to be in that country where you are, they are used. If you’re traveling with your clients to another country, I always hire people in the country. They give us a professional courtesy and sometimes lend us weapons. Doing this kind of work, you have to deal with all the logistics, and all the logistics comes from you and the location of where you’re going, what the threat is going to be, how long your clients are going to be there, how many of them there will be. It just doesn’t stop. Your job is also to oversee the security with the hotel director of security. If your clients are going to spend two or three days, they normally email you a floor plan showing where the suite of your client is going to be. Usually, we request connecting rooms to the suites, so we have direct access to the client. And on the outside of the suite, we set up a laser, an invisible laser beam that sticks to the walls. If anybody crosses this, it sets an alarm to everybody’s phones and radios. So by the way, nobody sleeps. There’s always somebody there by the door.
Oscar Santamaria: Wow. That’s very involved. People have been telling me, oh, you travel all over Europe and Asia and Canada, and you’re having fun.
Francois McKinnon: I’m going to tell you something. You can make a lot of money. The thing is that it’s not fun because you’re always on your toes. And you have to remember, you’re protecting people’s lives. It’s not a joke. You’re stepping in to take a bullet for that person, and this is what you sign up to. There was a detail in New York that had brought 15 of their own personal protective officers, and they had a bodyguard for the client’s wife, and both his children had their own bodyguards at all times. And these guys would sleep outside the room or alternate with swingers. We have alternate bodyguards, so they let the others sleep while they cover the night shift. It’s a great experience, but it’s very tiresome, and you constantly have to plan. What’s the next move? And whenever you take people like this shopping, it’s truly an incredible adventure. Sometimes they have the jewelers come into the suite, and we have to check all the jewelers, check their bodies for weapons, and then they go in and showcase their pieces. And then, of course, they’re going to go to dinner at the nicest restaurants in New York, and sometimes they pay the entire bill and then some to ask the other clients to leave the restaurant so they can eat alone.
And I’ve been in nightclubs… Oscar, I’m going to tell you, I have seen it about 20 times where they take a stack of $10,000, they cut it open, and they’re at the top of the club while the dance floor is on the bottom, and they toss the packages. So now you have women and guys jumping all over to get $100 bills. It’s insane. And then 20 minutes later, he looks at you and says, okay Frank, we’re out of here. We’re leaving right now. You have no idea where they’re going. You say, okay, where are we going? He says, I don’t know, find me another club. And you have to contact the director of security of that club and make arrangements with the vehicles to get them. Last time in New York, we had to have five different vehicles just to transfer them and the bodyguards to the other club. Everybody went back around five o’clock in the morning, and the client woke up at 8 a.m. So that’s a two-hour sleep that we were getting.
Oscar Santamaria: That’s crazy.
Francois McKinnon: He went to bed very late, and he loved to get up early. It’s been an exciting life, private jets, yachts, but I’ll tell you what, you earn your money. And when you’re ready to put your life on the line, you’re really earning money.
Oscar Santamaria: Is there any place in the world that you just hate to go?
Francois McKinnon: I hate to say that I hate to go, but a couple of times in the south of France for the fact that we cannot bring any weapons there. The companies and the individuals that we hire are the best in the business, but they do not have access to firearms.
Oscar Santamaria: Have you ever had a throwdown?
Francois McKinnon: Oh, absolutely. We were on a private casino yacht, a real cruise ship, but it was private. There was a wedding party, and then our clients were gambling and dancing. The shit really hit the fan, and we were going at it, man. And thank God it was a wedding on a cruise ship, so there were no weapons, and they had checked. But it really came down to it that they were going after the client.
Oscar Santamaria: Have you ever been stopped by the police during one of these melees?
Francois McKinnon: Not really. First of all, I constantly communicate with the police every time we’re doing something, whether it’s a city or a state or a government. People know who we are protecting and the reason why we’re there. It’s very important to keep constant contact with the police, specifically in another country. If you don’t speak the language, you have people that you hire that are locals, but things get lost in translation real quick. You have to really keep your eyes on the prize and make sure your client is safe. Hire the right people, and your protective detail will sail. Hire the right drivers, hire the right vehicles. If you think you need an armored vehicle, hire an armored vehicle. If it’s their lives, they don’t care about how much it costs, they’re going to pay.
Oscar Santamaria: How much is your agency split between investigations and executive protection?
Francois McKinnon: I would say 80% investigation, 20% for executive protection. The problem with executive protection is that it’s not something that happens every day. These jobs that happen every day turn into full-time contracts. So they might like one or two of the guys or girls that work for you, and they say, listen, we want to hire them directly. This has happened many, many times. But when those jobs come in, we have very good contacts with other investigative agencies that provide top-level executive protection officers to fulfill the need.
Oscar Santamaria: Well, do you have any jobs lined up in the coming months?
Francois McKinnon: We have some stuff coming up in the South of France after the Olympics.
Oscar Santamaria: You know, France has gotten pretty dangerous over the course of the last several years, hasn’t it?
Francois McKinnon: It has. We were hired by Canadian clients that were doing business in Paris. Paris is nice, and there’s a lot of police. But when you get to the South of France, you get to Marseille and Nice, things get pretty rough quickly. And there are no weapons. The bad guys have weapons, but nobody else. The cops don’t have weapons. Some do these days, but years before, they didn’t.
Oscar Santamaria: But they do a lot of stabbings there, right?
Francois McKinnon: Oh, absolutely. They’ll take a baseball bat or anything, and everybody has a knife. In Marseille, you’re also dealing with gangs, very big gangs that come from all over the world, and they gather in the South of France during the season where the wealthiest people in the world come and play. From Monte Carlo all the way down to Marseille, there’s people that will jump you for money everywhere you go. I’m not saying that it’s a huge problem, but it’s been going up every year steadily for the past five years.
Oscar Santamaria: Is there a forum where you guys talk about how these different countries are, what you need to watch out for?
Francois McKinnon: Well, we belong to associations that we guide through. So every time that we have a protective detail, we’ll follow through with the guidelines that are offered to us by associations of professional protection specialists.
Oscar Santamaria: Well, I learned something today.
Francois McKinnon: Finally, you learned something. Finally, right? That’s what my teachers would say also. Thank you for listening to the Miami PI Chronicles podcast. For all of your investigative needs in Florida, please contact McKinnon Investigative Group at 954-513-7414. That’s miginvestigations.com. Thanks again for listening and please remember to share, follow, and like.
This episode of the Miami P.I. Chronicles is brought to you by The Spy Shops for all your investigative and spy gear needs. Please call The Spy Shops in Fort Lauderdale at 954-563-1779 or visit them at www.spyshops.com.
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