Francois McKinnon: Hi there, and welcome to the Miami PI Chronicles podcast. I’m your host Francois McKinnon, the owner of McKinnon Investigative Group in Miami, Florida. I’ve been a private investigator for over 30 years in the South Florida area. McKinnon Investigative Group has taken me to many unique destinations, both domestic and abroad. I’ve conducted complex investigations as well as countless protective details throughout the world. The Miami PI Chronicles podcast will bring you inside the world of private investigations and the security industry. This podcast will showcase different guests who will bring you their professional expertise in their specialty fields and some of their wildest and most memorable cases. Our guests will be from different backgrounds in investigations, security, and everything in between.
On our show today, I have the honor of having Mr. Oscar Santamaria, president of Optimum Investigations. Welcome back, Oscar. We’re back in studios together on South Beach in South Florida. Beautiful day today. We’re going to talk a little bit about the best kind of vehicles to conduct insurance defense surveillance. Oscar, since you’re a professional at surveillance, what are your thoughts?
Oscar Santamaria: Well, I think a vehicle is very, very important. I never underestimate that. You have shows like Magnum PI where you’re driving around in a red Ferrari on an island — that’s probably the most ridiculous vehicle you could possibly use when conducting surveillance. You want to go with the more popular vehicles: the Toyotas, the Hyundais, the Nissans, the Hondas. A vehicle that when you’re driving, you see a plethora of. Some geographical locations are a little bit different. Some are more high-end, and in the rural areas there are things like pickup trucks that might be useful. But as far as the city goes, you can’t go wrong with a Toyota, Hyundai, Honda, or Nissan. Something that blends in easily, either a sedan or an SUV.
Francois McKinnon: And what colors are best?
Oscar Santamaria: The best colors I find are whites, silvers, and grays. Those are the colors I would generally stick to. You want to stay away from loud colors like yellow, red, and orange. People look in their mirrors and those colors really stick out. They are not very common and they attract attention immediately.
Another thing you want to consider is the headlights. Does the vehicle have automatic running lights? That can be an issue these days because sometimes when you turn the car on, the lights automatically come on. Sometimes you have the ability to turn them off, but sometimes you do not. You have to be very aware that the only way you may be able to deactivate those running lights is by pulling up the emergency brake slightly. But you have to be vigilant, because if you turn your car on because it is hot and you do not have that emergency brake engaged, those lights are going to be on and they will draw attention. You also want to avoid vehicles with odd-shaped lights or LED accents around them. If somebody looks around and sees those unusual LEDs they will remember that specific car. That is how people think.
Francois McKinnon: Good point. What about fuel efficiency?
Oscar Santamaria: I would personally suggest finding a vehicle that is very economical on gas because that is where you are going to spend a lot of your money. Gas prices are not cheap and they are only going up. I would consider something with good gas mileage, around 30 in the city and maybe 35 to 40 on the highway.
As for hybrids, sometimes those vehicles turn on when they are idling and if somebody is around they might hear that. I am not fully convinced about hybrid vehicles for surveillance just yet. And electric vehicles, the Teslas and others are becoming more popular but I am not sure they are ready for surveillance work. You and I did a surveillance once and ended up following somebody all the way to Atlanta, so that would not have worked in an EV. The charging issue is the real problem. With a gas vehicle you can top off in five minutes. With an EV you may need to wait 20 to 30 minutes at a charger. Also, with EVs you should ideally let the battery go down to about 20 percent before recharging, which means you cannot just top off every morning the way I do with my gas vehicle. If you only have half a charge and your subject goes any distance, you are going to be stressed about battery life the whole time. Down the road when they are everywhere it will make more sense, but right now I do not think it is the right time.
Francois McKinnon: Oscar, I wanted to ask you about window tinting. We’re in Florida. What is the legal tint percentage?
Oscar Santamaria: I am not exactly sure of the precise legal percentage, maybe around 30 percent. I have my windows very darkly tinted and I also have my windshield tinted. There are different schools of thought on that. I have been doing this for 30 years and I find that having your front windshield tinted is very, very helpful. People can be standing right in front of my car while I am filming them and they do not see anything at all. You might draw attention from very hypervigilant people, a police officer or a professional claimant who is watching for investigators, but in most cases I have no issues with windshield tint. It is not only about the claimant not seeing me. It is also people walking their dogs who try to look in. They have no idea I am there and they just keep going. It is very helpful when you are parked in a tight neighborhood. These days there are neighborhood apps and community notes where people post about suspicious vehicles. You do not want any of that. You want to be as low profile as possible.
Francois McKinnon: And what about camera equipment? What would you suggest for someone new to surveillance or looking to improve their setup?
Oscar Santamaria: Most cameras do the same core things, but I would definitely go with a camera that has a good optical zoom. I would say at least 60x optical. There is also a digital zoom but you never really want to use that because things start pixelating. With a 60x optical zoom you can stay a block away and still get good video of the subject. As for brand, I use Sony. I have also had Canon and Panasonic. You just have to go out and test them yourself or talk to colleagues in the industry. It does not need to be very expensive. For investigators who work at night you might want a camera with night vision, which is particularly helpful on domestic cases where you are sometimes shooting through tinted windows in low light. Those cameras with night vision are a bit more expensive but worth it if you do a lot of nighttime work. You can also get a solid working camera for $200 to $300. They tend to break over time since you are constantly moving them around, so it is good to have a backup. Before cell phones, if your camera died you were out of luck. Today your phone can serve as a backup, though it is not ideal for surveillance because you have to unlock it, enlarge the screen, and by then you have missed the activity.
Francois McKinnon: What about covert cameras?
Oscar Santamaria: I have the pen camera and the key fob camera, but my favorite covert camera is actually my phone. I have an OtterBox case and when I follow somebody into a grocery store, I flip the camera with the lens facing out and set it on the cart, then push it right behind the subject. Nobody ever says anything, the video is very smooth, and you get a lot of footage. I also hold it to my side while looking at things in the aisle.
The pen camera shakes too much when you move. The key fob has its advantages in certain situations. I once had a case where a claimant worked at a small shoe store. I left my key fob on a display for half an hour while I stepped out, then came back and said I thought I had left my keys there. I had 30 minutes of uninterrupted video of her walking around, attending to customers, putting shoes away. It is good to have a few things in your arsenal and know when to use each one.
Francois McKinnon: Oscar, have you ever been in a situation on the job where your life was in danger?
Oscar Santamaria: I do not want to scare people away from the profession, because it does not happen often. But a couple of situations do come to mind. I was parked on a surveillance in a questionable neighborhood and forgot to lock my doors. The cars today, sometimes when you put the car in park, the doors can unlock automatically. A man parked his bike next to my car and just opened the door and got in. He was completely surprised to find me inside because of the window tint. He apologized and left, but he was clearly checking if the car was unlocked.
The other incident happened in early 2023. I was driving between cases, not actively on surveillance, passing by a location I had worked before. I was momentarily distracted looking at that location and suddenly heard shots ring out and felt my car getting hit. There was a man right in front of me shooting across the street at another person. I got down behind the dashboard. The shooter got into his car and drove off. My car was struck a few times. Crime can happen anywhere, but when you are working in certain neighborhoods you have to stay extra vigilant. People in those areas can be very aware of their surroundings and very unpredictable.
Francois McKinnon: I had something similar happen to me doing a time shot in downtown Miami years ago. For people who do not know, a time shot is a brief video you take periodically during surveillance, usually every 30 minutes, just to document that you were present at a specific location at a specific time. Our video always has a date, day, time, and location stamp. I raised my camera to do a quick time shot and as I hit record I saw two men walk up to a parked car at 4 in the afternoon and fire at the driver. They got back in their car and drove off. I kept my camera rolling on the dashboard, drove slowly to get the license plate, and called 911. As I passed I could see the driver had been shot. I gave Miami PD the plate number and the video. They made an arrest. You get home that evening and your family asks how your day was and you just say fine.
Oscar Santamaria: We are living in crazy times. So that is unfortunately not surprising.
Francois McKinnon: Oscar, what is the best part of this job for you?
Oscar Santamaria: For me, I am just not built to work a nine-to-five job. I never was. I like being on my own and working. The lone wolf. I work cases, I go places, I see things that a typical person never sees. I can go from the wealthiest neighborhoods on the island of Palm Beach to the scariest neighborhoods in Miami and everything in between. Every day is something different. I do not have that repetition of doing the same thing every single day and seeing the same people. Every day is somewhat of an adventure, sometimes a boring one, but an adventure.
Francois McKinnon: You are absolutely right. Every day you get up and go out and just see what it brings. I find myself driving through areas and thinking, I did a surveillance there, I set up right over there. And then you realize how many you have done over the years. Oscar and I were talking recently and laughing about some of the situations we found ourselves in. We have met some truly colorful characters along the way. Sometimes our clients are wilder than the subjects.
We had a mother-daughter duo that kept us busy for about a year and a half, following the daughter’s boyfriend around. Oscar affectionately called them the locuras, which is Spanish for the crazies. We are going to be sharing some of those stories on future episodes because they are genuinely unbelievable.
Oscar Santamaria: We thought the case was going to last a week or two at most.
Francois McKinnon: We thought it would be a day. We caught the guy right away. I was in Pennsylvania testifying on a domestic case when you got the initial call from one of your contacts. It was a mother-daughter client. The daughter believed her boyfriend was cheating. She had means, she was very attached to this guy, and she wanted to know the truth.
You had actually followed them to a costume Halloween party at a destination venue. There was a charter bus involved. When I joined the team on that one, I remember you telling me there were two Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office deputies at the entrance checking for invitations. We had none, so I rented a limousine. We pulled up, the officers came over, and I just acted like I belonged there, said hello, and we walked in. Of course the subject was already inside with another girl.
Oscar Santamaria: And everywhere we followed him after that, whether it was skiing in the Poconos or anywhere else, he was always with someone other than the client. She had video proof and yet they continued their relationship. I remember when she showed me that he had a heart condition he had been born with.
Francois McKinnon: That is a detail I will never forget. She actually arranged a whole scene around it. She rented a suite, told him they were going to watch a movie, he sat down happy, and she put on the surveillance footage we had shot of him leaving work and driving two hours to visit another woman and spending the night. He did not know what to say. He got up to leave and she asked where he was going. He said he was going to get bagels. She said yes, you go get the bagels. Meanwhile the stress of the situation triggered a cardiac episode and they had to take him out on a stretcher.
Oscar Santamaria: And it did not stop there. The case just kept going.
Francois McKinnon: Eventually they got married and had children. But this case took us everywhere. One of the most memorable was a wedding in Massachusetts. We knew the subject was going to be in the wedding party up there, so we made the trip. The client flew up with her assistant. I rented a van for Oscar to sit in. I got dressed in a tuxedo and went in with a covert camera.
The venue was a beautiful country club. We had no invitation. The day before, I had actually found a side door during a walk-through and noted it for access. We walked in, I said hello to the staff as if I belonged, and we started working. I was getting great footage. The subject was right there. Then the doors to the reception opened and he was on the dance floor. We had everything we needed.
Then the bridezilla found me. She came right over and asked who I was and where my invitation was. I gave her my standard backstory. I am Peter Gray, I am on the list. She was not buying it and started marching to the front desk. I told the woman with me to take off her shoes because we were going to have to run. I called Oscar in the earpiece and said we were coming out. We got to the van and it would not start. The client is screaming in the back. Oscar is trying to start the engine. It would not go. It was like a scene from a movie. Finally it started, we pulled out, went back to the hotel.
Oscar Santamaria: But we came back later in a different car after everything had calmed down. And he left that night with his friends, not with any girl. The client was satisfied. The next day we flew home, though we missed our original flight because we had been going all night answering the client’s questions back at the hotel. We ended up sleeping in and taking a later flight. But she got the answers she needed. And as Francois said, the story has a happy ending. They are married with children.
Francois McKinnon: Cases like that remind you why you do this work. Sometimes you deliver good news and sometimes you do not. But you have to go with the flow, be a kind human, and respect people’s feelings because they are hurting. Sometimes you end up becoming something of a therapist to these clients. None of us are licensed for that, but just listening to them and giving some positive input goes a long way. People are suffering and all they really want is to talk and be heard. Just be sympathetic. Understand that they are coming from a place of grief, anxiety, and heartbreak. Take that under consideration and if you have to spend a little time on the phone with them to reassure them that everything is going to be fine, just do it. That comes with the territory.
Francois McKinnon: Oscar, thank you so much for being on the show. Oscar can be reached at 1-800-745-4021. If you want to send us questions or comments, you can do that by emailing [email protected]. Thank you so much for listening and we hope to see you on the next episode.
This episode is sponsored by the Law Offices of Diana Santamaria, personal injury law. For a free consultation call 888-494-2736.
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