Surveillance Investigations

Circumstances arise where there exists the need to determine particular activities or identities by direct observation. Surveillance consists of monitoring an individual, site, or operation for this purpose.

Surveillance is an investigative technique utilized to observe and document physical activities or associations of individuals. Surveillance may be mobile, covert or fixed through use of surveillance vehicles, afoot, or by plane or boat. Documentation occurs through the use of photo, video & electronic surveillance equipment.

Aenigma investigators are trained to detail their observations in chronological order supported by photographs, video, and audio recordings as the situation requires.

Call for a free consultation on how this service can assist your case.

Aenigma recommends all clients read the following informational paper on the Nature of Surveillance: Click Here

Uses for Surveillance

Surveillance is usually requested by a client based on something specific; such as a medical report, an anonymous tip, etc. to determine whether a claimant is really injured or just falsifying his claim. Inherent in our success is the use of sophisticated state-of-the-art video surveillance equipment. This has allowed us to get maximum results in many types of investigations, including:

• Undercover Surveillance: Undercover employees, witnesses, and/or covert cameras & video


• Corporate Surveillance: Our experienced undercover operatives help clients investigate and document employee theft, workers compensation, conflict of interest, embezzlement, drug abuse, product tampering, product diversion, industrial espionage and counterfeit products.


• Domestic Surveillance: Unfaithful spouse, child custody, nannies and babysitters. Note: Aenigma, by company policy, does not typically do Domestic types of cases.  We can however arrange for another professional investigations company to handle this for you.


• Other Types: Workers Compensation Claims, Insurance Claims, Abuse of Sick time, Employee Theft, Matrimonial Investigations, Criminal Investigations, Current Employment, Business or Personal Associates, Daily Activities / Work Habits.

Case Study 1

The client, a corporation, had a rash of worker's compensation claims, all relating from back injuries due to heavy lifting and repetitive bending. One or two could be normal, but over 6 within a month was odd, so they hired us to do some activity checks of the claimants. All of these claimants were off work, as even "light duty" was "too stressful" for their back injuries. So we took a look at 6 of them with the most suspicious claims.

After about a month of periodic observations of all 6 parties, two were never seen. They may have actually been injured and resting, but they also may have been milking it watching Oprah all day. We'll never know.

One of the others was observed packing his pickup truck with large, deep sea type, fishing poles and gear. We indeed followed him to Galveston where he was filmed getting onto a charter boat carrying a large tackle box and two poles. 6 Hours later he was filmed returning and unloading a large ice chest.

Another individual was observed working on his house during his disability. Yard work including trimming bushes and hauling branches, cleaning including climbing a ladder onto the roof to clean out the gutters, and some repairs to his fence including carrying several fence boards at one time.

A third was filmed installing a new engine into a pickup truck in his driveway/carport.

And the last one was filmed at another job - working at a chemical facility which required him to climb ladders in excess of 40 feet high.

Case Study 2

The client, a large international company with manufacturing and distribution centers in almost every US state, had noted some of their product appearing in stores that they did not have a distribution contract with. Checks of the product showed it was manufactured in a different region than would by normal for that retail establishment. They had a suspected third party that they believed was buying the product illegally and distributing it out of area.

The client hired us Aenigma to find out what was happening and how the product was being diverted. A multi-week surveillance investigation was started. Aenigma personnel followed the suspects trucks throughout Texas, with some days resulting in drives from Houston to Fort Worth and back, and multiple days of over 400 miles of driving.

Aenigma logs, video and photographic evidence proved that the suspect where getting the product illegally from an authorized distributor (against contract rules for the distributor) and transshipping it to at least 2 other regions. The evidence helped get the client a multi-million dollar fine against the distributor, shut down the diversion channel, and solve a financially damaging operation that had hurt the client for over 10 years.