Monday WTF Files: The man who sold the Emperor new clothes

This might seem a little out of place here, not being about investigations per se, but I think it is of general interest to those involved in the security industry.

James McCormick has been jailed for 10 years for selling his modern-day version of snake oil in the form of the contains-no-actual-working-parts ADE651 Bomb Detector (and previous models) to such tranquil and trouble-free locales as Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan,Thailand and others.

Not after raking in some £55million though.

Monday* WTF Files: Church pays a couple of PIs $12m

Well, not a real** church but 'Church of Scientology', which probably explains a lot.

Thanks to Twitter and Kevin's Security Scrapbook, I've just heard about how two Private Investigators, Paul Marrick and Greg Arnold  (yes, their real names), received around $500,000 a year over the past 24 years from Scientology's Führer, David Miscavige.

That amount again: $12 million.

What method to this madness, I ask?

Monday WTF Files: Psychic Private Investigations

Sometimes I seriously have to wonder why I bother.

Why don't I just quadruple my fees and, instead of doing any actual investigating, just make shit up?

Like Beryl Frasier (not her real name but I'm sorely tempted...) and her partner.

Monday WTF Files: Outrageous Fortunes

Gordon Gecko might contend that greed is good but I have my doubts.

Not so much doubt regarding whether greed falls on one side or the other of the good/bad divide, but how it can be justified to a seemingly willing participant?

I want to know.

Monday WTF Files: The Actress and the Investigator

In case you missed the 'news', Kelly Rutherford (her real name), of Gossip Girl fame* is being sued by private investigator Edward Banach (presumably also his real name) over an unpaid bill for services rendered during her messy divorce case.

According to Rutherford, Banach was hired to prove her ex did not properly secure the pool and play areas of his home, therefore endangering their son.

Sounds simple enough, right?

So how did the investigator get to bill for $86,249.85? For less than 2 months work?

Let's look at that figure again.

$86,249.85

What would the Jesus do?

One thing I've been noticing for a while now is the number of Private Investigators, mostly American, who openly profess to love Jesus and list 'God', 'Christiantity' and (usually) 'Gun Rights' somewhere in their online profiles.

Fair enough, everyone has interests.

What I don't understand, however, is the level of bile and antipathy they express towards non-Christians and, in particular, Muslims. So much so that I have 'unfollowed' a number of PIs on Twitter because their rantings were starting to resemble those of the Taliban.

Answer me this...

Here's a question some of you internet-savvy pundits may be able to answer for me.

How do website referrals work?

When I look at the statistics for this blog, I've noted that I'm getting significant traffic from some strange URLs that, for the life of me, I cannot understand.

At least I get www.thebigbearbutt.com although how a link to my blog ended up on a site devoted to World of Warcraft geekdom is a bit hazy. So if you, Dear Reader, are the sort of person who lives at home with your parents and stays up all night at the computer in your underwear pretending to be some elf-maiden with improbable breasts, you should go check out his site.

No, what I don't understand is the traffic I'm getting from a bunch of Ukranian and Russian sites that have absolutely NOTHING to do with investigations nor, as far as I can tell, is there any link to my blog.

So why are people coming here from there?

Monday WTF Files #1: Lies, Damned Lies, & Statistics

So there I was, just looking through Google Analytics to see what brings visitors to my blog, when I see that I had two (2) visitors this month who came to my site when searching for:

...wait for it...