A modern investigation is mostly analysis, not stakeouts. Records and open source work establish who a person is and what their pattern looks like, and surveillance is then deployed narrowly to document the specific thing that matters. Reversing that order is how people spend a lot of money for very little.
Insight Investigative Group is a licensed Florida agency, agency license A3400127, in Bradenton. Our prices are published.
What happens first in an investigation?
Identity resolution. Confirming the subject is who you think, and that the records you are about to rely on belong to them and not to someone with a similar name and date of birth. This step is unglamorous and it prevents the single most expensive category of error in this work.
Then address history, associates, vehicles, property and business affiliations, which together produce a pattern of life: where someone is likely to be, when, and with whom.
How much of it is open source?
More than most clients expect. Publicly visible social activity, court filings, corporate records, property records and licensing databases answer a large share of questions outright, and they narrow almost all of the rest.
Open source work is also what makes surveillance efficient. Knowing that a subject coaches on Tuesdays turns a speculative week into a single chosen day.
Where does surveillance fit?
Last, and narrowly. Surveillance documents the specific behaviour the case turns on, once analysis has established when and where to be. Three correctly chosen hours routinely beat twenty spent guessing, which is why we would rather establish the pattern first than sell you days.
Surveillance is $1,000 per day, flat, including unlimited mileage and travel.
What does the technology actually change?
It changes the collection, not the standard. Better cameras, licensed databases and open source tooling mean more can be established faster. What has not changed is that a finding is only worth what its documentation can survive, and that a person has to be able to stand behind it.
The volume of available data has also made the analyst more important, not less. Anyone can retrieve a hundred records. The work is knowing which three matter and what they mean together.
What does an investigation cost?
Background investigations are $175, $600 or $1,200 depending on depth, with rush delivery at $400. Surveillance is $1,000 per day. Locates start at $100. Bug sweeps are $1.50 per square foot with a $500 minimum. Everything is scoped and quoted in writing before any work begins.
Written by Joshua Goldberg, Florida private investigator license C3400073, owner of Insight Investigative Group, LLC, agency license A3400127, Bradenton, Florida.
Related: background checks and published rates.
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