Could someone actually steal $1,000,000 from a company and get away with it? What would it be like to stare directly in the eyes of Charles Manson? What does it feel like to stand in the exact same spot where Kennedy was killed? You can find all of that information out today and so much more with Thomas Martin on the Daily Grind.
Today's podcast, everyone, is brought to you by WellSpent. WellSpent is a free money management app on a mission to help Canadians make better decisions with their money. Linking your bank account, you can start saving and start reducing regretful spending. Listen, most of their apps out there are just going to tell you that you're spending too much eating out or you're spending too much on things that maybe matter to you, but don't matter to everyone else.
WellSpent takes a completely different approach, which is absolutely amazing. I encourage you all to download the app available on Android and iOS. You can check out their website at wellspent.co or follow them on Instagram at well.spent. You guys are not going to regret this, what an amazing app and amazing tool for you right now.
WellSpent, you can download it today through the Android and iOS stores or go to wellspent.co. Hey everybody and welcome back to the podcast. On today's episode, we are sitting down with Thomas Martin as a supervisory federal agent, Thomas Martin represented the US Department of Justice in over 54 countries and throughout the United States. He received numerous domestic and foreign awards during his service, including two US Department of Justice Special Achievement Awards.
Mr. Martin has been involved in many high profile cases you're going to hear on today's episode with national exposure, including many unsolved crimes and cold cases. Through retiring as a federal agent, Martin formed Martin Investigative Services Inc in Newport Beach, California. He now oversees 22 male and female private investigators who are also former federal agents of the DEA, FBI, IRS, and Secret Service.
As always, everyone, be sure you have a pen, piece of paper, sit back and really dive deep into today's interview with Mr. Thomas Martin. Enjoy. All right.
Well, Tom Martin, welcome to the Daily Grind. How are you? Right, Colin. Thanks for inviting me.
I really appreciate it. Of course, Tom, how are things these days? I know these are crazy unprecedented times. How are things on your end?
Well, we're doing crazy and not the norm is certainly a good way to put it. I had most of our people at their houses with kind of a norm for private investigators. But we're struggling like everybody else, but we'll get through it and hopefully come out the other end a little stronger and healthy as we move along. No doubt.
All right, Tom. Well, people are being first introduced you on the podcast. Let's build a little context here for people who don't know who you are, maybe know a little bit about what you do, kind of let people know who you are and what it is that you do. Sure.
Well, I started out trying to figure out what college I was going to go to, and I ended up in the seminaries to become a diocesan Catholic priest in that about four years until I decided the seminary is probably the worst place to become a priest. So I went to visit my cousin who was a priest in New Jersey and was quite an eye-opening experience for a fairly naive 20-year-old at that time who did know his ear from his elbow when it came to, you know, drop or drink or smoke or any of that kind of stuff. So I ended up doing stuff in Harlem and teaching at Patterson High School and really got inundated in the drug scene, and that led me to apply to become an agent with the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, and was luckily accepted in September of 1969, and for the next 12 years I was an agent with that agency. What most of your listeners will know today is the Drug Enforcement Administration.
So I put down the rosary beads in the Bible and got a gun and credentials in a badge and grew my hair long and motorcycle and became an undercover agent for a while, and then I did the other end of the spectrum where I cleaned my act up and were a suit and became a money man, you know, flashing a million or two million dollars in Honolulu or in Las Vegas. So it's an exciting time. I was on the fast track and that got ended in 1981, got hurt, and so I had to retire. So I was a young guy in my mid-30s with two young kids, so what do I do?
Interestingly, the government has to retrain you in something that you try to make the same amount of money as you were making as an agent, which is also very much. So I've waived all the requirements and said, I'll just start my own business. I'll grind it out myself. Because if you fail, they've got to retrain you.
So I signed a waiver. I just started a private investigator business, and it's about all I knew. I was a pretty decent investigator. And so I started to Martin Investigative Services and an executive suite with a phone that didn't ring and an empty roll of decks of people and I don't know if many of your listeners know what a roll of decks is, but I still don't know.
And you know, there wasn't many private investigators out there in 1981 and there was nobody really advertising. And so I went to the office every day with a suit and tie on and pretended I had a lot of business and just basically worked at it and worked at it and worked at it. And so we got lucky with a few cases and 40 years later, it's one of an overnight success. It's always the case, right?
40 years later overnight success. I love it. What led you to want to become an agent? Well, I get asked that a lot.
It's a great question. And I sometimes think it really wasn't a perception of my part that I said I would like to be a federal agent. I want to go into the FBI, the DEA, the IRS Secret Service. It was just, I pretty much said I was going to give my life to priesthood and help other people out.
And when I saw the scourge and the drugs that was happening in New Jersey and New York and in Harlem, I said, well, maybe I could make a difference. Now never did I think in my wildest dreams that I could become a federal agent. That was so far from my realm of possibilities. In my family, my mom was a waitress and my dad was an oat man and neither one graduated high school.
So my bar wasn't set too high. It was, let's graduate from high school, anything after that's gravy. So I explored it after I decided to leave the seminary and said, well, this is the same something possible. Let's start applying.
And I was very, very, very fortunate that President Nixon in those days started a campaign to hire 2000 new agents. So it wasn't that you had a heartbeat that you got selected. It was there were 30,000 people that applied in 1969. So I was pretty lucky guy.
Of that. So when you get it, when you just start out your private practice as a private investigator and you're getting started, you mentioned there were a couple cases that you kind of got lucky with. It kind of springboarded you. Can you share any of those details?
The very first case I had probably was, to this day, one of the best cases I ever had probably got the most press TV video. I was sitting in my office on another private investigator from the San Fernando Valley in California called me and said, I've got this case, it's a little over my head. The gentleman has been accused of molesting his stepdaughter and some other very grotesque things. He was convicted and he was given 25 years.
And I said, oh, boy, that sounds like an easy case to start. I said, why would we want to do this? He said, well, the guy's got some money and I know you don't have any business. And so I said, OK, so it was a little against the grain for me.
I mean, I got offered a few cases to help out, quote, dope because I might have had some inside information. And I just couldn't take it. I mean, the DeLorean case, which is pretty famous case in the 80s, was the group that I left. And I was offered a large sum of money, $25,000 to work on that case.
Wow. And I just couldn't make the transition. I mean, $25,000 was about half of what I was making as an agent. And I was like, big money, especially when you're trying to start out in a new business.
But I just couldn't do it. So anyway, I met the gentleman and I read the transcripts and being the trained investigator that I was. I said, you're guilty. I don't want your money.
I don't want your case. He goes, no. And he convinced me, the short version. He convinced me that he was not guilty.
He would have never done this. And so I did take the case and I think I took it on for $500 total. So you got to solve these fast or you're working for $1 an hour. But this is one of those things when you don't have a lot going on.
So I think over the three or four weeks, I interviewed a number of people I found in the victims, supposedly his stepdaughter, that he had the lesson. I found her diary. And in the diary, it said August 22, Greg divergentized me today. And so I went home to my wife and I went, is this what I think it means, Greg divergentized me today?
And she looked at me like, you're some investigator. You don't even know what that means. And so if that was true, if Greg had divergentized her on that date, then all the accusations of her father would be, their stepfather would be false. And so anyway, we were able to prove that.
And we found her boyfriend who also confirmed that she made it up with her mother to get the assets in a divorce. So that in itself, Colin was probably a pretty decent case. This guy was facing 25 years and we were able to get him, hopefully a new trial, but then the judge said based on our evidence that they were not going to try him and he was a free man. So if you stop there, that's not too bad, but the story goes on.
And how it goes on is how it goes on and which got all the press was that one of the girls that I interviewed, one of her best friends told me she goes, Miss Martin, something's been bothering me. And I tell you that when we were in the district attorney's office, a man who was prosecuting your client, he had a picture of his wife on the credenza and back again. I said, well, so do I. What's the big deal?
He goes, well, I knew he was married, but he was also fooling around with the victim. And I was like, I guess I was like stunned. I mean, I see a lot of stuff in my life at that point, but I was stunned. I said, well, let me ask you, are you telling me that the victim in this case was having sex with the district attorney?
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Very calmly. I was in the department of justice where they teach you, clean your own linen, you know, give the, give the agents a chance to clean it up whatever mess they're in.
So that's what I did. I took everything. I put it all together. I took statements and under the penalty of perjury in the laws of state of California and I presented it to the internal affairs division of the district attorney's office saying, here's a big pile of dog.
Do you need to clean it up? I didn't hear anything. Nothing. Two weeks, three weeks, four weeks past.
Really? So that bothered me. I mean, I really bothered me as a former agent, right? So I decided that I would call a press conference now.
I must say if I call a press conference today, more likely people will show up because it's something, you know, I've got something to say and it involves a case. Well, those days, nobody showed up except one girl from a radio station called KFWB. And I just talked to her, she had a little hand held of microphone and I talked into that and I told my story. Well, the next day it was national news and finally the district attorney's office did take the case under and then obviously the attorney was fired and at the end of the day I still get Christmas cards from his first name was Jim, you know, the thanking me for basically saving his life.
So that was not a bad start. No doubt. I also am reading here that you, are you face to face with Charles Manson? I was twice.
Wow. In person. In person. I close and personally.
Yes. I was the very first time I was in 1971, I was in the jail and I was debriefing and informant and one of my contacts there said that Charlie and the girls were the courtroom. He was able to get me in and I just sat there and we had a pretty good seat in the front row and Charlie would always turn around and look at the audience and try to stare at you. And at this point in time, I had, you know, looked a few dope pillars in Medellin Cartel guys and some bad ombrees in my life and Charlie wasn't going to scare me.
I didn't think. I would just sit there and wasn't going to talk to him and so that one he just kind of didn't give me much look but the second time that I interfaced with him, I was in the front row and it was during a sentencing and he turned around and for some reason he locked eyes and we locked together so, you know, Mr. Agent Man at that time, you know, you got on your machismo. I'm going to stare this creep down like nobody's business and I should win this pretty easy, right?
Well, about 15 seconds in, Charlie was, I just went, oh my god, this, you could just tell by looking at it, I'd never seen evil like that in my life. It's kind of a blank stare but also it was characterized by, this is a guy, you know, that, okay, Charlie, you win and I don't want to engage with you, even though I had two guns on at the time and it was a pretty big boy and it's just the aura that he had and he continued that up until he died a couple years ago. So it was a very interesting, but short encounter with Charlie. Wow, so being around people like that, like him being, say, the extreme, is there like a sense that you get around like certain people, you get sort of that kind of feeling and like intuitive feeling that there's maybe something wrong with that person or that person is just not right?
You can, I think it's called street smarts being smart, there's a lot of good investigators that are really top notch and quality investigators but some don't have the ability to having worked undercover or being on the street and there's a lot of people who are not investigators that are street smart too and I used the analogy, I was an agent and we were going to arrest what we call a class one biler or somebody who was an organized crime or somebody that was involved in Columbian and the Medellin Cartel or they were down in Mexico with the Mexican mafia. When you went to arrest those people, you really had no worries. It was not going to be a shootout, it was not going to be a fight, no problems. Now, if you're on the streets and you're purchasing, you know, PCP or meth or, you know, some of the drugs that might be tainted like that's a bad heroin and you've got a guy that we will say is not a street person but somebody who's just low level, those guys are usually using and when you go to arrest them, you know, that's when you have to be careful.
That's when your six cents says, whoa, this is not good and, you know, I've seen situations where those guys are up on meth and they get shot five or six times and they still come at you. Wow. So, yeah, that's something is a learned behavior by most agents but you can't teach that in the academy and that's something you just got to see for the first time. I want you to see it.
You never forget it. Oh, no. Well, I think I think that everyone at one point in their life has wanted to be a private investigator, you know, like, I think that I don't know if you found that, I think like even myself, I'm like, what a cool job you have to be able to do what you do. But like, what's the, what's the real truth behind it?
Like say someone wants to get into it. What is it? What does a day look like? Like walk us through that.
Okay. Well, it's a, it's a, for your listeners, anybody who even thought about it, I guess everybody I'm told it's thought about it at one point, you know, it's a great career and why is it great because I don't know what I'm going to do every day that I wake up. Now, today I knew I was going to have the opportunity and privilege to do your show, but after the show is over, I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I don't know if I'm going to be on an airplane.
I don't know if I'm going to be, you know, helping guys out in surveillance and taking statements. So what is a, it's a, it's a, it's a tremendous career and no two days are ever the same. I will tell you, most people and maybe some of your listeners picture a private investigator as a guy peering around the corner with a fedora and a pipe and doing a, doing a marital surveillance. And, and, and, and that represents, if you think our agency is one of the tops, not my words.
Other people say that maybe we're in the top every 10, top 20, top five, then the, the amount of marital surveillance is that we do is about 6% of our business. And so when you're doing a surveillance, it's very, very tough and very arduous and it's, you can sit for one hour, you can sit for 10 hours, you've got to be ready when that man or that woman gets out of their car and goes into the hotel or meets their, their car. And so, you know, there's more words that we have, don't have bathrooms, but they do have Folger's Coffee Kids. So although the glamour that you see on TV, you can imagine, maybe that's not so glamorous.
And that part of the job is, is pretty tough. So, but the opportunities, especially now, is too full. When the economy goes up, our business goes down now, when the economy, you know, when the economy goes down, our business goes way, way up. And right now, I mean, I'm in the fourth quarter of doing this and I've helped a lot of people almost, every federal agent that comes out of the service, just because we've been around so long will call us and say, Hey, I want to get my license, I want to become a PI, you know, I sometimes say, yes, so do I, so I want to become a PI too.
And so we've helped a lot of people along the way, but I would say, right, oh, the great need in private investigators is for females right now. There is, there is a very, very, there's a lack of quality people and there's a real lack of, of females in the industry. I'm not sure why. And the reason for that is simple, the top private investigators, the top federal agents have one skill set that usurps everyone else.
And it's not informing handling or surveillance or doing some of the other things. It's the art of interview and interrogation. So it separates the men from the boys, the chalk from the industry. So how I got my guys is that all of them have taught, like myself, at the Department of Justice and Treasury, et cetera.
So the skill set that can be mastered, people in your audience just have to do it for five or ten years. And that's important. And why is it for females even better? Well, if I'm going to interview Colin, me and you might go mono on mono.
And if I bring one of my female investigators in, my guess is that you'll try to impress her and you'll tell her that at the end of the day that, you know, maybe you shock Kennedy. I mean, who knows what you'll tell her. So it's, it's, it's, it's a little, and the same with when you're interviewing, let's say, a female on your staff, if I do it, she might be a little bit hesitant and I might be maybe too macho or, you know, too overbearing and like that, where if I had one of my female investigators interview another female, there's not that tension. There's not that barrier.
So if you have, and most of my, um, investigator male friends hate them when I say this, but it happens to be true. So if you have a male in a female that exactly have, have the exact same talents, you know, experience and mindset and street smarts, and you're actually going into corporate America to find out who's stealing time, money and, and product, the females, your best bet. That's why if anybody's thinking about becoming a private investigator, um, you know, the first thing is to get that license in, uh, in the state that you're involved in, and then try to navigate yourself into that world of interviewing and interrogation because the money is great. Uh, the cases are unlimited and the rewards are great.
Very informative. I love that. Now I'm sure through you've been doing this a ton, you've probably had a whole bunch of cases. I'm wondering, and you don't have to share this.
And if you don't share it, that's fine. But give me like a, maybe like an example, but like, what's, what's one of the scariest cases you've worked? Like one that kind of maybe major stomach turn a little bit. Well, there's a, there's a lot of cases that you work that you, you, you kind of question your sanity.
I couldn't work any dope cases for five or six or seven years. And then when they asked us to do those cases, um, in other words, uh, defense attorney would call us up and say, Hey, we got a guy here who just delivered a hundred pounds of cocaine. And I said, well, did the DEA do anything wrong? No, then I'm not taking the case.
If they did something wrong, then we'll go ahead and testify. But I guess one of the most gut turning cases is when you have a murder case and you're defending the person that allegedly did the murder. And you, with your ability to interview and your intuitiveness about people and skill, my guest says that if I sat you down with a guy who's been accused of a 187 or a murder, my guess is that the back of your neck, like a little briskly, because you know that this guy might be guilty. Yeah.
Now we have some insight information, right? So we might be able to make it that it's, that's, that it's even more so that he's, that he's, he's guilty. We're pretty sure that he's guilty, but under the law, everybody deserves a defense. I've sat at those tables where we've had a gang banger or somebody's accused of murdering their wife or their spouse or a neighbor or whatever.
And I'm pretty sure they're guilty and then the jury comes back as not guilty. I want to tell you, I don't take your breath away. Now early in my career, I would go, Oh, I would come home at night and go, Oh my God, I can't even eat dinner. This is just, this is awful.
But then I got to thinking by a wise attorney once told me, he goes, Look, I did my job. You did your job. The person prosecuting apparently didn't do their job. If we get them off, there's, there's no crying over that skill.
No, we've done our job. Granted, I've had, I've sat at the table and they come back and the hammer slams down and says guilty. Well, you know, you, you certainly feel bad for the person, but maybe not so bad of truth. We told, if you know they are guilty, there's a lot of cases where child custody gets involved and you see the nothing like when I was an agent, I mean, you would see death and destruction of families like you can't believe, but even in the divorce cases that we do, and we do all the high end cases in Hollywood in Los Angeles and around the country, you know, billionaires and millionaires and all that stuff.
And many of these people are just crazy by spending a lot of money trying to beat up the other person and it's a turn to a while. But then the kids are involved and, and, and that's, that's, that's also gut-wrenching to answer your question, specifically to see the kids go through that and, and, and it's sometimes very heartbreaking. And in other cases where they're, you know, you're helping somebody out and you're, you're changing their lives. They really are.
So. That's super interesting. How many cases would you typically take on in a year? Well, we're full service.
And when I started, as I said, you know, I didn't have any business. I didn't have anybody working for me. So I, you know, I probably took on in the early days, 81, 82, if I had a case a month, I'd probably line to you. Okay.
So, but in 83 and 84, when we really started to roll, and it took me that long to, to, to use another use a term, it took me a daily grind for two or three years to get up there where we had maybe five or six cases coming in a week. And then in 85, 86, after we got some press and after we were on radio and TV, some of the cases went nationally. We were probably doing 15 surveillance a week and then maybe five cases in corporate America and we would do cases for the insurance companies, we'd do attorneys, and then we would do cases for the public. So at the height, I had 48 investigators working in my office.
Wow. That's incredible. So you had mentioned when the economy's up, your business is going, it goes down and the economy's down. Your business goes up.
Why is that? It's very simple that people do bad things when the economy is down. Got you. It's a little time, money and product.
And in 1985 to 2006, every top investigator in the country would tell you the same statistics. If you went to a company that had a hundred employees and you went in there and started interviewing them and finding out who's stealing and who's doing bad things and who's having sex in the, in the back room and who's bringing in drugs and who's doing all these things, you would find that 15% of the employees were doing something bad. And so when we walk in with our team, we tell the HR people, it's not a question if we're going to fire somebody or give you the evidence so you can fire them. It's a question of you're going to have a nightmare on your hands because you're going to have to replace 15 employees.
Now fast forward from 2006 to the present. All of a sudden when we had the downturn in 2006, 7, 8, all of a sudden our stats at our office started going up. It was like 15%, 20%. And I felt really uncomfortable talking about this in the press and on TV and radio because it sounded like I'm hyping it up.
I'm trying to say, oh, this is terrible for us to get more business. Well, we had so much business we could hardly keep up. So it wasn't that. So I contacted other guys that I respected in the industry.
And I think today in 2020, it's been consistent for the last four years. And this, believe me, to your listeners, I'm not hyping it. You can take this to the bank. And if you have 100 employees in a business today, especially now with the virus, I think if things ever get back to whatever normal is, we have found in the last 10 years or so, 75% of the people were stealing time money or product.
Wow. Now, most of them are stealing time. So everybody kind of, I've got small businesses and I've got Fortune 100 clients and I've got CEOs that make $20 million a year. And at the end, they go, oh, they're just stealing at the time.
And I try to tell them, look, if you've got 100 employees that are stealing $100 a week, that for a year, that's $520,000, $520,000, it's a half a million. They put it in those terms and the CFO and the COO and all the money guys go, wow. So then they take a different look at it. And that has held since about 2006, so for 14 years.
That's amazing. So I mean, with all the resources that you have and obviously the skill set, is there ever a time where you're kind of like, you just wanted to look into something yourself, like you didn't, it wasn't a case you were taking on. Maybe it was like, you wanted to look into something like the Kennedy killing, like, is there anything that you took like a personal interest in? It's interesting to say that I did go to Dallas on a case one time and I met a secret service buddy there and I've always been fascinated because I was supposed to have a big party on November 22nd, 1963 when Mr.
Kennedy got shot. And, you know, and though I remember the dates pretty well, I was, you know, I never stood in front of a TV that was about as big as a monitor in those days watching the Oswald get shot, et cetera. So I actually was kind of fascinated with, did Oswald do it? Could he have, you know, fired the shots and blah, blah, blah.
So I had a secret service buddy mind take me to the book depository and I was actually able to rest my elbows on the window that he shot out. Pretty much it was, it was so small column. I can figure, you know, I've seen it on TV for what, at that time, maybe 25 or 30 years. And when you get there, the building's really tiny and you go up to the second floor there, I think it was the second floor and the secret service guys obviously had contacts and we were able to lift open the window.
And then I just kind of pretended that I had the rifle and having shot a number of rifles and guns in my life. I was able to recreate, can you fire the three shots and actually try to pretend where the car is and, you know, as it went down, pack the hole and et cetera. And for what it's worth, I mean, I came to the decision that was, it was not only done, but it could be easily done with three shots. Oh, really?
Interesting. Oh, yeah. And I think it was the third one that actually was what they called them. He called them money yet or he didn't say it publicly, but that's the one that killed Mr.
Kennedy. Wow. That's incredible. And it's an interesting, I was actually hired by the Kennedy family on one of their sons who was accused of raping somebody on a cruise ship, one of the floating colleges at sea.
And so through a lot of good investigative work, he was arrested in Yugoslavia in a place called Split. And we were able to get him off. So that was a, that was a great case. I got a lot of press.
And there was other cases, there was another private investigator, Anthony Pelicano, especially had probably a lot more cases known to him because he used to talk about who his famous cases were. And we had equally the same amount of famous people, but we never talked about it. And that's why we ended up going against each other in many cases. Unfortunately, he ended up just got out of prison after doing 18 years because of he did some wiretaps on some cases.
So there's been a lot of ups and a lot of downs over the years, but never a dull moment. No doubts. How many more years you got in you? How many more years are you going to be doing this?
Well, my kind of the best answer I have is I don't golf very well when my wife doesn't want me at home. And I still got fired in the belly. So at this stage, I get to pick my, I get to pick my cases. It's like you, you can pick who you want to be on your show and do what you want and when you want.
And as long as we're providing a service and we're able to, in our business, it's, it's, it's not like golf to, I, which I know you know a little bit about. It's not that you, you know, you are under par or you're at par or, you know, I would love one day to just shoot an over par, I'd be thrilled to death. But in our business, there's no gray area, you know, as I often said, you know, you either get the guy off from the murder, you either find the assets, you either locate the person, you either hit the ball over the park, you just, you can't do it, well, I shot par today. No, you got to shoot, you got to shoot at 64 on the 72 case.
And you're in our business, well, we've gotten a ton and ton and ton of press, which I'm very appreciative for, you're only really as good as your, your, your last couple cases that, that you're known for, you know, public and corporation lawyer, they're pretty demanding on the top guys. But we still hit the ball of the park. So we're still having fun and probably go another couple of years, at least, I don't like Lisa's, I've got offices with three or Lisa's, so I guess I made it for three more years. You're in it for it.
I love it. All right, we're going to move, we're going to move into a little bit of fan question. So, okay. People want to know.
So you kind of mentioned this that you know, that you work with different companies or what not, but someone's asking, do you work with CEOs and then how often do CEOs use private investigators? Well, it's a good question. Our business is divided into four categories. One is with corporate America.
And interestingly enough, the CEOs or the CFOs or whatever, three letters, they often use, but we're not, they're not our first contact. It's usually they're administrative assistant or somebody in human resources who does a search on the internet and tries to find somebody that can walk and chew gum at the same time. So once we are asked to go into a company like ABC company that might be manufacturing, might be a bottling company, they make a widget, whatever it does. And the CEO comes to us eventually through his contacts and says, we say, what's your problem?
Well, we, we grossed $114 million in quarter number one, but we didn't make any money. So we say, who's the vice president of operations and we call them in and they say, what do you think the problem is? I don't know. Okay.
Right. So you're making $500,000 a year and you don't know why you just did 114 and you got a zero on your books. Well, obviously, you know, I got a 10 year old grandson who could figure out, maybe somebody stealing. And so that's when we go in.
So they're sometimes very hard to work with, although, you know, they like to take credit for everything. Yeah. And they're very demanding, but when they see what we do and the people that tell us what they've done. And I will tell you the 80s and 90s was very hard.
Now it's almost like entitlement. So many people, yeah, I sold it. So what would you do with the money? Well, I've been on the Lakers and I bought some hookers down in Costa Rica and I got some cocaine, you know, and they're just, what are you going to do to me?
And you know, it's tough to get them prosecuted because the standard in the country you'll be shocked if I was asked somebody, and this is what the CEO asks is, I want to throw it in jail. I want my money back and they're just pounding the table in front of us like, okay, well, the standard here in the United States for us to put a case together, either with a district attorney, like in a county or with the United States attorney, if it's a federal case, is about a million, $800,000. Okay. Wow.
So somebody, so somebody steals a million. It's going to be tough to get them prosecuted because of the case load of the district attorneys of the US attorneys and the investigators in their offices. So people often tell me, well, are you're saying that I could go out and steal a million dollars and probably not get prosecuted? Yeah.
That's what I'm saying. No way. That is wild to think about. It's so sad.
So sad. We just had one way guys stole a million eight from a trucking company, and we had everything to do to get it prosecuted in the county where it took place, a million eight and count the best part is we had a statement that my guys took under the penalty of perjury. The laws were, you know, where it was out. He admitted it all.
You admitted it. Oh my gosh. Okay. And the district attorneys going, I don't know.
I don't know. She don't know. Oh my God. So it's so wild.
Crazy. It's all dependent on whether you've watched the show before. So it's a big talk about show right now. Have you watched the Tiger King?
I have it on my list. It's on Netflix. I've been told I haven't watched it. I haven't seen it yet.
I've been, um, I started to watch it the other night and then I found out Ozark was on. So I started to watch the third season of Ozark. So when you watch it, people want to know, will you look into the Carol Baskins and whether she killed her husband. That's the question.
Well, it is. It's an interesting question. And just to tell you, we're very transparent agencies. There's nobody in the private and the private investigative world that would want your listeners to know our pricing.
It's all a big secret. It's not a secret for me. I mean, you've got to tell people. And so we get every two weeks or three weeks in our office, we get about 10 murder cases.
So if I was to look at that, I would look at that case, it would have to be, is there something I can do for you? Is the forensic evidence, the autopsy, the blood evidence, the interviews, is there something we can turn it around? Is there something I can put on social media? Is it something I can develop?
I don't know in that case. Now, the other thing is it starts $25,000 to start a case. Okay. So that knocks a lot of people out and you can't not believe there's thousands and thousands of unsolved murder cases in this country.
And so, you know, being transparent as I'm not to talk a good game, but we charge 300 hours. And, you know, that's if $25,000, basically, you know, you're looking about 80 hours of work. And any top-notch investigator in the country will tell you on a cold case involving murder, it will take you 80 to 160 hours. So 80 to 160 hours of work to get that case to that.
So, you know, there's a case on every corner and that's just what we're getting. You know, there's 100,000 private investigators in the country. Now, I don't know how many are actually capable of murder cases, probably. I would think maybe 20 or 25.
Wow. All right. And this person wants to know, do you have a hard time trusting people? So I'm sure this is coming from the fact that you look into so many people and you probably see some crazy things.
When you meet someone, do you have a hard time, like, fully putting your trust in them? I don't have any problem with trust. And I have been able to develop after 50 years as an agent in the PI. I'm pretty good at being a truth detector.
I can tell within generally 15 or 20 seconds if you're full of malarkey or you're being honest. And that's helpful with clients, you know, because most of the clients that are on the criminal scene, you know, they've said, I didn't do it. I was framed. And I go, wow, I've never heard that one before.
And so, but I think to most people, you'd be surprised. You don't have to spend 50 years as an investigator to when the malarkey's coming down the trail. It's called, in women, it's called women's intuition. It's one of the most powerful tools I've ever seen in my life.
And in men, it's called their gut reaction. And I know you're doing the interview, but if I was to switch gears here, I bet I could ask you, you know, when you're interviewing people, you could tell, you know, some of them that are maybe stretching it out a little bit or, you know, you know, you know, so it's a good thing, good thing to have and, but I have no trust because I've, I don't forget, I'm working with 20 of the top investigators on the planet earth, they bring some real skill sets in. I trust them. We've gone through worse together.
So I can't put them on that. I love that. Well, Tom, if people wanted to reach out, can act, learn more about you, where's the best place everyone can go? Well, the best place to go, it's real simple.
It's called our main website. We have six, but the main website is martinpi.com. So it's m-a-r-t-i-n-p-i-l-i-investigator.com. And what's great for your listeners is we don't collect emails, we don't want your emails, but we do want to provide you with some information.
So if you go to that website, you'll see a red arrow there that says podcast listeners click here and then just the listeners can click on. They can see my first book online for free. They can see the 20 signs and to know your mate is cheating for free. You can find a website called US Unite, which we tell you how to find your friends and relatives for free.
Not a good stuff on there. So it's a combination of 40 years of a lot of people's hard work and it's there for the asking. So partpi.com. Amazing.
And for those listening on the podcast, I'll share all this on the show notes section. But that link specifically is martinpi.com forward slash podcast to be able to go to that podcast listener page, which is absolutely amazing. And Tom, I want to thank you so much for coming on the show here sharing your wisdom and all the stories. I really did enjoy it.
Thank you so much. Thank you, sir. Stay safe. Of course you too.
Stay safe, stay healthy. Everyone. Hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you did, you can hit the subscribe button or more importantly than that.
Just share this out with a friend who you feel like would really enjoy this. Listen, we'll be back next week with another episode until then call a Morgan signing off and always remember to keep on grinding.