The first step of any investigation is to understand the needs and the goals of your client. While this sounds obvious, it is not always as transparent as it would seem. Two companies may share a similar problem, however the approach and desired outcome may be completely different. Take for example intellectual property investigations. The goal of one client may be to simply remove the counterfeit product from the market to open a clear path for the sale of genuine products, while the goal of another may be to prosecute those counterfeiting their products and to seek restitution.
I found this out the hard way. After spending 15 years in federal law enforcement, where we had a singular goal to dismantle drug trafficking organizations, seize drugs and to prosecute those responsible for trafficking in illegal substances, I found that the corporate world was a whole different animal.
My first position outside of federal law enforcement was with Microsoft as Head of Anti-Piracy investigations for Latin America. Eager to please my new boss, I reached out to a number of old sources and within a few weeks had a line on an organization counterfeiting Xbox games in Brazil. I knocked on the boss’ door, laid out the investigation, and to my surprise he stated simply “not interested”. A few days later, the source came back to me stating that the organization was larger than anticipated, and were producing over 1,000 counterfeit games per day, which translated into over 30,000 per month. Once again, I went back to my boss, thinking that he would be pleased with the development, but was once again met with a response of “not interested”. Rather frustrated, I went back to my sources in search of new targets.
Approximately 10 days later, my original source came back to me telling me that the organization was much bigger than previously anticipated, producing more than 80,000 counterfeit Xbox games per month. Thinking that I would give it one more shot, I went back to my boss’ office and laid out the new information. He responded rather heatedly, “Chris, I told you I was not interested in this case! Why do you keep pursuing it?”
At this point, I was thoroughly frustrated and told my boss that I was going to hand in my resignation. I further told him that I had been hired to do a job and was not interested in sitting on my hands when we could go after a large organization that was hurting the company financially. I told him that he would have my resignation letter by the end of the day. I then got up to leave.
Rather surprised, my boss stopped me and asked me to sit down. He asked me if anyone had explained the business model for Xbox to me, to which I responded that they had not. He then proceded to tell me that Xbox had not been launched in Brazil yet, and therefore it made no sense to go after those counterfeiting the games as there were no channels to obtain the genuine games in Brazil yet. He further told me that they were planning to launch Xbox in Brazil in the next 18 months, and that about 3 months prior to the launch, would concentrate on cleaning the market of counterfeit goods. But at the present time, they were more interested in going after pirated Windows and Office, which were being sold officially in Brazil and were impacting sales.
At that moment, it clicked – I wasn’t aligned with my client’s needs and goals.
I had come from a mentality that drug trafficking was bad and we were to go after every drug trafficker out there, no matter how long it took nor the cost. I quickly learned that in the corporate world, this was not the case. We had a very limited budget, and in general terms, if we could not take the counterfeiter down within two-to-four weeks, we would simply move on to the next.
So while I had plenty of experience in running complex investigations, I lacked the knowledge from the onset of the needs and the goals of my client.
Needless to say, I did not turn in my resignation that afternoon, but I did learn a valuable lesson that I have carried with me throughout the years: Always determine the end-game of an investigation before taking even the smallest of steps.