PRIVATE DETECTIVES IN THE PRINCIPAT D’ANDORRA

First publication of this blog that aims to give a little light, guidance and information about the world of Private Detectives. Have you ever wondered what the profession of Private Detective is like? Are you intrigued by what investigations a Private Detective can do and which ones do not? Want to know if it’s legal to hire a Private Detective? This is the place where you will receive the best information.

In Andorra we are not accustomed to openly talking about the world of Private Detectives … and we understand perfectly. It is a mysterious profession, unknown and where the two words that best define a Private Detective are CONFIDENTIALITY and DISCRETION. For this reason we have created this blog, with the intention of providing a bit of clarity. Even so, we encourage you to contact us to clarify doubts, we will attend to you in a professional manner, and with the utmost confidentiality and discretion.

For this first publication we will talk about the origin of the profession of Private Detectives. Have you ever wondered where it came from and who was the first Private Detective in history? And the first investigation agency? We will leave your doubts immediately.

ALLAN PINKERTON, FIRST PRIVATE DETECTIVE

Born in Scotland in 1819 and emigrated to the United States in 1842. Decided to exercise his profession, Botero, manufacturer barrels and barrels, becoming one of the best in the USA. In one of his expeditions to obtain the wood he needed, he found signs that made him suspect that he had located a band of forgers hidden in the forest. And it is that Allan Pinkerton had a very good nose to discover and look at details that nobody else saw. Communicating these suspicions to the local Sheriff organized a beat to stop these counterfeiters. This turned A. Pinkerton into Sheriff’s Assistant, becoming a time later the first Private Detective of Chicago … and history, founding the NORTH-WESTERN POLICE AGENCY.

THE BEGIN OF AN ERA

A year after founding this company was dissolved, which gave rise to A. Pinkerton and his brother found the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. Thanks to their knowledge and contacts, the WELLS FARGO company, the main railway company in the country, contracted to provide guards and detectives to help them fight the robbers who raided the trains, as well as locate the stolen goods.

Fortune allied with the Pinkertons when, in one of the investigations into a sabotage of the company’s trains, they discovered a plot to assassinate one of the most important people in American history. We are talking about Abraham Lincoln. Thanks to this information they were able to avoid this attack and save his life.

Having gained the confidence of Abraham Lincoln, and already in the middle of the American Civil War, he hired them to create a kind of secret service that worked in favor of the unionists (states of the north) that allowed them to obtain information of the movements of the confederates (the southern states), contributing to the Unionists’ victory over the Confederates.

PRECURSORS OF SPYING AGENCIES

Once the war ended, the US government continued to hire the Pinkerton agency, a clear precursor to what the FBI, the CIA and the NSA would years later. In addition, the major railway companies continued to hire the services of the Pinkerton agency. The success of the Pinkerton agency came to such an extent that the offices occupied an entire building in the financial district of Chicago, crowned with the logo (one eye open) and the motto of the company: We never sleep. He had so many agents working at the service of the agency that in some states they were forbidden to exercise because they were afraid that someone could hire them as if they were a private army.

Over the years, Pinkerton’s descendants ran the company, as A. Pinkerton died in 1884. After several generations, economic problems, major investigations and resurgence of the company, Pinkerton is now located in California, where it continues exercising and offering a wide variety of security and research services.