All summer, we’ve been digging into origin stories.
We’ve published personal essays by PIs, a shortdoc of my origin story, and histories of criminal justice and pioneering private eyes. We also hosted two great webinars featuring colleagues with fascinating backstories. You can watch those recorded webinars at our YouTube channel.
And you can find links to all those origin stories and videos — the new ones from this summer and the ones from our great big archive. They’re collected here:
But wait, I’ve buried the lede! At the top of the briefing, I mentioned some pretty interesting industry news: Danny Boice, co-founder of Trustify (billed as an Uber for private investigators), has been indicted for wire fraud and money laundering. According to the Washington Post, the Justice Department claims that “Boice raised approximately $18.5 million from more than 90 investors and diverted much of that money for his personal benefit… [and] falsely overstated Trustify’s financial performance…”
Stay tuned. There’s sure to be more on this in the coming weeks. In the meantime, you can read stories by Pursuit contributors about the startup’s rise and fall.
August Theme
In August, we’re sadly moving on from the wildly popular origin stories series and taking on a theme that’s usually another crowd favorite: PI gear, tools, and tech. We’re looking for brief reviews of the tools you can’t live without, from compact cameras to office management software to portable A/C units that help you survive summer surveillance. Full disclosure: We’ll also be test-driving a piece of tech by our August sponsor, SiOnyx. They sent us their ultra-low-light night vision camera, the Aurora, which we’ll find plenty of excuses to play with this month. (We’ve got a sneak peek for you in the briefing below — so far, we’re super impressed with it.)
What’s YOUR favorite PI tool or tech? Tweet us @PursuitMag [#PIgear] or send 2-4 sentences about the tool or tech you love the most (and why) by emailing the editor, Kim Green, at kim [at] storyboardemp [dot] com. (Bonus points if you include a photo of the gear, or of yourself using it.) We’ll compile your brief reviews into gear & tech roundups in PursuitMag throughout the month. Include a link to your website, and we’ll link back to you.
And now, here’s the weekly briefing from me, the editor. —Hal