Private Investigation into Economic Crime: Regulation of a Multidisciplinary Field

Abstract

Regulation of the private investigator profession is complex, especially in the context of financial crime in which practitioners undertake commercially sensitive inquiries, provide dispute resolution and forensically analyze collected evidence for a wide range of industries affected by fraud. Private investigators come from a range of backgrounds, including law enforcement, government regulation and other professions, which has implications for the criminal and civil justice system. This paper examines the complexity and challenges of the private investigator industry arising from the overlap of occupations and how this influences the professionalization of the industry in the context of financial crime in Australia.

Keywords:

• Private investigator
• private police
• fraud
• civil investigations
• white-collar crime
• corporate investigations