Detective Patrick Kurtz of the Kurtz Detective Agency Zurich and Switzerland in an Interview with Radio Fribourg

Patrick Kurtz, owner of the Kurtz Detective Agency Zurich and Switzerland, in an interview with Radio Fribourg from Fribourg in Üechtland about his profession. Below, we provide the transcription of the resulting feature (with some delay).

Which Types of Assignments Do Detectives Handle in Switzerland?

Presenter: "The Swiss author Marcel Naas has achieved a great deal lately. Today he is releasing his first youth book and it is called Mountains, Skiing and False Trails: Four young detectives solve cases in the Swiss mountains and experience exciting adventures. We at RadioFr. are presenting the whole book to you today, newly published. Important for us: in such a detective book that already sounds exciting, the detective life. But we wonder: is it really that exciting? Providing information is Patrick Kurtz. He is the owner of the Kurtz Detective Agency in Zurich, and they also solve cases here with us in the canton of Fribourg. Patrick Kurtz, what does a detective do in Switzerland? Is it really like you imagine it?"

 

Patrick Kurtz: "Detectives have very different fields of activity. On the one hand, this is divided into the areas of corporate investigations and private investigations. Private investigations are, as the word already says, for private individuals; this means that you investigate such typical things as infidelity, meaning infidelity in relationships, or custody matters or problems with maintenance payments, stalking, that you search for debtors – all such things. In corporate investigations, we are mainly talking about the surveillance of employees who act against their employment obligations or are at least suspected of violating those obligations. Then we are talking about occupational disability fraud or expense fraud, working-hours accounting fraud, theft – many different circumstances that can be investigated by detectives."

 

Presenter: "That sounds like a broad range. So you check in the case of a crime whether someone is innocent or not, or whether there is something to it."

 

Patrick Kurtz: "Crimes are rarer. The definition of a crime already implies a more serious intrusion. We proceed against misdemeanours; these are offences such as thefts and fraud – these are the two main factors that we prove for companies. Often it is their own employees who commit these frauds and thefts. Accordingly, we operate in the field of criminal law in very, very many assignments."

 

Presenter: "Whether the Kurtz Detective Agency handles more corporate assignments or more private assignments – and what the most exciting cases are at all – we will hear in a moment from Detective Patrick Kurtz."

Case Example: Hotel with Swinger Club Cooperation

Presenter: "They mostly work in the background: hidden and ideally in such a way that you don’t know exactly what they are doing – detectives. In Switzerland, among others, there is the Kurtz Detective Agency in Zurich. Swiss detectives who also investigate in the canton of Fribourg – whether they are private assignments, corporate assignments or assignments they receive from authorities. The owner is Patrick Kurtz, and we are now talking to him about his cases. But tell me, Mr Kurtz, are these usually more corporate cases or more private cases?"

 

Patrick Kurtz: "We clearly handle more private cases. The corporate cases, of course, have larger budgets; there is often a large company behind them that can also provide corresponding resources for the investigation. That can look quite different for private clients. Accordingly, while we do handle more private investigations, the corporate investigations are so extensive in their scope compared to the private investigations that the main share of turnover still comes from the corporate investigations."

 

Presenter: "Now that I have a detective on the phone, of course I am curious what kind of assignments he has handled or what the most exciting assignment is that Patrick Kurtz has ever dealt with. Is it really such an experience you could almost write a book about?"

 

Patrick Kurtz: "I don’t even want to make a judgement about which case was the most exciting, because we have handled several thousand cases in recent years – you first have to sort your thoughts before you can form an opinion on which was the most exciting. I'll just go with one we had on the table today, because it was quite interesting. It was about a suspicion of infidelity. We observed the husband of our client and found that he was meeting with another woman unknown to the client, and then checked into a hotel with her. This hotel, according to our internet research, is known for organising so-called swinger-club tours, meaning that there is a cooperation between the hotel and a swinger club. Then these two [the target persons] were taken from the hotel to the swinger club by shuttle bus and were brought back late at night. And this is how we proved the infidelity and found that it was not even limited to just one person, but that the husband apparently has very, very many different sexual partners besides his own wife."

 

Presenter: "I would say that definitely sounds like something you could write a book about. Many thanks, Mr Kurtz. Today we are speaking all day with Patrick Kurtz, the owner of the Kurtz Detective Agency in Zurich. And of course we also want to know from him whether he regularly gets into dangerous situations through his work as a detective. And we also want to know how he likes detective life, whether it really is as secret-service-like as people imagine. All that and much more on RadioFr."

How Does Cooperation Between Police and Private Detectives Work in Switzerland?

Presenter: "Sometimes private detectives also work together with the police?"

 

Patrick Kurtz: "Cooperation with the police differs from canton to canton and from city to city. You have your contacts here and there; in other places they are worse. Some are more open to cooperation with detectives, others not – this depends on the individual case. Sometimes it can work wonderfully, hand in hand. But sometimes the police actively block our work and thereby do not act in the interest of law enforcement."

 

Presenter: "That is certainly an additional challenge when you are not working hand in hand. I imagine the detective job can also be dangerous. What Patrick Kurtz has experienced and how one becomes a detective at all – he will tell us after the music..."

Diverse Tasks for Private Detectives in Fribourg in Üechtland

Presenter: "Now it’s about Columbo, Derrick, Miss Marple and Co. We know detectives as ordinary mortals from television, books and films. But detectives also exist here in real life. And real detectives have very different tasks. Two of the areas of tasks are corporate investigations and private investigations. Private investigation is what the word already says: it is for private individuals. Typical cases include infidelity or custody matters or problems with maintenance payments, stalking and so on. In corporate investigation, we are mainly talking about the surveillance of employees. If, for example, there is fear that the employee is committing fraud, cheating with expenses or working hours, you can put a detective on him and he then investigates the whole matter. The suspicion is confirmed or not. Patrick Kurtz is the owner of the Kurtz Detective Agency Switzerland and, among others, they also investigate in the canton of Fribourg, the detective agency. It is an exciting profession with a great deal of variety."

 

Patrick Kurtz: "There are many different aspects to detective life. The diversity of activities that you can carry out is already exciting in itself. You do not have case X that you handle again every week; every case is somewhat different. Sure: when you repeatedly have infidelity observations, they eventually resemble each other. But you have different case constellations, different people involved, and people who commission you, different family circumstances that play a role, very different types of offenders in criminal cases. That means you have an enormous variety of different fields of activity that you can get to know as a detective. It is not only observing on the street; there is also research that has to be done. And that can, of course, also be very exciting because it has a lot to do with mental effort, because it has a lot to do with how you structure your thoughts and order the facts before you to ultimately arrive at a result that is satisfying for the clients."

Kurtz Investigations Zürich and Switzerland

Max-Högger-Strasse 6

8048 Zürich

Tel.: +41 (0)44 5522 264

E-Mail: kontakt@kurtz-detektei-schweiz.ch

Web: https://www.kurtz-detektei-schweiz.ch/en

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