Learn More About Singapore Private Investigators

Private Investigators Singapore Review TIPS...

We want the cheapest, but we also want the best, as the Singaporean Hokkien says “Ai Pee, Ai Chee”. When it comes to engaging a private investigator, its best to disregard this clearly unachievable oxymoron. Instead, focus on the outcome; be guided by anecdotal claims by private investigators that 90% of cases they handle confirm their clients’ suspicions and enable clients to find closure to move ahead with their lives.

This is not to say you should throw caution to the wind in your search for the best private investigator in Singapore, the top private investigator, the best investigator and so on. There is a methodical process that you can follow. 

There is really no list of private investigators in Singapore, not publicly available anyway. Only the Singapore Police Force has such a list since every private investigator needs to be licensed. Therefore, there is also no Singapore private investigator review site, forum, directory or magazine etc that provides a ranking of any sort whereby you can hire the ideal private detective. You will need to embark on some preliminary investigation yourself!

To hire a private investigator in Singapore, you should first know that individual private investigators or detectives cannot advertise by name even though they are licensed by the Singapore Police Force. Only a licenced private investigator agency is permitted to advertise on any media.

Your initial check should include a visit to the Singapore ACRA BIZFILE website to confirm that the business name of the private investigation agency is legitimate and that they are in fact in the industry. The specific enquiry link is: https://www.tis.bizfile.gov.sg/ngbtisinternet/faces/directorySearch?
The industry code of the company could be in any of these official classifications: detective agency, investigation agency, private detective agency, private security service, protective service or security service. Anything else should be an alert for further checks.

The next logical check should be at the Singapore Police Force website. There used to be a link that enables members of the public to enquire about the licence status of any private investigation agency and any individual private investigator. The link is now non-functional but it is still possible to request for a written confirmation from the Singapore Police Force that a particular private investigation agency is properly licensed. This can be done by making a General Enquiry about any particular agency via their Feedback page at
https://eservices.police.gov.sg/content/policehubefeedback/efeedback/feedbackform.html?  

Having cleared the above preliminary steps, do you just proceed to engage anyone that the agency sends you? Not exactly.

Interestingly, there is no requirement to have been a police officer for one to be a private investigator in Singapore! And there is no requirement for one to be trained by the Singapore Police Force too. One simply needs to pass any of a variety of courses. For a newbie, the Singapore Police Force website points to this course (Perform Investigation Activities in Compliance with Legal Requirements) as requisite training to support a private investigator licence: https://courses.ntuclearninghub.com/browse/security/programs/information-collection-perform-investigation-activities-in-compliance-with-legal-requirements   

Accordingly, initial credentials checking of the assigned private investigator would be to ask when the individual obtained his training Certificate of Attainment for the above course. That would give you an idea of his or her working experience as a private investigator.

If the person is exempted from the training course, no need to fret, he could well be among the best or top private investigator you are looking for! That’s because the exempted include those with at least one year of relevant investigative experience including having been former detectives and officers from the Singapore Police Force, Singapore Central Narcotics Bureau or the Singapore Corruption Practices Investigation Bureau.  

Ideally, you would want to engage a private investigator with prior real-life field work experiences. This can be while he or she was still with some government agency. If not, there should be some evidence of successful previous cases. Years of experience is also important as street smart skills and on-the-ground knowledge cannot be picked up from a course in a classroom. Do not be put off by age as some veterans at 70 are still licensed private investigators, with solid track records of success. 

Finally. be sure to also confirm that the private investigation agency has a proper system of record-keeping as required by the law. This is so that any gathered intelligence findings can be presented in court when called upon and also to justify the fees that they bill you for.