Secretive industry is in demand
Among those is National Investigation Agency, which is currently carrying out covert surveillance on a suspected cheating partner in Maidstone.
The boss, who did not want to give his name, expanded into Kent a couple of years ago.
He said: “With the rise of online dating we are now seeing a lot of young professionals wanting us to do checks on potential partners before they meet them.
“You get people saying they are high ranking military officers when it turns out they actually work in Tesco, for instance, or more often than not they are married.
“But around 40% of our cases are matrimonial, wanting to know if their husband or wife is cheating.
“If someone comes to us they already have suspicions, and I’d say nine times out of 10 they are right.”
The firm uses everything from high-tech laptop bugs and GPS trackers to good old-fashioned shoe leather to fulfil their briefs.
It sounds a murky world, but the investigator insists such surveillance is legal – but only if there is consent from one of the owners of a shared device.
And it’s not just cheating partners – the work also ranges from monitoring nannies, tracing old friends or debtors, and corporate clients who want to know if people are lying about being on longterm sick leave.
“Currently our cases range from someone in their 90s trying to find a childhood sweetheart to a couple trying to find out who their daughter’s boyfriend is.
“It’s not as glamorous as it sounds. When you’re sat outside someone’s house for a week you feel pretty far from James Bond.”
Additional reporting by Guy Bell