Questions about hiring a detective in Korea

Yes. The amended Credit Information Act took effect on 5 August 2020 and legalised both the use of the title "detective" and the operation of private investigation businesses. Before that, the trade operated in a grey market under the older name heungsinso.

No. South Korea has no state-issued detective licence, and a proposed Detective Business Act has been introduced several times without being enacted. Every "detective qualification" advertised in Korea is a privately issued certificate. This is why a Korean National Police Agency registration number, association certification and liability insurance are the practical tests of legitimacy. KSPD THE ONE holds registration No. 2020-005703.

Legally, the distinction today is registration. Heungsinso originally meant a commercial credit reporting office, but after some operators moved into surveillance of private life and debt collection the word came to denote an unregistered investigator. Since 2020 the market has been consolidating around registered agencies, while unregistered operators continue under the older name.

No. An investigator establishes facts by lawful means. Anything requiring legal authority — compelling disclosure, obtaining telecommunications or banking records, freezing assets, making an arrest — belongs to the police, a prosecutor or a court. Any firm offering those is offering to break the law.

Yes. We collect evidence only in ways that comply with the Protection of Communications Secrets Act, the Location Information Act and the Personal Information Protection Act. Requests for wiretapping or covert GPS tracking are declined at the intake stage.

Intercepting a conversation you are not party to, attaching a GPS tracker to someone's vehicle without their consent, installing spyware on their device, and obtaining their communications or financial records through a third party. Material obtained this way is inadmissible, and the client who commissioned it can be prosecuted alongside the investigator.

Observation and photography in public places, documented vehicle surveillance, open-source intelligence analysis, and interviews. The equipment is limited to tools that record public space: telephoto cameras, dashcams and body cameras.

If it was obtained lawfully and documented properly, yes. Korean courts assess the method as well as the content. The quickest way to test any agency is to ask whether material obtained by their proposed method would be admissible; a firm that cannot answer that clearly is not one to engage.

Tell us at the consultation. It affects both what we can do and your own exposure, and it is far better addressed at the outset than discovered by the other side during proceedings. We can often establish the same facts lawfully.

Fees are built from a retainer plus expenses, with a success fee only where agreed in writing in advance. The amount depends on complexity, the number of operatives assigned, duration and whether the work is domestic or overseas. We quote in writing after a free consultation.

Because the cost is driven by the subject's behaviour, which is unknown until observation begins. A person with a fixed routine is documented quickly; irregular movement takes proportionally longer. A firm quoting a flat fee before understanding the matter is guessing, and an unusually low retainer followed by repeated additional demands is the standard method of unregistered operators.

It depends on the subject rather than the investigator. What should not be open-ended is your visibility: we report progress as the work proceeds, and the contract states duration and the terms for ending the engagement early.

A written investigation report setting out what was established, how, and with what confidence. Sources are graded on a six-point reliability scale and findings use the confidence vocabulary of ICD 203, the US intelligence community analytic standard. Photographic material is presented with the time, place and circumstances of capture.

Seven stages: consultation, intake, team assignment, field deployment, interim reporting, final report, and closure with destruction of case data. You are kept informed throughout.

Yes. Enquiries are handled in English and Spanish on WhatsApp, in Japanese on LINE and in Chinese on WeChat, as well as by SMS. Foreign residents in Korea and overseas companies are a regular part of our caseload.

Yes, through entities we own rather than brokered partners: HELIOS Security Solutions LLC in Kalispell, Montana, and a licensed company in Chiang Mai, Thailand. We also run cases in Japan and China. Cross-border investigation cannot lawfully be carried out without standing in the country concerned, which is why direct local presence is the decisive question when choosing a firm for overseas work.

No. The consultation, the contract and payment can all be handled remotely.

Yes. We were the first Korean detective agency to adopt Stripe, which supports more than 135 currencies and accepts credit cards, debit cards and digital wallets. No Korean bank account is required, and card details are handled by Stripe rather than stored by us.

Our Montana entity is registered in the US federal System for Award Management and holds Department of Defense CAGE Code 17DB5, which required passing identity and corporate vetting by the Defense Logistics Agency. Unlike a private certificate, it is a government record a client can verify independently.

We run a client information security process modelled on military practice and carry personal information protection liability insurance with KB Insurance. Case material is destroyed when the engagement closes.

Ask for the Korean National Police Agency registration number and the business registration certificate. Personal protection additionally requires a security business licence, and bug sweeps require a Ministry of Science and ICT permit. Check for liability insurance, insist on a written contract stating scope, duration and cost, and treat guaranteed results or an unusually low retainer as warning signs.

Identity-verified operatives assigned by name. We do not use anonymous subcontractors, in Korea or abroad, because work that cannot be accounted for cannot be defended later.

Gather the contract, payment records and message history and report it to the police as fraud. Recovery is often difficult because unregistered operators are hard to identify, which is why verification before payment matters so much in this market.

Yes. We decline unlawful instructions at intake, and our overseas team declines work where a substantive result cannot be delivered safely and lawfully. We would rather say so at the consultation than after the retainer.