Investigations that cross borders

An investigation is only lawful where someone is licensed to conduct it

Investigative work cannot lawfully cross a border on its own. Each country regulates who may gather information about its residents, and an agency without standing in that country has two choices: break the local law, or hand the work to someone else and hope.

The common Korean practice is the second. A client engages a Seoul agency, the agency quietly subcontracts to a local fixer, and the client never learns who actually did the work, under what authority, or whether the material can be used. When the report turns out to be thin or the method turns out to be unlawful, there is no one to hold responsible.

KSPD THE ONE took the other route and incorporated abroad. Our United States entity is a Montana company registered in the federal procurement system; our Thai entity is a licensed Chiang Mai business. Work in those countries is carried out by our own people under our own name, and the chain of responsibility runs back to the same firm the client contracted with in Seoul.

Thailand, and the wider region

We worked in Thailand for years before formalising it. In July 2025 that work moved onto a registered Thai business in Chiang Mai, which put the investigation, security and close protection services we already provided onto a proper legal footing and gave us a base for the rest of Southeast Asia.

Thai operations include cooperation with specialist private police in Thailand and neighbouring countries, armed VIP protection, and business accompaniment where the client's own safety is part of the assignment.

• Locating a person abroad. Estranged family, a birth family for an overseas adoptee, a debtor who has left the country, or a counterparty who has stopped answering. Lawful enquiry and open-source analysis, with DNA testing coordinated between jurisdictions where identity has to be established beyond doubt.
• Verifying an overseas counterparty. Confirming that a supplier, distributor or joint-venture partner is a real operating business with the premises, staff and history it claims, before money moves.
• Counterfeit and trademark infringement. Identifying manufacturing and distribution networks in Chinese markets and documenting the route goods take to Hong Kong and onward.
• Transnational family matters. Cases where one spouse or a child is in another country, including Korean families split between Korea and the United States for education.
• Protection and accompaniment. Close protection and business accompaniment in Thailand and neighbouring countries, planned by our Global B2B Strategy Team and delivered by vetted personnel.
• Cross-border corporate matters. Technology leakage and personnel poaching that crosses out of Korea, which cannot be documented from inside Korea alone.

Some assignments we decline. Our overseas team does not accept every enquiry, and there are areas where we will not deploy — in the Los Angeles region, for example, we do not operate in Compton or South Central. Where we cannot deliver a substantive result safely and lawfully, we say so at the consultation rather than after the retainer.