Ken Price had a hunch.
And after tailing his subject for two dreary days, he also had proof.
Price, a surveillance expert for Alan Hart Associates in Haddonfield, was certain that the man in the green jacket he was assigned to shadow was faking injuries to defraud his insurance company and cheat his employer.
He was sure the man would walk normally when he left his house then start hobbling once he got to his doctor's office.
Price was right.
Armed with a high-tech videocamera, Price recorded just what the insurance company that hired his agency wanted - evidence to blow the subject out of the water before he could file suit against his former employer.
Sitting behind the wheel of his company's big blue surveillance van, Price grabbed a 300-millimeter lens and twisted it onto a videocamera.
Like a big-game hunter, he aimed the camera at his prey, the middle-aged man who claimed a work-place injury had hobbled him to the point where he could not work.
The man got out of his car. Price let the tape roll as the subject, who had no clue he was being watched, grabbed his cane and hobbled to the office.
"This guy is oblivious," Price said with the chuckle of a man enjoying his work. "Yesterday I parked outside his house, followed him to his doctor, followed him back and parked in front of his house again. He never had a clue."
*
Every day, all over South Jersey, dozens of people have no clue that they are being watched, followed and recorded.
People who might be trying to defraud insurance companies. People who might be cheating on their spouses.
And people who are spying for corporations. They too are being watched.
There are more than four dozen agencies in Burlington, Camden and Gloucester Counties that, more or less, do what Alan Hart Associates does.
Most were started by former law-enforcement officers, either federal or local. They can be large, sophisticated operations such as the one run by Hart, a former Internal Revenue Service investigator, or a one-person show such as Pennsauken's Metro Detective Agency, owned by Anthony Pasquarelli, a former U.S. deputy marshal.
Regardless of their size, all the agencies have one thing in common: They sell information.
Information about the whereabouts of people. Names and addresses of witnesses to a crime or accident. The amount of money a person has tied up in bank accounts or real estate.
