January 1st MMXXII
Dear Corporate Citizen!
After thirty years of international business / industry experience, we have
chosen to concentrate and develop our private / finance investigator
firm, assisting companies, individuals and organisations – with an
emphasis on commerce and finance – in Scandinavia and northeast Europe,
also into the Americas, southwest Europe and Asia.
Winston Churchill quipped that “America will do the right thing – once it
has exhausted all other opportunities”; and it is wildly dangerous to
assume that Russia’s future will simply be an extrapolition of its present,
when even Russians say it is impossible to predict anything in their
country – even the past; and the eurozone is confronted with a crisis of
not just labor costs and prices – but culture and work ethics
- despite some of its members having pockets as deep as the Mariana Trench.
Surely politicians recognize that entrepreneurs accept levels of risk
that no rational person would contemplate, albeit most people want one
thing more than even love – peace of mind.
Decline is not a condition, but a choice and instead of letting out a
cri du coeur and eating humble pie, we would like to see finance less proud
and industry more secure.
The first imperative must be to restore security; without security, running
a business successfully, is like having “turtle soup without the turtle”.
In extremis, amid global financial and trade conflicts, a self-sufficient
America might see things occur that have not occurred before, although
they have occurred in Europe; albeit [America] might confound the unusual
with the abstruse.
Being able to develop Walhallen Finance / Private Investigators into a
truly integrated, global and robustly competent group is a privilege, and
this mainly due to having the opportunity of gathering the most talented
private investigators available: from Russia-Ukraine-Germany-
Sweden-Norway-France-China-USA and Brazil.
Our private investigators, from armed forces-intelligence
services-business- academia, will convincingly add value to customers
and clients with positive terra firma ambitions for years ahead –
and, not only in their own countries, albeit worldwide, which is our
factual modus vivendi: A Global Private Finance and Business Investigator,
specialising in industrial undercover work and counterindustrial espionage,
including advanced state-of-the-art Technical Surveillance CounterMeasures (TSCM).
“Trade follows the flag”, declared Cecil Rhodes, and as globalization forces
many companies to move strategic assets abroad, even to other
continents – terra nullius / no man’s land - there is a need to be en garde,
if not actually aux armes. However, the Mafia - the Mob - the Cosa Nostra -
the Camorra - the Yakuza - the 'Ndrangheta and other criminal groups are cunning, but no more.
In contacts with these, and other monstra horrendum - before contacting
private detectives / investigators - I would paraphrase Theodore Roosevelt:
"Speak softly, but carry a big stick". Often, when you want adult behavior,
treat people like babies; while we believe humans are rational, their
behavior is constantly the opposite.
To be beaten by one of your own is not as bad as be beaten by a foreign one,
however, and roaring like a mouse, fighting like a flea singing “Give me your
arm, old toad; Help me down Cemetary Road” would make us appear
"nyttiga idioter" - useful idiots. A proper attitude can turn a burden to a blessing,
a trial to a triumph.
Being part of a diaspora in dire straits, one can be comfortable imagining
existing alongside an independent judiciary rather than in a smash’n grab
society – Raubwirtschaft. However, possession is nine tenths of the law,
and with foreign officials reasoning - “I am with my brother against
a cousin, and with my cousin against a stranger” - many bona fide intentions
will be jeopardized.
Growth and developing economies hide a thousand sins, and with the
cruel clarity afforded by distance, you might realize you have interests
rather than friends. For example, the recent murder of a
middle-aged (41 year-old) British businessman – supposedly Aston Martin’s
representative in Beijing – and a close friend of one of China’s fourteen most
powerful politicians (Bo Xilai-now imprisoned), adds an international
dimension to this country’s most serious political upheaval in two
decades, and exposes uncomfortable truths about how business and
politics are conducted in the world’s second-largest economy.
In this area of the world your enemy's enemy is probably your enemy too.
Fast developing economies want economic growth not smeared in blood –
whilst promoting immoral rules and cementing cohesion - in order to deal
ruthlessly with outsiders. This culture clash between west and east / north
and south - so ripe for comic treatment, were it not for its serious consequences – is sometimes played up in slow motion for Walhallen's private investigators.
Many times these conflicts illustrate how power coarsens, corrupts and corrodes – while the sad truth about human relations, though, is that you cannot get peace without fighting for it - whether bringing along a private detective / investigator or not.
The verb corrumpere means destroy in Latin, and having seen that [corruption],
as plaintiffs’ private investigator in commercial and criminal courts numerous times, we agreed to co-found The International Intelligence Institute of Commerce (www.wiiic.org). The Principal Investigator of WIIIC welcomes any information of corruption, grand thefts, miscarriages of justice etc. “Shame and silence are cousins” – right?
The Institute will be able to provide unbiased Independent Business Resolutions’
Schemes, lightening the burden of courts-prosecutors-lawyers-accountants, who often miss the “red flags” that private investigators detect, as well as carry out Forensic Audits and Impairment Tests; this in addition to hosting an academic research and education group focusing on Intellectual Property, Patented Technology and SMEs in eastern Europe and the Far East.
The Romans used to assess situations metaphorically, e g: Cum catapultae
proscripta erunt, tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt – "When catapults are
outlawed, only outlaws will have catapults". Their reasoning implies “rules replace common sense and reason”.
In a fair and just society, with archaic European and American legal practices –
often hiding behind procedure – and an international institutional machinery
that grinds along at a pace that would shame snails, preparedness is the key to
success and victory. Western governments also often “piggy-back” on existing
national investigations rather than undertake their own probes, creating “double
jeopardy” by triggering separate prosecutions of the same case in different jurisdictions.
Modern business and private lives are complex, and many sang-froid judges realize not even they are equipped to parse the facts; proximity to real power, though, is intoxicating – and misplaced pride melts away. Retaining an International Private Investigator should be a “game-changer” – levelling the
playing field; not looking sheepish – without proof or decisive evidence.
Throughout college- and university, I worked as a shop/department store
detective, ordinary guard, heavily armed body-guard for Ambassadors /
Charge d’affaires from Germany, England, Yugoslavia, USA, Iran and Russia,
as well as within the Swedish Penitentiary / Prison Authority; later as chairman
of an authorized guard- and patrol company, and as an international legal
administrator, approved by Swedish courts, in Poland, Russia and Ukraine.
My partners and associates may on occasion exceed me in experience and ability, alas and albeit, the team courage d'esprit will always be decisive and of paramount importance.
A crisis is a terrible thing to waste – and should worse come to worse – it’s
not part of private investigators’ job description to add mirth to the party, but provide and demonstrate solid, admissible, tangible evidence and stark proof.....
Yours sincerely,
Claes Ekman
Claes Ekman
Chairman
Walhallen Group
claes.ekman@walhallen.net
www.walhallen.net
www.walhallen.com
