Patrick Kurtz, Owner of Kurtz Investigations Frankfurt, in an Interview with the Local Magazine Merkurist

Unabridged Interview Version

Recently, agency head Patrick Kurtz gave an interview to Yannic Hertel from the local magazine Merkurist, which started in Mainz in 2015 and is now also represented in Frankfurt am Main and Wiesbaden. The published version is a double interview with colleague Christian Thome from the Thome Detective Agency; the statements of both detectives were shortened for readability. Below is the full interview with Patrick Kurtz:

How is your client base composed? More the worried husband or the managing director who does not trust his employees?

Both. Internally, we differentiate between the fields of corporate investigations and private investigations. I estimate that we have roughly sixty per cent private clients and forty per cent business clients. Due to the greater financial strength of companies, the field of corporate investigations nevertheless generates higher revenues.

How much does a private investigator cost in Frankfurt?

Our hourly rate per investigator deployed is fifty-nine euros, in addition we charge a one-off basic assignment fee of eighty euros and a mileage rate of zero point seven nine euros. For private individuals, all these sums are to be understood as inclusive of VAT, whereas for companies they are net rates.

 

Important: At Kurtz Detective Agency Frankfurt no special surcharges are levied and no further costs are hidden in the small print. Many competitors, however, work with night, weekend and public holiday surcharges, flat-rate expense charges, additional fees for vehicle wear or even special fees for postal invoice dispatch. I have seen the latter at amounts of up to one hundred and twenty euros – an absurd fraud against the client.

What makes Frankfurt particularly interesting for detectives?

Frankfurt, as the most important Central European and possibly soon even pan-European financial centre, is an extraordinarily strategic location for companies from various sectors. This enormous economic strength, combined with the relatively high population in the metropolitan region and Frankfurt’s rapid population growth, results in a high potential for detective assignments. Information is a crisis-proof asset for which there is always demand.

Which types of cases occur particularly frequently in Frankfurt?

We have not yet compiled statistics on this, but have planned to do so for twenty seventeen. My feeling is that fraud ranks very high on the list: financial fraud, employee fraud and of course fraud in the sense of infidelity in relationships. A conspicuously large number of cases take place in Frankfurt’s drug and prostitution milieu. The demands on the personal safety of the detectives deployed are therefore very specific.

What does a typical day in the life of a detective in Frankfurt look like?

The nice thing about our profession is that every day is different. We do not come into the office, sit down at a desk and work through a list. Every case is individual.

 

Sometimes the job is boring, especially when you have to sit in a car for hours on end during an observation without anything happening. The pitfall: it is precisely these observations that are particularly demanding, because the less happens, the more difficult it becomes to keep concentration consistently high. A similar discussion exists regarding football goalkeepers like Manuel Neuer, who often have nothing coming at their goal for eighty-five minutes, but then suddenly have to be wide awake. Only that for us the eighty-five minutes can quickly become fifteen hours or more.

 

On other days there is real “action”: target persons who are on the move a lot, possibly changing modes of transport several times or weaving while driving, are not always easy to follow, but generally provide the deployed investigators with real enjoyment, as the observer is mentally and sometimes physically very challenged in such scenarios.

 

It is similar with research work: it can be frustrating when you search and search and still find nothing. On the other hand, even the smallest new piece of information can trigger a chain reaction, and suddenly the researcher makes one exciting discovery after another.

There are quite a few detective agencies in Frankfurt. Does the market cannibalise itself here, or is demand simply that high?

Competition is strong and the market is tough – no doubt. As in most other sectors, the big fish eat the small ones and monopolise the market. Whoever holds the monopoly can firstly dictate prices to the client and secondly dictate wages to the detectives deployed. As most investigators in Germany mainly work as subcontractors for larger detective agencies, the question of what actually reaches the observer on the street is a serious problem.

 

On the other hand, the sector is still small enough that almost everyone knows everyone else, at least via two or three degrees. As a result, smaller detective agencies that are internally known for doing good work regularly receive subcontracting assignments and can stay afloat in this way without having many direct clients.

Kurtz Detective Agency Frankfurt

c/o AT Büro Center

Mainzer Landstraße 341

60326 Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Tel.: +49 69 1201 8431

E-Mail: kontakt@kurtz-detektei-frankfurt.de

Web: https://www.kurtz-detektei-frankfurt.de/en

Google: https://g.page/kurtz-detektei-frankfurt