The firm conducts electronic sweeps of office buildings, conference rooms and private homes to root out listening devices, video cameras and the like.
Ordinary-looking electrical switch-plates can conceal video cameras. Listening devices called "drop-ins" can be tossed into potted plants. Even cameras behind a pin-prick sized hole in a ceiling tile can provide an opening for a tiny, prying lens.
What makes Kimmons Investigative Services special - beyond some of its well-known clients, including Donald Trump - is the makeup of its staff. Most are former police officers well-versed in undercover work and surveillance tactics.
"Sometimes the people who use us are being paranoid, but we do find a handful of devices every year," said Rob Kimmons, the company's president. "We can also tell when a device has been planted and then taken away by what's been left behind."
Contrary to old-time detective novels, with a lone private eye sitting in a dingy, smoke-filled office, the firm's headquarters has lots of glass, dark-wood furniture and natural light. Cases are handled by 11 employees and 20 contractors. Kimmons reported annual revenues of $1.6 million last year and projects to top $2 million in 2012.
After spending 11 years with the Houston Police Department, Kimmons was recruited in 1980 by longtime private investigator Robert Newman to join his firm as vice president. In 1982, the firm's name become Kimmons Investigative Services.
"Back then we were doing mostly high-end divorces," Kimmons said. "People like Donald Trump, who didn't like it when his wife Ivana hired a PI from out of Texas during their divorce. Trump hired us to basically keep the other guy honest."
Today "keeping the other guy honest" can mean anything from sweeping a local high-tech company's boardroom for listening devices before its directors meet to searching private homes and shared offices for covert cameras planted by spouses.
"We had one woman call us in because she was convinced her husband was tapping the telephone in a conference room they shared," Kimmons said. "Sure enough, we didn't find that, but we found a camera in the ceiling. Turns out she'd been the one to put it there, but she forgot."
The investigators find these devices using some $70,000 worth of high-tech equipment, Kimmons said.
The kingpin is something called OSCOR, which is a portable microprocessor that detects audio and video transmitters and runs about $31,000.
"Other people will say they're a private investigator and come in with a wooden box with some LED lights on top," Kimmons said.
"It's criminal, because they're trying to pass themselves off as people who can actually do a thorough sweep."
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