A private detective’s work is not only about infidelity, fraudsters and missing people. Some cases in our practice are ones we tell with a smile.
Our agency was approached by a man who had come to Moscow from a neighboring region to meet his lady friend. He came in his own car. There were no free spaces near her building, so he had to leave the car several streets away.
He spent a couple of days with his beloved, and when he got ready to head back, he realized he could not remember where he had parked.
Funny Only from the Outside
From the outside the story sounds like a joke, but for the person in it, it is no laughing matter. To a visitor, Moscow neighborhoods all look alike: identical courtyards, identical buildings, one-way streets. People usually drive by navigator and don’t memorize the route — and a couple of days later almost nothing of it remains in their memory.
Besides, a car in an unfamiliar city is also your way home: without it, you can’t leave.
The first thought in such a situation is a tow truck or theft. The first is the easiest to check: in Moscow you can find out by the license plate number whether a car has been towed to an impound lot. If it hasn’t been towed and still can’t be found, methodical work is needed.
The Search
Searching for lost property is one of the ordinary tasks of a private detective: it may be a stolen car, missing equipment, valuables. Most often such cases involve someone’s ill intent. But sometimes property goes missing through no one’s fault — as in this story.
In such a search, method matters: reconstruct where the person was coming from and going to, outline the area, and check it block by block instead of rushing around the streets at random.
Our detectives joined the search for the car. It was found one block away from where our client had spent those days — very close by, yet among the look-alike streets he had not been able to find it himself.
Sometimes what you have to find is not a person or a criminal, but your own car just around the corner.
How Not to Lose Your Car in an Unfamiliar City
The lesson of this story is simple: when you leave your car somewhere unfamiliar, take a photo of the nearest street sign or drop a pin on the map in your phone. Some navigation apps remember your parking spot automatically — it is worth checking whether that feature is turned on. And if the car has not been towed and is nowhere nearby, report the theft to the police right away: the sooner you do, the better the chance of getting it back.
That was a curious case from our practice. It ended well — the car was found.