Chiang Mai sleuths busy checking on rich men's 'gik'
A Chiang Mai woman checks out an advertisement for private eyes offering to lift the lid on ‘giks’.
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Private investigators are enjoying a boom in Chiang Mai where the relatively new phenomenon of "giks" - casual affairs - is upsetting politicians and businessmen with young girlfriends and mistresses.
One investigator, who would only identify himself as "Chana", heads a team of seven people who spy on girlfriends of the rich.
He started his sleuthing business more than a decade ago, explaining that 70 per cent of his work involves suspected love affairs.
Just 20 per cent involves tracking down bad debts and the rest is standard legal work.
His company receives about 10 "gik" cases a month but can follow up on only half of them because they often take as long as two weeks to resolve, he says.
Most clients are working people such as civil servants, merchants, business owners and politicians, Chana says.
Once, most of his clients were suspicious wives checking on their husbands whom they suspected of cheating.
But today, more and more men want to know what their wives or girlfriends are up to when they are not around.
Teenagers or students are often the "targets" of investigations - especially female students working part time at entertainment venues or the mistresses of rich men, he says.
"Before, it was the wives of rich men hiring us to spy on their husbands.
"But, lately, it's those rich men - politicians or businessmen - who are worried their mistresses have a younger man as a 'gik'.
"They hire us to spy on their girlfriends," he says.
Although there are at least 10 investigation outfits in Chiang Mai, only a few are registered.
The majority of private eyes are former police officers and they secure cases from connections they made while on the force - lawyers and such, Chana says.
Work most often came via word of mouth, he says.
Tracking down "giks" is risky - the biggest worry for the investigator is having his cover blown.
Investigators also often do not get paid, Chana says.
This is either because investigations are "incomplete" or customers act on preliminary results and manage to get their cheating partners to confess, he says.
Consequently, investigators like Chana now demand a down-payment - usually half the normal fee of between Bt6,000 and Bt20,000.
Fees varied depending on circumstances.
If the target is an "influential person" such as a politician or policemen then the job is considered "high-risk" and, therefore, can cost more.
Kwandao Jitpana
The Nation
CHIANG MAI
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