A course in learning how to investigate for anyone to take – lawyers, sports officials, students, amateur murder mystery solvers – taught by two investigations heroes and me.

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Back at University of New Haven and teaching a number of courses on sports corruption and gambling. However, the one that I wanted to bring to your attention is, arguably, the most important as it does not only concern sports integrity but the very nature of investigation.

Many of us – be it academics, journalists, lawyers, government officials, corporate supervisors, or even public health experts – are tasked with “investigations” of serious civil legal or even potentially criminal matters but no one teaches us how to do it.

This course lays out the very basics of proper investigative techniques from ordering your mind, to the stages of a good investigation to the final presentation – be it a report, a documentary or court testimony.

A Cop’s Cop

The guest lecturers in the course are superb. They are two old friends and inspirations: Nick Raudenski and Bob Stenhouse.

Bob Stenhouse is a cop’s cop. A former kick-ass Mountie who was a member of their special operations team and an undercover organized crime investigator. I met him as an investigative journalist because his RCMP bosses had lost their collective mind and were disciplining him for the “crime” of him calling them out for mismanagement that allowed some of the local Hells Angels to become multimillionaire high-end organized crime figures.

We had a number of intense meetings during a cold Edmonton winter and I remember being struck always by his strong, driven moral compass. Fairly rare for investigators, we were both Christians and sometimes would begin our conversations with prayers.

Bob subsequently left the force and started his own investigation company – Veritas – which has now grown to a massive operation.

When I wanted to find someone to guide my students on the conduct of a good investigator there was no one I could think of that so symbolized all that a investigator needs to be: respectful, calm, and non-judgmental but at the same time a brave, critical thinker – such is Bob Stenhouse. My students are the richer for his course presentation.

The other colleague who guest teaches the course is Nick Raudenski. He is another hero in a particular field of investigations – sports integrity. A former US Homeland Security Investigations Agent (HSI), he cut his teeth in investigations against some of the key Latin American drug cartels and Gulf-based money launders, as well as international cybercriminals. For his pains, he decided to move into the international sports integrity world.

Hill Thrown Out of an Interpol Meeting

We met at an Interpol-FIFA anti-match-fixing conference in Rome, January 2013. I was in the process of being thrown out of the event for daring to say that if we really wanted to stop match-fixing we should just arrest the match-fixers. There was an international arrest warrant (red notice) against Dan Tan, the major match-fixer of the time, that Interpol was studiously ignoring as it would embarrass the Singaporean government. The Interpol agents, who were desperate to continue their world tour of ‘education’ against match-fixing, did not actually carry me out the door but it was a near run-thing!

Despite that inauspicious first meeting, Nick and I became contacts as he fought the fight against sports corruption, often surrounded by very good people but sometimes almost completely alone at FIFA, UEFA, and as Head of Intelligence and Investigations at the International Testing Agency, and now for the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) where he patrols races such as the Tour de France and Giro d’Italia against technological fraud (motors in bikes). He also co-founded a new independent sports integrity firm called @Athena Integrity, which I think may transform the field when it comes to using AI in sports integrity investigations.

Nick teaches the students the key skill of figuring out the ‘value’ of the information received. How to process it, how to evaluate it, and how to keep it confidential. It is a master class in the various international law enforcement systems of analysis but taught in a way that someone with a non-legal background operating on an individual case can use and understand.

Strong recommendation for the course – it is either taught online at the University of New Haven, Investigations Program or, once a year, in person at the Catolica University in Lisbon, Portugal. If you are interested do drop me a line at dhill@newhaven.edu

Lots of good wishes to all,

Declan