Complete menu is on top of page, or else see: Site Map

About Thailand Private Investigations

Thailand Private Investigations is thaiLANDpi.com -- both a foreigner and Thais in their land.

We have run this thailandpi.com website since 2002 -- you can independently check WhoIs for any domain name for the creation date and owner. Actually, we have been doing private investigations in Thailand since 1997 (the Asia economic crash, when Mark lost most of his other work), albeit significantly expanded since 2000. Looking up the domain name on any authoritative registrar not only verifies our true experience in Thailand by giving a registration date, you can also see my full name and that we do not hide our identity by any "anonymizer" domain registration service.

If you want to know who we are and whether we are well established:

We are the same people as ThailandGuru.com (working and living in Thailand continuously since 1994, my background covered there), as well as www.ThaiEnglish.com (quality translators and interpreters since 2002) and a property company, www.kkBkk.com (we know the Bangkok region very well...), though incorporated as sister companies and with multiple divisions within the organization.

We have a real office address in a real office building (not an apartment/condo building or house), a landline, and a registered phone number, not just unregistered and untraceable mobile phones. We have a real registered Co., Ltd., company for our private investigations, Lucky Lion Pride Co., Ltd.

Most of our agents are extended family of the wife of the Director, who are trustworthy, well trained, long term, and stable agents.

We do not hide our identity from our customers, and we are fully prepared to present information that reasonable people would want to know.

Mark, the Founder of Thailand Private Investigations

Who is that expat private investigator "Mark" that you are communicating with by email?

I, Mark, arrived in Bangkok, Thailand, in 1994 working as a communications consultant, age 35 at the time. I had spent the previous 10 years in the Washington, D.C., region. I have lived in Thailand since 1994 as my home base. Why Bangkok? Because the Asia Regional Office of the US government is in Bangkok, and I was affiliated with government work at the time.

Actually, I have a wide variety of work experience in both the public and purely private sectors, which gives me a lot of experience with a very wide variety of organizations and people, so I understand many realms of the world. As a communications consultant, I got into the guts of a lot of organizations as regards their operations.

I'm originally from Arkansas, USA. My father is a Ph.D. psychologist who prepared me a lot for dealing with people, and my mother a housewife / school teacher / artist who is a very patient, perseverant, composed and even-tempered person, a good role model who many friends who know my family say I am like. I got my B.Sc. in physics with a minor in political science ... worked in the US space program in Washington DC in advanced planning, then became a communications consultant for a long time there, with worldwide exposure. I eventually changed some things and started my own business consulting to purely private sector multinational businesses here in 1995. I was not keen to return to Washington, D.C., or the US, but sought out new experiences in life, while I was young and single. Life is not all about money and security, it is about life on Earth in our generations and variety of knowledge, experiences, understanding, and experimentation.

That September 1994 day was my first time in Asia, arriving around 8pm, and I was transported from the airport straight to the pre-arranged home base, which was a luxurious condo near the end of ... Sukhumvit soi 4 !! (Sethiwan Palace, the designated condo at no cost to me, and it was relatively new at the time but old now by Bangkok standards.) I didn't know that Nana was such a "special" soi, and was astonished at what I saw in my first walk down a street in Asia. (However, I explored Nana Plaza only once in the next few months, though I became increasingly curious about it every time I passed by.)

I came with my American girlfriend who was a blond haired, blue eyed, super fit and overly adventuresome sort. However, that relationship didn't last long.

In my first months in Bangkok, I actually didn't do much socializing in mainstream Thai society, and Thais who I more closely interacted with spoke excellent English and were of high professional status in Thai society. Nonetheless, initially without much Thai language skills beyond the Thai numbers for money counting, by just "people-watching" Thais in public places and my limited dealings, I found Thai culture and society to have interesting fundamental differences from Western culture, and to be very pleasant and kind whereby "you know, I could chill out here" and really use this as a base for traveling in the region. Things looked like they would work out and I may stay longer than I had originally imagined.

As professional progress was typically too slow, and having started to explore Bangkok and mix in the expat community of purely private multinational managers who were interested in my skills and could approve work right away (no bureaucracy), I reassessed my whole near future. I was also burnt out from years of too much work along the same lines, and was ready for some changes in my life, both professionally and personally. I was ready to "move to the next town where nobody knows me and reinvent myself", so by the end of 1994 my decision was pretty much made.

I decided to break free of my living and consulting community, but to stay in the Bangkok region as a base, independently. I moved to my own purely private place in a suburb, totally on my own, where actually almost nobody knew where I was, and dove into Thai society and the tourist and purely private sector multinational expat community. I moved out of the city center and into the Bangkapi suburbs, next to Ramkhamhaeng University, embedded in Thai culture with hardly any foreigners in sight, and started to learn the language.

To nearly all of my associates and friends up to that point, the joke was that I was suddenly "missing in action (MIA)". (My closest friends and associates always knew how to reach me by email which I checked most days; otherwise, I could have become a "missing person" for another PI agency.)

It was a long overdue break for me.

In the next year (1995), with savings in the pocket, I did what typical tourists and expats do in Thailand -- I boldly explored many places, hung out at a lot of bars / discotheques / clubs, met a lot of Thai ladies, and had numerous relationships of various sorts across Thai socioeconomic lines. Among the exploresome wonderful adventures, I also found myself in some foolish situations and made a lot of mistakes, but I also learned a lot of things from these experiences. It was perhaps the most fun, exploresome and adventuresome year of my life!

I also did consulting to large multinational companies with offices in Bangkok. (I even went and helped some branches in other countries.)

I made a lot of friends from all over the world, and a lot of girlfriends from all over Thailand, who became my favorite mammals with mammaries in the Milky Way galaxy. I learned the ropes from my own direct experience as well as from the experiences of many friends and associates.

1995 started as "my long overdue vacation year". My motto was "You're young only once, so make the most of this time!"

I'm not an overly cautious or paranoid person, nor do I worry too much about my reputation in matters like this, nor do I fear failure. I relish venturing far outside the Ivory Tower world, and meeting fellow hominids/primates and tribes and cultures all over. I learned a lot about my own culture and myself in comparison, too. It's better to have ventured out and learned some things than to have never given it a go. I generally don't care too much what other people think about me, as my ego isn't fragile and I live my own life in this universe. Nor do I buy others' dramatically overblown fears, or obsessions with their feelings/instincts. Fear is a strong instinct, bad news travels much further than good news (and often not both sides to the story), and people can blow things out of proportion. I choose to live my life to its fullest with reasonable risks and managed caution.

(I am absolutely sure that there are envious people out there who will make snide remarks about some of my adventures. I feel sorry for them at the moment, then move further forward myself.)

Even though my craziest years were soon after my arrival, guys still come to me with basically the same situations as I often found myself in, or which close friends & associates and customers of mine have experienced in the subsequent 20+ years. It's the same sorts of situations over and over in P.I. work now as it was in life in 1995. Human nature is the same. I have also learned a lot from my clients and cases over the past 20+ years.

The only significant thing which has changed is that internet has unfolded into the mainstream so that we now have internet dating cases, social media systems, and various internet tools. This is a new medium and process which I and my PI staff have become intimately familiar with, rather vicariously as private investigators. Also, my cameras and other digital equipment have evolved over time. With my professional I.T. skills, I have kept up with the evolving nature of internet relationships, too. Overall, however, relationships are still the same. The human species hasn't changed in Thailand or anywhere else, and cultures and subcultures have changed only marginally.

The first couple of months around New Years 1994-5, I lived in two different places on Sukhumvit, one on soi 11 and the other off Asoke. Every night was packed with new experiences within walking distance. In the daytime, I would explore the city by taking buses way out, wandering around, taking canal boats (most of which stopped operations by the year 2000), and then renting motorcycles in the suburbs and really exploring around. At night, it was often back to the bars, discos and clubs not far from my apartments, but whenever I found an interesting suburban nightlife place, I'd wait and start there, then go back to the city center when that place closed. That went on for just about 2 months.

Then I moved out of the Sukhumvit area, choosing a favorite place I'd found near Ramkamhaeng University, an open university and the biggest university in Thailand in the Bangkok suburb of Bangkapi. I still periodically taxied into Sukhumvit and other areas at night to hang out with expat friends (and so I didn't forget how to speak English), but I also started getting into mainstream Thai society, including some Thai student and yuppie groups, and young Thai professionals, starting with those who spoke good English ... and I started learning Thai pretty quickly, as I was embedded in a purely Thai community whereas I was the odd foreigner. I would switch back and forth, between taxi-ing into the Sukhumvit-Silom-Siam Square region, and spending time in the suburbs where my new home was.

There were countless nights when events would unfold whereby I didn't go back home, instead waking up the next morning in some sort of living environment of a female, or in a hotel near where I had strayed out to, or on some pad and pillows of some third party. In my pockets at all times were not only a pad and ink pen but also a short toothbrush. I'd usually wake up with a pleasant "Where in the world am I today?" Coffee is everywhere in Thailand, so there was a new adventure looking around a new part of Bangkok in the cool morning sunlight (and how many ladies change in appearance from the night before...), so I didn't need anything more. Clothes markets are always nearby, too, so I lost a lot of shirts and underwear along my trails. It was a great year, 1995.

Over time, my social groups shifted away from foreigner-centered to Thai-centered. My Thai language capabilities had grown rapidly.

In mid-1995, I ramped up my computer consulting to quite a number of multinational companies, largely based on expats I met in the foreigner areas. This was parttime, not fulltime, and I did it as much for the broad multinational exposure as for the money. These were not contracts in an 8-to-5 Monday-Friday routine, but instead were hourly, daily, and ~weekly consultations, plus some more involved longer term relationships still short of a fulltime 8-5 daily job. Many of them were just troubleshooting, setting up LANs, getting computers up on construction sites and linked by modem to the design and management offices, and electrical work like proper grounding. None of it nailed me down to an 8-to-5 or Monday-Friday routine. I also made friends with some good Thai computer consultants who could do jobs for me on very short notice in case I was contacted by a customer while I was out on a lark.

By the end of 1995, I had "been there, done that" in the foreigner nightlife scenes, as well as many parts of the Thai scene. Socializing with expats after work was about the only thing which brought me back to those same old expat haunts (over and over...). When I wasn't out with other expats, my social life had become more suburban-centered in the young Thai areas. My Thai language and social skills were quite sufficient for this, and I was still young, mid-30s.

However, my nightlife routine changed from "constant" in 1995 to "occasional" by 1996 and has tapered off since then.

There comes a time when you've "been there and done that" as regards the Thailand relationships and nightlife/daytime adventures, and you snap back to your natural old routines. A one year "break" was enough, and that's where I stood at the end of 1995.

(In that one year, 1995, I seemed like I drank more alcohol than in the rest of my life combined, even occasionally breaking my rule of "never more than twice a week", as I'm fine in a nightclub with a plain coffee or tea or orange juice and just the music. I'm a scientist and very health conscious. I haven't smoked since early teenage years, and caffeine is the only other thing I put in my brain besides the occasional alcohol. It was at the end of this one year period that I really cut back on alcohol consumption in my life, albeit with an occasional binge when out socially.)

Falling in love is also like being drunk -- you go thru some extra emotions and do some unusual things, and then one day if you wake up to a popped illusion then you are amazed at your behavior while under the influence of a female. I did this an embarrassingly large number of times over the course of 1995 -- more than enough heavy duty dating and subsequent reassessing for a whole lifetime! It is amazing how the male brain is instinctively programmed.

In late 1995, I started a longterm relationship with a Thai lady I'd met at a company in my consulting and thanks to a facilitating mutual friend. I got lucky. All I can say is that the longer you live in Thailand, and the wider realms you expose yourself to, the greater the chance you will get lucky. Anyway, I felt better more settled down, like it was a return to sanity.

In my general consulting, I also started to pick up some girlfriend private investigations from friends and associates -- to check out their girlfriends while they were out of town, as I had the skills and experience to do these.

In mid-1997, the Asia Economic Crash happened. There were signs of problems before the crash, and I anticipated the reality before most others did, based on some direct observations, consulting with some experts who I saw as objective rather than biased, and my knowledge of history in other parts of the world with similar economic indicators.

Most of my work associates had the attitude that "naahhhh, it hasn't happened before in Asia so it won't happen, it's just temporary glitches at the moment" and just continued to do their jobs with their heads in the sand, just wishful thinking and don't-worry rationalizations. A few of my customers in the engineering & construction sector had delayed paying me a bit too long, and when I pushed my own further investigation into friendly conversations with their accounting staff of various companies, I put together a pattern of some serious sector-wide liquidity concerns. Some of my expat friends had stopped getting their regular paychecks by their companies with promises of just delays until so-and-so paid them... Consulting with certain other expats who I'd met at professional socials whose opinions and objectivity I had come to respect, and who had access to more hard facts than I could collected myself, it became clear there were some unusual problems in the Thai economy. There was a liquidity problem due to overbuilding of skyscrapers, price collapses for office and condominium units, and revenue shortfalls relative to expenses. Projected revenue had looked fine and on paper people expected to get paid eventually, but the reality is that projected profits were evaporating so there was a money liquidity issue arising. Money was becoming viscuous. The property sector was the first domino, including construction, and the banks were second (non-performing loans, or NPLs) domino.

On July 2, 1997, it became official when the baht was floated and suddenly dropped in value from 25 to around 40 to the US dollar very quickly, and thereafter nobody was in denial anymore. Money is the bottom line for business.

(Hong Kong had just switched from British to Chinese rule just two days previous, by coincidence, but that was unrelated.)

Multinational companies immediately started laying off their expats, and other expats started jumping ship to go back home for jobs which truly paid in their own countries. Quite a number were CEOs who were signatory to serious corporate debts and headed to the walk-over border rather than thru the computerized airport passport control center, as some creditors were scrambling to prevent foreign debtors from escaping before being squeezed for payments.

I know that many tourists and expats reading this will see this as either ancient history or "pre-historic" as regards their interests. However, something like this could happen again anywhere in the world. Problems in one sector of the economy can hit banks and reverberate widely in a domino effect. I happened to be heavily involved in the very sector hit -- property development -- which means I was harder hit, but also more deeply experienced in an unfolding series of events, denial of "experts", and dealing with a crisis.

Just let it be known that I survived here largely because I started ramping up my private investigations business. At this time, immediately after the July 1997 crash, I got a surge in work for my expat friends and associates who had just left Thailand but still had girlfriends in Thailand, who the exited expats were sending money to (with an uncertain job future themselves), and many were in the visa process for these ladies.

Some other private investigation work was figuring out which companies and individuals could pay their bad debts, which properties could be purchased as investments at firesale prices, due diligence issues such as what legal liabilities and other issues could cause a problem if an investor got involved in something, and so on.

As internet was not widespread back then, my private investigations were based mainly on word-of-mouth referrals in my broader community.

As I expanded the private investigation business into other areas, I took on research of export suppliers (overt), as well as finding relatives of Thai people for other Thai people or half-Thais (also overt).

Being in Thailand, I knew that to do private investigations to a sufficient quality of service, I must hire and train good Thai people, not do many of the investigations myself. I had developed a lot of good Thai friends and associates, and some were interested in doing the work, as well as having the personalities and experiences which fit within the requirements, so I trained them in private investigations.

For the obvious reasons discussed elsewhere on this website, it is better to have Thais performing most of these investigations, especially as regards discreet Thai lady investigations. My main role was the training, customer correspondence, and management, but I still went out on countless jobs and still do, as long as it is discreet for me to do so. Often, an expat is needed, such as in an expat hotel of class or lady bars where only expats are customers.

I lived with the above-mentioned lady in Nakhon Pathom province for a year, about an hour commute out of Bangkok, which was not a problem because I didn't work every day, and hotels are cheap in Bangkok anyway. I was the only foreigner in my community, and I normally wouldn't see another foreigner until I drove into Bangkok.

I took time out to write and self-publish a book that I'd never made the time for, which isn't at all related to Thailand but you can see it at www.PERMANENT.com, and in this time of slow business I also travelled around the Asia region.

After the great economic crash, I had considered moving elsewhere, and had some work offers in other countries, even traveling to one to check it out and do a little consulting, but after planning and really thinking about it, and traveling around, I decided that Thailand is my best "home". However, in order to get enough business, I had to move back to the Bangkok region permanently in 2000.

In 2001, some of our investigations got a bit too hot to handle, so we decided to discontinue some areas of our business and switch our emphasis to doing more Thai lady relationship investigations and finding lost Thai relatives (mainly due to two referral communities, long story). We resumed under a new name in 2002, ThailandPI.com , and with a new set of investigations we would do, stating clearly what we would refuse. Most of our cases since this time have been relationship oriented.

I have been thru a lot of agents over the years, and what has shaken out is a core group which is stable, experienced and reliable. While we are all experienced in relationships both ourselves and via our close friends & associates, the experiences we gain from investigations of others' relationships far exceeds our own experiences.

Everyone's different, and what's right for one person may be entirely different from what's right for another. We don't judge, though when our customers wish, we are most willing to give our analysis, comparisons and opinions in the context of the lady, the situation, our experiences, and the customer's own outlook.

We don't go into investigations or realms with a judgemental attitude. We understand the different backgrounds people are born into, and that you cannot control the country, physical or economic situation, family or community of your origins, nor can you choose your biological traits, appearance, and the genetic and environmental parts of your personality and outlook. We don't look down on bargirls from farms in Isaan, nor do we judge people based on their origins, religions, race, etc. You have what life gave you from the start.

The issues to resolve are usually those of "intentions", honesty, and compatibility -- whether a relationship will really work.

If we uncover a scam, then we judge harshly. However, many of our cases are grey area.

The first order of the day is collecting facts and observations, by discreet surveillance and/or undercover interaction when the customer is not there for the lady to stage behavior to. We know the things to look for -- money-oriented relationships with other foreign men, and/or a lecherous Thai boyfriend (especially a do-nothing) who she is supporting with the foreign man's money, and/or stories to get the man to send more money but which are not true, and/or various other questionable things about her present or past.

It is important to know the difference between facts and opinions.

Some cases are black and white, e.g., the lady is either clearly deceptive in a serious way, or else she is seeing only the customer and serious about a future with only him. However, many cases are understandable as "grey area" and the main issue is whether it will work or can be made to work. Many guys get a "bad" or "mixed" report and then work out with the lady a more realistic relationship.

The first priority is to collect facts and observations for the customer, so that the client can make a most informed decision. If the customer wishes, we can help the customer with analysis based on our experiences in order to lead to any particular decisions.

I wish to say that I am not dependent upon Thailand Private Investigations for all my income, as you can see from my other websites. Quite to the contrary. I have a lot of diverse experience in the world which has helped me better understand a lot of situations in private investigations and deal with them smoothly and effectively. I have dealt with a very wide variety of people.

As the only expat on the team of Thailand Private Investigations, I do the communications with expat clients, and help in the analysis. However, the rest of the private investigation staff are Thais, mostly Thai ladies, who are either 100% fulltime private investigators or else about halftime. Some also double up as translators in our translation division at www.ThaiEnglish.com (and translate a lot of love letters in addition to professional corporate items).

My Thai wife is the manager. She was previously a senior manager in a large company ...

We are not desperate to take on work, we are not mercenaries, and we choose good customers and good cases. I mainly just have willing Thai friends and associates who I've employed a long time and this is what has become their profession. They are my extended family and employees from yesteryears and my responsibility. They are usually eager to get out of the office and onto another case and puzzle to solve or challenge to take on, and get excited when I raise a new case. They have also apprenticed some of their close friends and associates. The way they push me, sometimes I wonder whether I'm still their boss or whether I serve them -- as expat email communicator. I analyze and partly manage the operations at the top level, but Kanta (my wife/manager) runs the office operations and manages operations in the field, though they all look to me for expat email and telephone communications with other westerners. So I do this parttime, so that some of the can stay employed fulltime, and still others parttime. However, when we get a good case, I'm often onto it fulltime, too.

You can read up on the history of our company and get more information about us in the corresponding section of our DNA website which also explains how we came up with the company name Lucky Lion Pride Co., Ltd..

All the best,
Mark

A few historical details to clarify for past clients from a long time ago:

As many past customers know us, we operated our private investigations business under Export Quality Services Co., Ltd. ("EQ"), starting in 2002, when we were based in the Bangkok suburb of Nonthaburi. We opened a new office on Sukhumvit soi 2 in 2008, which is near the action in the city center and more accessible to customers, though EQ administration remained technically in Nonthaburi. In 2010, we created Lucky Lion Pride Co., Ltd. ("Lucky Lion"), to move our private investigations and DNA divisions to this new company for administrative reasons, and separate responsibilities. EQ also moved to our new office in the city center at a later time. EQ continued providing our Thai-English translation services to third parties, and EQ also provided other general expat help services, while Lucky Lion focused on private investigations and DNA in particular. The two companies are still co-located in our Sukhumvit soi 2 office.

  > About Us - Who We Are

Please see our SiteMap to navigate our Table of Contents for this website.

To get the right person for the job, please send a message to our "inbox" (not "info") at

Alternatively, you can just use our contact form

Either way, we will usually respond within 1 to 24 hours.

This website is entirely self-made, not outsourced to any public relations or web design company. We wrote all the content, and did all the programming and artwork, too, ourselves. It's still 2002 style and many people have commented on this almost 20 years later, but we prefer to do everything ourselves.

All text content on our site is proudly original and copyright © 1997-2024, All Rights Reserved.
We do not tolerate copycats, and we are honorable people with class. Please remember thaiLANDpi.com

Our company is located in central Bangkok on Sukhumvit soi 2, within walking distance of the skytrain, between the Ploenchit and Nana stations. Thailand Private Investigations, a division of: Lucky Lion Pride Co., Ltd. Ploymitr Office Building, Floor 7 81 Sukhumvit soi 2 Klongtoey, Klongtoey Bangkok 10110 Thailand

By appointment only, please. Sometimes, an agent can meet you at your location (depends on location). Email: inbox at our domain name. Office Tel.: +66-2255-0620 Mobile Tel.: +66-8-0062-4243 (native English speaker) Old customers please note: We moved our office from Pakkred, Nonthaburi (next to the government post office) to the city center. Please do not go out to our old office in Pakkred, on Bond Street. We are no longer there.

Our office is co-located with Export Quality Services Co., Ltd., aka EQ, which is the same company we previously operated under, but we split off the private investigations business to a daughter company, Lucky Lion Pride Co., Ltd., whereby EQ now focuses on language translation and some other things.

Mobile Tel.: +66-80-062-4243 or 080-062-4243 (native English speaker) -- call ANYTIME, 24/7 (I turn off my phone volume when asleep and leave the phone in an unoccupied home office room, so no worries about 24/7 activities.)
If you want to chat via LINE / WhatsApp, please add the phone number above to your phone's contacts, and it should automatically add me to your LINE and WhatsApp shortly after that.
For expediting in LINE, my LINE ID is alphalion (alpha lion with no space between the words).

2003 - 2024 public website, expat in Thailand since 1994.

Complete menu is on top of page, or else see: Site Map