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Sam Spade is alive and well and living in Baton Rouge.
But these days he uses a computer to better track his quarry, fields calls from parents anxious about the baby sitter and invests heavily in sophisticated micro-recording equipment.
Welcome to the world of private investigating, '90s-style.
Three years after the state began licensing private investigators, area detectives say business is booming.
Locating witnesses and performing "domestic surveillance" remain important segments of the business. But the industry is undergoing a metamorphosis as it adapts to the ways of modern business, technology and even romance.
Julius "Buddy" Bombet of Bombet, Cashio and Associates, who opened the doors of his Baton Rouge agency some 31 years ago, said the most significant change he's seen involves investigations of suspected worker's compensation fraud.
"There is much more emphasis being placed on insurance fraud," said Bombet, Riho has 13 licensed investigators working for him. "Insurance companies are now much more diligent about trying to weed out fraudulent cases.... Now you hear about prosecutions involving insurance fraud all the time, but 10 years ago that wasn't the case."
Plaintiffs' personal injury investigations and background checks for employers, as well as domestic investigations into suspected adultery, represent the three other concentrations for Bombet's agency, which has investigated more than 12,000 cases since 1986 alone.
Bombet estimated the going rate among local detectives at between $40 and $50 per hour. But that rate varies widely among the city's 200-plus investigators. The investigators are licensed by the Louisiana State Board of Private Investigator Examiners, which operates under the auspices of the Department of Public Safety and Corrections.
The board requires applicants to complete a 40-hour course...