Investigations · Demetra Investigazioni e Sicurezza
Your figures tell you what is missing. We find out who, how and when.
Commercial and corporate investigations carried out in Italy by a licensed private investigation agency (Italian licence under art. 134 TULPS, issued by the Prefecture and valid throughout the country). We work in plain clothes, document every step and deliver reports that stand up in court.
Areas of investigation
Where the losses your accounts cannot explain begin.
Stock discrepancies
Analysis of till data, returns and stock movements, plain-clothes observation in high-risk departments, and reconstruction of recurring patterns. Retail loss investigations and investigative loss prevention →
Internal dishonesty
Cash shortfalls, fictitious discounts and refunds, theft from the stockroom, fraudulent absenteeism and misuse of leave, and competing activities run by employees and contractors.
Suppliers, partners and competitors
Short deliveries, improper arrangements between suppliers and staff, unfair competition, diversion of customers, and checks on partners and counterparties before a contract is signed.
Brands and counterfeiting
Samples collected along the supply chain with a documented chain of custody, checks on labels and batches, mystery visits to stores, and monitoring of trade fairs and online channels. Evidence files for your lawyers.
The legal boundary
Evidence is only worth something if it was gathered the right way.
The Italian Workers’ Statute (Statuto dei lavoratori) prohibits monitoring employees’ productivity; case law, however, allows an investigator to establish unlawful conduct. That is why every assignment starts from a written mandate, a well-founded suspicion and a precise purpose, and is carried out in line with the code of conduct of the Italian Data Protection Authority (Garante per la protezione dei dati personali). Evidence gathered beyond that boundary is not just unusable: it exposes the company to a lawsuit.
The rules of engagement, on six cards.
1 · What we ask of you
- A written mandate, stating the right to be protected and the grounds for suspicion.
- A single point of contact in your company who knows about the investigation.
- The relevant data: rotas, till and stock movements, stock counts.
2 · What we can do
- Observe and document in public places or places open to the public.
- Analyse the documents and data you provide.
- Consult open sources and databases accessible by law.
- Acquire digital evidence using certifiable procedures.
3 · What we will never do
- Monitor workers’ productivity or performance.
- Intercept communications, read messages or emails, or access personal devices and accounts.
- Film inside private homes.
- Use false identities to get people to tell us what they otherwise would not.
- Stop, search or question anyone.
4 · The data
- We collect only what is necessary for the purpose of the assignment.
- We hand it over only to you, your lawyer or the judicial authorities.
- At the end of the assignment we delete it, except for what is needed for legal proceedings.
5 · The evidence
- Dated reports that separate observed facts from inferences.
- Digital evidence with hash values and time stamps; originals kept intact.
- The investigator is available to testify about what they have established.
6 · Timing and costs
- A written quotation before we start.
- Regular progress updates.
- If the investigation is leading nowhere, we tell you and stop.
How we work
Six steps, always the same.
- The mandate. Before we act, we need to know which right you are protecting: we set it out in the mandate, together with scope, duration and costs.
- The question. We turn the suspicion into a precise question that the facts can answer with a yes or a no.
- The hypotheses. We formulate at least two, and one of them must prove us wrong. It is our safeguard against an investigation that only finds what it was looking for.
- The collection. Document analysis, plain-clothes observation, open sources: only the data needed for the purpose.
- The verification. Every element is confirmed by an independent source before it becomes a fact.
- The report. Facts, dates, images and sources, keeping what we saw separate from what we infer. Ready for your lawyer and for the court.
What about artificial intelligence? We use it to organise large volumes of data and open sources, never to make decisions. No data belonging to the client or to the people under investigation is uploaded to external services, and every output of an automated tool is checked by an investigator before it goes into a report.
Frequently asked questions
Can I have one of my employees investigated?
Yes, where there is a well-founded suspicion of wrongdoing: theft, dishonesty, fake sick leave, competing activities. What is not allowed is monitoring how they work or how productive they are.
Can your reports be used in court?
They are written to be: the investigator may be called to testify about what they have established. That is why we document methods, timings and sources.
Will store staff know about the investigation?
No, unless you decide otherwise. Our investigators work in plain clothes and the assignment remains confidential between us and the management that commissions it.
Do you also work outside Northern Italy?
Yes. The agency’s licence is valid throughout Italy.
Tell us about the problem. In confidence.
Write to consulenze@demetragroup.it or call +39 329 1093485. We reply within 24 working hours.
Demetra Investigazioni e Sicurezza — Demetra Security Consulting S.r.l., VAT no. 12932260016, Prefecture licence under art. 134 T.U.L.P.S. valid throughout Italy, ref. no. 5482 of 10/02/2025.