Originally published by Chief Monkey on the A Day in the Life of an Information Security Investigator blog (the “Security Monkey” blog) at it.toolbox.com. Mirrored here from the Internet Archive. All rights remain with the original author. See the section intro for full attribution and takedown contact.

Part I · Dec 2, 2005

[Note from the Chief: Sorry this case file entry is a bit late. It’s been a busy week! I think you’ll find that this case file is a bit different than the others you have enjoyed. Then again, this case was completely different than anything we had ever worked on. Pay attention, use your head, and most importantly … enjoy.]

“We are never going to get in there.” Scrap said as he peered over the dash of the rental car with his binoculars. “The gate is locked, those walls are easily seven feet tall, and I hear barking. Barking means there are dogs. Dogs mean we are certain to be eaten alive.”

I grabbed the binoculars from Scrap and peered at the entrance to Allison Technologies.

“You missed the two surveillance cameras on either side of the building face. I wonder if those are just recording, or is a human actually watching them?” I asked as I cranked the engine of the rental car to life.

“Do we really need to find out?” Scrap whined as we drove towards the back of the building.

“Jackpot.” I said as I peered at the loading dock. There was a door off to the left of the loading dock that was badge-reader enabled, however there were no lights on nearby and not a single camera to be seen.

“Get out.”

“Huh?” Scrap asked, his eyes bulging out from his brow.

“Grab the badge you scored at lunch and see if it’s still good.” I said as I pointed at the door. “The clock is ticking, dude.”

“Yeah, yeah. I can’t believe I gave up network administration for this.” Scrap mumbled under his breath as began the forty meter walk to the back entrance.

I grabbed the binoculars and watched Scrap’s every move, including the repeated nervous scratching of his monkey head.

Scrap approached the badge reader. A friendly red LED glowed on the badge reader, almost enticing Scrap to swipe the badge. He eventually gave in to the red LED after a few seconds and swiped the badge through the reader. The red LED went off and a green LED became lit. A loud “CLICK!” could be heard all the way back to the rental car.

Moments later, a shadowy figure resembling Scrap exited the same door, carefully closing the door shut behind him. Scrap jogged back to the car at a brisk pace and jumped into the passenger seat. He was hugging a small box as if it were trying to escape.

“Got it?” I asked with a smile.

“Mission accomplished.” Scrap replied as he lit a cigarette. “Now if I just had a clean pair of boxer shorts handy, I’d be okay.”

The assignment was a bit out of the ordinary for us, but it was a paying job. We were asked to infiltrate an information destruction company and steal a specific box from a storage room. We were not allowed to cause any physical damage, or do anything that could harm any employees.

Through the use of a great plan and some luck, we had pulled the job off brilliantly.

Scrap took a long drag off of his cigarette. “Seriously, Boss. I could be at home managing a network from a single SSH session. And instead, I’m in a car with you and narrowly escaping being eaten alive by dogs.”

“Pipe down.” I laughed as I picked up my cell phone and dialed a number. “You were nowhere near those puppies. Next time you’re going in through the front door.”

I heard several ringing noises on my phone, and someone finally answered.

“Jonathan Allison” came the voice from the other end of the phone connection.

“Jon, it’s Chief.”

Jon paused, as if trying to remember who the heck I was.

“Ah, yes! Chief! I apologize, I was sleeping on the couch. What’s up?” Jon asked.

“I have the package.”

Source: archived original

Part II · Dec 3, 2005

Jon almost dropped his cell phone.

“What? That’s impossible. There’s no way you got into my facility in under twenty-four hours!” Jon exclaimed.“We’ll meet you in your office tomorrow morning. Don’t forget to have the other half of that check waiting.” I said happily as I ended the phone conversation.

Scrap raised the small box in his hands in an attempt to read the label on the top of the box.

“FullBox Designs, Inc. Box #4455. Barcode number XXXXXXXXXXXXX.” Scrap mumbled slowly, straining to read the characters in the limited light of passing street lights.

“Chief, this looks like a tape backup storage box of some sort.” Scrap said. “So why would a client hire us to attempt entry into his own facility and steal a box that he’s been given custody of?”

“I don’t even know the entire story on this. When I visited Jon at the site he gave me a quick tour of the facility and said he wanted a physical security penetration test.” I replied.

Scrap paused for a moment. “Our methods were a bit dubious, wouldn’t you say?”

“Perhaps.” I said as I dropped Scrap off at his apartment complex. “We’ll know more tomorrow.”

The next morning Scrap and I were seated in the office of Jonathan Allison, President of Allison Technologies, Inc.

ATI was an information destruction company that specialized in paper shredding and media destruction. ATI was originally a document management software company that was squeezed out of the market by several larger players. Jonathan took a gamble and changed his business to information destruction. ATI had their headquarters building in an industrial park, surrounded by other large warehouse-type buildings. Jonathan was a hands-on type of guy and personally designed and oversaw all security system implementations for ATI.

Several days before, Jonathan had contacted me through a third party about performing a physical penetration test. While I would have typically referred him to several private investigation firms that specialize in such matters, this one sounded very inviting, and the fee was right. Jonathan wanted me to gain access to his building and remove a box from a storage room. If I could pull of the engagement in less than forty-eight hours, I would earn my agreed upon fee plus a bonus of twenty-five percent. This added incentive was the reason that I asked Scrap to join me in brainstorming the operation.

With only a cursory facility inspection by me and our knack for mischief, we had put our plan into motion, and in the end we were successful.

“Good Morning Chief.” Jon said as he poured us all cups of piping-hot columbian goodness. “So, I noticed that the box was gone when I came in, just as you said it would be. My alarm didn’t go off, and I have nothing on my security cameras. How did you do it?”

Scrap unzipped his gym bag and placed the box on Jon’s desk.

_ “The weakness in your security program is shared by many companies in today’s world: your employees, and your security procedures. After our meeting the other morning, I asked Scrap to join me on this engagement. At lunch time we noticed that many of your employees walked down the street to the corner deli.

We entered the deli and saw approximately five employees sitting at various tables. While Scrap and I pretended to be making up our minds on what we wanted to eat, one of your employees got up from her table and went into the restroom. The employee left her purse on the table with another employee close by.

Scrap noticed that her badge was clipped to the zipper of the purse. While I distracted the other employee with questions on getting to the airport, Scrap grabbed the badge and placed it in his pocket. I thanked the employee for her directions to the airport and we left the deli.” _I said, glancing through my notes on a small notepad.

“You just walked into my facility, grabbed the box and left?” Jon asked in complete astonishment.

“Correct. The badge was still active and provided Scrap with access to the loading dock door. Successful entry into the door with a valid badge did not trigger an alarm system.”

Jonathan grinned widely and sipped on his cup of coffee. “Well, I have to say, that was impressive.”

“Thank you.” I replied as I handed Jonathan the stolen employee badge. “You might want to find out why Bernice Clueless didn’t report her badge missing.”

“I’ll be sure to do that. Well, you certainly earned this.” Jon said as he handed me a company check with a very inviting dollar amount printed on it. “However, this only confirmed to me a suspicion that I already had.”

I glanced at Scrap. Scrap raised his eyebrows in interest.

“I’m sorry. If you knew you had security issues with your facility, why did you ask us to perform this test?” I queried.

“Because we’re missing some boxes.”

Source: archived original

Part III · Dec 6, 2005

I wanted to speak, but for the first time in a long time the words just wouldn’t leave my mouth. Luckily for me, Scrap jumped right in.

“Woah. You’re missing some of these transport boxes? Like, how many?” Scrap asked.

Jonathan took a moment to think and then clasped his hands together in front of him. “Well, let me clarify. Ten boxes of tapes and paper information destined to be formally destroyed by my company have left this building. They then mysteriously reappeared.”

Well, that’s something one doesn’t hear about every day. David Copperfield’s amazing storage boxes, complete with magic wand and cape.

“I guess what I’m looking for is some recommendations on how to strengthen my security here so I don’t have to worry about these boxes disappearing and then reappearing.” Jonathan said with a grin.

“Jon, I’m lost on something. First, how did you know they were missing?” I asked impatiently.

“We have a custody system here. Our truck drivers visit our customers on specific days to pick up information that needs to be destroyed. The customer signs the boxes over to the driver who padlocks each box. The driver drops the boxes off here at the receiving center where each box is inventoried and signed in. We use a barcode system to keep track of inventory. The driver scans the bar code on the box when he receives it and then he gives the box to the processors here in the building. The processors scan the box in to their inventory and the box is placed in a secure storage room that is badge-controlled. All of the boxes are in a huge queue for destruction. When it’s time, the box is retrieved and scanned out of storage inventory into a destroyer’s inventory. The destroyer unlocks the box, disposes of the information through a variety of means, completes the destruction certificate, and gives the certificate and the empty box to a processor who arranges to have the empty box and certificate given to the customer on the next pick-up day.” Jonathan explained in great detail.

“So at some point in this process a box could not be found?” Scrap asked.

“Correct, Mr. Scrap. Over the past two months the processors have literally ’lost’ boxes. They are marked as “missing” in the inventory system and we skip them for destruction. Every friday we have a huge load of boxes to empty and destroy, and wouldn’t you know it - the boxes mysteriously appeared on Friday and were destroyed several days behind schedule. Nobody seems to know where they came from.” Jonathan said as he swirled his index finger around the top of his coffee cup.

“So you’d like us to recommend some security practices to prevent this from happening again?” I queried.

“Correct.” Jonathan said.

“So am I correct in assuming that all boxes are accounted for at this time?” I asked.

Jonathan sat up in his chair and aimed a wireless barcode reader at the box that Scrap had stolen earlier. With a squeeze of the trigger, a red illuminating light shot out from the reader and glided across the surface of the barcode on the box. The reader emitted a loud “BEEP!”.

“Now they are.” Jonathan said with a smile that occupied his entire lower face.

I turned to a fresh piece of paper in my notepad and started making some notes.

“Jonathan, what kind of information is in these boxes?” I asked as I stared at the box on Jonathan’s desk.

“It varies. Financial records, source code, you name it. I’ve seen it all.” Jonathan replied. “I have about one hundred customers in this city.”

“Interesting. We’re going to need all access to the building, and at least two days to do a thorough walkthrough and analysis. At that point, it could take you one to several weeks to implement all of our suggestions. Are you expecting to be missing any boxes during this time period?” I joked.

“Actually, I am.”

Source: archived original

Part IV · Dec 9, 2005

“I’m starving!” Scrap said as we entered a nearby Chinese food restaurant.

Scrap and I typically strategize over a meal, or at least coffee. I was still a bit puzzled by our new assignment and wanted to get Scrap’s usual “I can’t think inside the box because I left it in my car” perspective.

“Boss, I could write up our final report right now and save us a whole lot of time and trouble. It would start with ‘Dear Diary, Jonathan is a complete whack job’!” Scrap said with a snicker as he sat down in his chair.

“You know, normally I’d chide you about picking on the client, but he is a strange one. I mean, the guy KNOWS he has something weird going on in his facility, and instead of having additional cameras or other safeguards installed, he brings in an outside consultant to do something that he suspected was possible all long. Now he wants us to write up a risk assessment and a proposal to stop the boxes from disappearing?” I asked as I waved at our waitress. We were two very hungry chimps.

“Uh, oh. You have ’that look’ on your face again.” Scrap said. “And I have a feeling it’s not because you smell lemon chicken cooking.”

Scrap and I gave our orders to the waitress quickly and shared a small kettle of hot tea.

“Look, this is going to go nowhere fast. You and I both know that they only way we’re going to feel good about earning all this cash that he’s stuffing into our bank accounts is to get to the bottom of all of this.” I said sternly.

“Actually, I’m okay with just spending the cash.” Scrap joked with a slurp of hot tea. “So, Boss, what’s the plan?”

“Let me think while I eat.” I replied as I dug into an extra large portion of lemon chicken and white rice.

I was five bites into enjoying the tangy dish preferred by monkeys everywhere when the plan started dribbling from my lips in hurried sentences.

“We quietly pull the inventory reports from the bar code systems for the past 90 days, and then we go on a fishing trip. We need to isolate which specific boxes went missing, how long were they missing, who did they belong to, who picked them up, who stored them, who was supposed to destroy them, etc. We follow the process from the beginning to the end and we pick it apart.” I said with a quick wipe of my napkin.

“Groovy. Something I don’t understand right now is why didn’t Jonathan start an internal investigation when all of this started? I mean, come on! The guy only employs twenty people. How hard could it be to investigate this?” Scrap queried as a piece of sweet and sour pork shot from his mouth into my cup of tea.

“Dude, gross! Keep your pork to yourself.” I said as I fished the pork out of my tea and threw it back on his place. “I suppose you hear that a lot from your dates.”

Scrap was busy thinking up a comeback quote when I took advantage of his silence to answer his question.

“Jonathan is a strange type, that’s for sure. I’m starting to wonder if maybe he knows what is going on but wants someone outside of his organization to find it and report it.” I said.

“Seriously? But WHY?” Scrap asked.

“If I knew that, I’d be writing that final report right now without your clever suggestions.” I replied with a grin. “Lunch is on me. Let’s roll back to Jonathan’s facility and start pulling that report.”

We hurried back to Allison Technologies and asked Jonathan for access to his inventory system. Jonathan was receptive to our request and printed out every box transaction for the past 90 days.

The report was nearly 300 pages long.

Scrap and I set up our analysis operations in a small conference room and perused the report. We divided the report into two 45-day time periods and went to work.

It was nearly closing time at the facility when we had finally tracked all of the disappearing boxes down and found the moments in time when they had reappeared. I took my notes and walked to the other side of the facility where Jonathan’s office was located.

“Jonathan, how many boxes have been reported missing over the past 90 days?” I asked.

Jonathan scrutinized my question for a few moments. “I believe there were about six boxes reported to me by my destroyers. Why do you ask? Did you and Mr. Scrap come up with a different number?”

“Yes, actually we did.” I said as I turned my notepad around to display a number written in large black pen.

“48”

Source: archived original

Part V · Dec 13, 2005

“What?” Jonathan said with a dismissive hand wave. “Come in here and sit down.”

I took a seat in front of Jonathan’s mahogany desk.“Jonathan, we went over the scanning records very carefully. We have noted 48 instances where boxes were scanned coming off the truck, scanned by a processor, and then missing from inventory during the end of night inventory. Your closing inventory taker marks the missing boxes as ‘En route’. What does that mean?” I asked.

Jonathan looked like I had just asked to have marital relations with his wife.

“En route? That is only used when we put a box on a truck that is headed to a customer location. The procedure involved scanning the box OUT of the facility and IN to the truck. He is marking them as ‘En route’ in the comments field or what?” Jonathan asked as he reached the report I was holding under my notebook.

“That’s what we’re seeing. I’d like to talk to employee ID #44, who happens to be the only employee marking the boxes as ‘En route’.” I said as I jotted down some additional notes.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jonathan glance at his watch nervously.

“If we hurry, we can catch him. His name is Jose Molet.” Jonathan rattled off as he whisked by me and headed for the door.

I grabbed my gear and kept an even pace with Jonathan as he badged us into the largest of three storage rooms. Jonathan pointed at shorter gentleman sitting behind a desk.

“There. That’s Jose.”

I approached Jose’s desk and waited to make eye contact with him.

Jose was apparently unaware of my presence, aided by the iPod earbuds that were planted in his ears. I faintly detected hearing a strange combination of salsa and mariachi music.

“Jose!” Jonathan said loudly. “HOOOOOO-ZZZZAAAAYYYYYY”

I reached over and popped an earbud out of Jose’s left ear. Jose stood straight up, nearly knocking me over.

“Mister Allison! Hello! I was just looking over the inventory reports from yesterday.” Jose said . It was obvious to everyone in attendance at Jose’s impromptu siesta that he had been sleeping.

“Jose, this is the Chief. He needs to ask you some questions about inventory control procedures.” Jonathan said in a slightly irritated tone.

“Of course! Chief, have a seat. I will assist you in any way possible.” Jose said as he sat back down, nearly missing his own chair.

Jonathan glared at Jose for a few moments and then walked back towards his office.

“Jose, what can you tell me about these boxes labeled ‘En route’?” I asked as I drew Jose’s attention to the report in my hand.

Without missing a beat, Jose replied immediately. “Oh, that is easy. Those are boxes that were put on the morning truck.”

I was practicing my best ‘Scooby-Doo WHATTHEHELLAREYOUTALKINGABOUT’ face.

“I beg your pardon? These boxes are on the morning truck? Their contents haven’t been destroyed yet.” I said.

Jose stared at the report very carefully. He was very quiet.

If I had learned anything in many years of investigation, it was how to recognize the face of someone who wanted to tell me something that they knew they shouldn’t. Jose’s face was screaming louder than a blond extra on the set of a horror movie.

“Jose, if you know where these boxes are going, I’d really like you to tell me. I won’t tell anyone that you told me. Not even Jonathan.” I said with a sincere stare.

Jose looked up from the report and looked around the room, almost as if he were scanning it for eavesdroppers.

“Chief, those boxes really are on the trucks and ‘En route’.”

I sat up in my chair and leaned forward towards Jose.

“I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me. The boxes are on the morning truck and ‘En route’? En route back to the customer?” I asked

“They are.” Jose said with a frown. “After a pitstop.”

Source: archived original

Part VI · Dec 20, 2005

I was feeling a bit dizzy. It wasn’t from the coffee I had earlier, but Jose’s knack for talking in circles.

“Pitstop?” I queried. “What exactly do you mean by a ‘pitstop’?”

Jose became quiet again, nervously tapping on his desk.“I mean that the boxes… well, they make a little stop, then they come back, and that’s it.”

I was losing my patience after digesting that last bit of nonsense from Jose. Two can play at his game.

“So, let me see if I understand this correctly. The boxes are taken off the truck, scanned into inventory, and then put on the morning truck, and then come back and mysteriously end up back in inventory?” I asked.

“Yes.” Jose replied.

“Good. And then, the most senior processor on staff is let go for violating corporate policy, however he gets a small confidential severance package for helping identify the rest of the individuals and recovery of any customer assets?” I pondered out loud, staring at the top of Jose’s head.

Jose was quiet again.

“I don’t want to be in trouble.”

I screamed a silent victory yell inside. A crack had formed in Jose’s circular logic eggshell.

“You’re going to be in trouble no matter what Jose. The tracking logs don’t lie. You haven’t been able to produce a business reason why these boxes are loaded back onto a truck and disappear, only to reappear later.” I said as I continued to stare at Jose. “All of these boxes were scheduled for formal, documented destruction. Why are they being taken offsite?”

Jose stood up from his chair and placed his iPod on his desk, neatly laying the earbuds next to it. He walked towards a storage room and badged himself in.

I followed.

Jose pointed to a row of shelves in the storage room. There were empty places on several shelves where boxes should have been.

“These boxes are scheduled for destruction tomorrow. The missing boxes are on the morning truck.” Jose informed me as he jiggled the locks on several boxes on his way out of the room.

“Where’s the truck at now?” I asked, following Jose out of the storage room.

“It’s backed up to the dock. Everyone has gone home by now. We’ll need to have Jonathan open up the lockbox to get into the truck.” Jose said as he sat back down.

“You mean I’ll need to have Allison open up the lockbox.” I replied sarcastically as I realized that Jose was not wanting to attract any more attention to himself than necessary.

“Yep.”

I was drunk with questions. What was in these particular boxes? Why were they so valuable? What was being done with the contents?

A few minutes later, Jonathan and I were inside their lockup room and Jonathan opened a lockbox located on the far side of the room.

“We can unlock the truck with these.” Jonathan said as he removed some keys from the lockbox and headed toward the dock.

After a few moments we were opening the large roll-up door to the dock and were staring at the back of an Allison Technologies transport truck.

Jonathan inserted the key into the back of the truck, and with several turns opened the back door of the truck. I turned on a small flashlight that I had brought with me and gazed around the interior of the truck.

There were several boxes lined up next to each other along the right side of the truck. I compared the inventory tag numbers on the boxes to the missing boxes from the report. Jose was correct, these boxes were missing from today’s deliveries. According to the report, the boxes were from different companies.

Jonathan reached into his pocket and removed a cylindrical looking key.

“What’s that?” I asked as I saw Jonathan crouch down in front of one of the boxes.

“A destroyer’s key.” Jonathan said as he unlocked and opened each of the boxes.

“Well, that’s a shocker.”

Jonathan motioned for me to look in the boxes.

They were stuffed with high-capacity backup tapes.

Source: archived original

Part VII · Dec 23, 2005

“Dude, you look frazzled.” Scrap said as we sat down in the booth at a nearby restaurant for some well-deserved dinner.

“You have no idea. I am starting to regret taking this job.” I replied as I rolled my eyes. “Already there, man. Time for a recap?” Scrap asked. “When you returned from playing around on the dock you looked like you wanted to pull your hair out.”

I rubbed my eyes and let out a chuckle. “I haven’t been this frustrated since the time you got us kicked out of that ’entertainment club’ in Vegas and you hurled in the rental car.”

“Say what?” Scrap asked.

“Nothing. Look, let’s analyze what we’ve seen so far. Jonathan knows that something unusual is going on in his company. Concerned employees have pointed this out to him, yet for some reason he is unable to pinpoint the exact problem or the perpetrators responsible. He brings us in to penetrate his facility, which we do … no, wait … which he KNEW we could do, and then acts surprised when he finds out that a lot more of these storage boxes go ’temporarily’ missing on a routine basis. We track down a few of these missing boxes thanks to an employee who is scared to death of Jonathan and perhaps other employees, and Jonathan has access to a destroyer’s key set, which according to his own policies should not be possible. Only designated employees responsible for material destruction have those keys, and they back each other up. Nobody outside of the destroyer job profile should have those keys. Hell, even the keyholder of the company is a destroyer. The controls were designed well, but there is an obviously poor execution of them here.” I whined.

Scrap reached for one of the beers that magically appeared on the table in front of us thanks to an alert waitress. “Don’t forget about me almost being dog food, man. It’s a good thing we used that badge to go in the back way. So what does Jonathan want to do now? I’m sure he said something to you after you two found those boxes in the back of the truck.”

“It’s a flippin’ goose chase Scrap. Through our investigation we managed to find the evidence that shows that a problem exists and is far worse than Jonathan thought. We have an employee, Jose, who will probably cooperate and point fingers. I told Jonathan that we should do surveillance, leverage Jose’s possible cooperation, and discover why boxes only containing backup tapes are leaving the facility. You’ll never guess what he said!” I exclaimed.

“He saved money on his car insurance?” Scrap joked.

“He said that he’ll think about it. He’ll THINK about it. I want to slam my head into a wall.” I said as I downed the rest of my delicious malted beverage and signaled the waitress for another round.

“I don’t mean to point out the obvious here, boss, but Jonathan appears to either be the most incompetent business owner on earth, or he has a few tassels missing from his bra - so to speak.” Scrap said as he made ‘coo-coo’ images with his hands.

RING

My pseudo-drunken conversation with Scrap was interrupted by a unknown number calling my cellphone.

“Chief.”

I could barely hear the caller due to a lot of background noise.

“Uh, Chief? This is Jose. I can’t lose my job, I have a family to support. I can tell you exactly what you want to know, but you have to go to bat for me with Jonathan.” Jose pleaded on the phone.

My eyes widened. Could this phone conversation with Jose get us out of this doomed assignment?

“Jose, I will do everything I can to promote your cooperation with this investigation with Jonathan. You have my solid word on that.” I replied.

“I appreciate that Chief. I am glad you gave me your business card before you left. I apologize for acting weird while you were here.”

My blood was pumping. “Jose, Jonathan and I found those boxes in the truck just as you said we would. What is on the backup tapes in those boxes that is so important?”

Jose paused.

“Chief, they don’t want what is ON the tapes. They want the TAPES.”

I anxiously awaited the next round of beers.

Source: archived original

Part VIII · Dec 27, 2005

“I. Hate. This. Assignment.” I said as I smacked my forehead into the table.

“Whoa, whoa there big guy. You’re going to spill my beer. So what did Jose tell you?” Scrap asked as he grasped his beer glass with both hands, coddling it as if to prevent losing a drop of the hoppy, golden contents. “Jose gave me some names, but I’m not sure if I quite understand the tale he was weaving on the phone.” I said as I scratched my frazzled hair with a monkey paw.

“Spill it.” Scrap demanded as he lit a cigarette.

“According to our little insider, there are two employees primarily involved. Both of the employees are processors, however one has somehow come into possession of a destroyer’s key. This is clearly against company policy and completely undermines the established chain of custody procedure.” I said in disbelief.

“Nice.” Scrap said as he sipped his beer.

“Oh wait, it gets better! The bar scanner that the processors use to check the boxes in and out of the facility displays the customer name. The processors stack certain company boxes in a specific place. The other boxes are placed into the storage rooms in their inventoried places. The remaining boxes are placed on a morning truck by the processors. One of the processors is an ’early bird’ and gets to work before the others. He meets the driver on the dock, unlocks the truck, unlocks the boxes, locks the truck and the driver drives away!” I exclaimed.

“No. Way.” Scrap said as he accidentally extinguished his cigarette in his beer instead of the ashtray. “Dammit! I hate it when I do that. So what happens to the boxes after they leave the facility?”

I thought for a moment, trying to recollect everything that Jose had shared with me in our phone conversation.

“The driver makes a stop at the other processor’s house and unloads the tapes out of the boxes. The tapes are placed into cardboard boxes in the other processor’s garage. The driver then makes his other stops for the day and returns with the boxes. The boxes go directly from the truck back into the storage rooms.” I said.

“Wait a second. So the inventory controller, Jose, is marking these as being ’en route’ which is Allison Technology language for ‘still on the truck’. This way they don’t appear ‘unaccountable’, right? Friggin’ smooth.” Scrap said with a loud belch.

“Exactly. Jose didn’t have a lot of the details that I was really looking for, but we do have some leads to go on now.” I replied.

“Why do I get the feeling we’ll be snooping around Allison Technologies tomorrow to build this case?” Scrap moaned.

The next morning, Scrap and I returned to Allison Technologies and arranged a short meeting with the office manager, Janelle. Jose was only able to give me first names, which I assumed was because of intimidation or he really didn’t know.

Jonathan had given us carte blanche access to company records, so Janelle sat us down in front of a workstation and access to their employee records system. Ironically, the very software I was navigating through was the same software that Allison had removed from the market years ago.

I searched for all current employees with a first name of “Tomas”, which returned a single record: Tomas Tomason. Tomas had been with the company since the “software days” as Jonathan referred to them. I added the Tomason record to the print queue and proceeded with my next search: Jeffry. A single record was returned.

“Oh this just gets better and better.” I said as I laid my head on the desk.

“What now? What’s the dude’s name?” Scrap asked as he maneuvered behind me for a better look.

Jeffry Allison.

Source: archived original

Part IX · Jan 4, 2006

“Holy canceled bar tab! You think he’s related to Jonathan?” Scrap said as he scratched his eyebrow with a pencil.

“Ya think?” I said as I rolled my eyes. “Janelle? Is Jeffry related to Jonathan Allison?”

Janelle wandered over from her desk and looked at the employee record on my screen. “Oh yes. That is Mr. Allison’s brother. He’s been here forever.”

Scrap quietly chuckled until I fed him an elbow into the ribs.

“Dude, this is pretty messed up right here. So let’s see - you have Jeffry, Tomas, Jose and the unidentified driver all in on this?” Scrap said as he rubbed his bruised rib.

“Yep. I think we need to go old school on this.” I said as I jotted down the names of all TA truck drivers. “And we’re going to need a little professional help.”

Scrap and I excused ourselves outside of the TA building. While Scrap lit a cigarette, I scrolled through phone numbers on my Treo looking for an old, reliable friend named Jon Voyte. Jon was a [[private investigator]] that specialized in [[surveillance]] and had helped me out on several previous cases including The Case Of The Heartless Husband.

I selected Jon’s number on my Treo and listened to it ring a number of times.

“Jon speaking.”

I cleared my throat. “Jon, it’s Chief. Is there anyway you could meet me at Allison Technologies tomorrow evening? I know it’s short notice.”

Jon paused for a moment as he checked his schedule.

“I think I could do that. What’s the gig, and how much?” Jon asked. I could hear the smile on his face.

“Standard fee. We have a real cartoon show here to monitor.” I said as I described the events of the case.

“What a nightmare.” Jon said. “I can deploy all the [[wireless cameras]] you want, and we can place the digital recorder in a vehicle outside. You know me, I can rig anything.”

I laughed. “You don’t have to brag to me. I like the idea of placing the recorder in a vehicle, I’m not sure how safe it would be in the building. You may have to babysit.”

“I’m cool with that. Now let’s talk strategy.” Jon suggested.

An hour later the plan was formed, and Scrap & I decided to prepare for a bit of impromptu surveillance in the morning.

“Do I need to pick up coffee and doughnuts in the morning?” Scrap said with a hearty laugh. “This is straight out of a bad police show.”

“I have you covered. Just bring your camera, and make sure you get some sleep tonight. No late night IRC chatting with babes!” I demanded while waving my cell phone around.

Tomorrow morning was garage sale time.

Source: archived original

Part X · Jan 6, 2006

“What was going through Jonathan Allison’s head? What, indeed!” I thought to myself after waking up the next morning. Jonathan had asked for daily status reports, and I gave him a brief update that lacked a lot of detail.Scrap and I had planned to arrive at Allison Technologies in the early morning hours before any of the employees arrived for work. Our plan was to keep an eye on the ‘morning truck’ and see where it went, who was involved, and accumulate some of the missing pieces of this disastrous case.

I left my hotel room before the sun started it’s long journey up into the sky. After a quick stop at the holy green bean sanctuary and a small bakery, I headed towards Scrap’s apartment. The aroma of freshly brewed java goodness and sugar-encrusted baked goods filled my car.

As I guided my car into the parking lot adjacent to Scrap’s apartment, I noticed that he was waiting for me in the usual spot, his camera bag slung over his shoulder.

“Yo. Doughnuts! Sweet. You ready to do this?” Scrap asked in between bites of chewy glazed doughnut.

“As ready as I’ll ever be. The truck is scheduled to leave at seven o’clock, so we’ll position ourselves across and down the street so we’ll have a good view of the perimeter with the binoculars.” I replied as I began sipping on my coffee cup.

We reached Allison Technologies in record time, and positioned the car with a view behind the building and across the street. No signs of life were present. I manned the binoculars while Scrap checked the battery life of his camera.

“We have movement.” I said as I watched a sedan enter the back gate. I glanced down at the employee records that I had printed out in Janelle’s office. There was no mistaking the driver of the car - it was Jeffry Allison.

Jeffry badged into the back door. Over the next thirty minutes, several other employees parked their cars in the rear parking lot and entered through the back door including Tomas Tomason and one of the registered drivers - Pah Manderson.

Scrap glanced at his watch. “Anytime! Come on guys, let’s get this dog show rolling.”

“Patience, Scrap. This is America. Nobody leaves on time.” I joked as I poured myself another cup of Starbucks goodness from the large brown container.

Moments later, Pah approached the cab of the truck and started up the diesel engine. Jeffry walked to the driver’s door and had a brief conversation with Pah. Scrap was busy taking pictures.

“Ok, here we go.” I said as I watched the AT truck drive down the street. I positioned myself several car lengths back behind the truck.

“Dude, we look like thugs.” Scrap joked. We were both wearing sunglasses, baseball caps and jackets.

I cut Scrap’s joke session short as the AT truck pulled into a residential neighborhood. The truck drove down several blocks and made an abrupt right turn into a cul-de-sac. I drove by the the cul-de-sac and performed a U-turn, placing our vehicle within eyeshot of the back of the AT truck.

“Who the hell is that?” Scrap asked as he snapped more pictures of Pah opening the back of the truck and patting another man on the back. The stranger had wandered out from the garage in a pair of sweats and a baseball cap, cigarette and coffee in hand.

I aimed my binoculars carefully and focused on the stranger’s face. I then rummaged through my pile of employee records from AT.

“Chief, they are pulling boxes.” Scrap said as he continued to snap pictures and adjust the focus on his camera.

I peered through my binoculars to see Pah and the stranger taking several boxes from the back of the AT truck and carrying them into the garage. Once in the garage, the stranger was emptying the tapes from the inside and placing them in large cardboard boxes. The empty boxes were returned to the truck.

“Hmmm. Just as Jose described, right down to the boxes being unlocked!” I mumbled. The stranger followed Pah back to the driver’s side of the truck and had a brief conversation before Pah climbed back into the cab of the truck, waved, and drove around the inside of the cul-de-sac in an attempt to turn the truck around.

“We’re out of here.” I said as I placed the car in reverse and left in the opposite direction. “Did you get pictures of the stranger?” I asked Scrap.

“Did I!” Scrap replied. “Dude, I got pictures of his nasty noise hairs.”

Well, that was too much information.

Several miles down the road I spotted a local coffee shop called “Empty Mug”. Not a very appealing name, but they served coffee.

Scrap and I took up residence at a table outside of the coffee shop. I grabbed us two cups of fresh house blend, and Scrap proceeded to hook up his camera to his laptop.

“Funny - this camera costed me more than the laptop.” Scrap commented as he started the picture import process.

I opened my laptop bag and pulled out my folder of employee records. I stared at the faces, trying to make a mental map of their features.

“Okay boss, here’s your stranger.” Scrap said as he zoomed in on a picture of the stranger having a conversation with Pah.

I looked at the employee records again, dropping most of them on the floor. Scrap began to fidget in his chair.

“Uh, boss. This is impossible, but I swear that’s Tomas Tomason!” Scrap exclaimed.

I raised an eyebrow.

“That is impossible. Tomas checked into work shortly after Jeffry and didn’t leave the building before the truck.” I responded.

It would appear that Tomas had a twin.

Source: archived original

Part XI · Jan 13, 2006

Naps are perhaps one of an investigator’s best friends. Scrap and I had returned to Scrap’s apartment for some much needed rest and relaxation, and were both sound asleep. Well, I was trying to sleep during Scrap’s snoring rendition of “The Overture of 1812”. Scrap had passed out on his couch, while I took up residence in his easy chair.RING

“Now where did I put my cell phone?” I pondered as I searched for the source of the electronic ring.

“Chief.” I said into my treo as I wiped the sleep from my eyes.

“I’m in town. When do you want to do this?” came a familiar voice from the other end of the cellular signal. It was Jon!

“Well, it’s closing in on five o’clock now. Let’s plan to meet at Allison Technologies at eight.” I replied with a quick glance at the “Coyote Ugly” clock on Scrap’s wall.

“Roger that. See you then.” Jon said as he hung up.

I heard a stirring sound from behind me. It appeared that Snoralupicus had awoken.

“I feel like crap.” Scrap moaned as he reached for his water bottle on his coffee table.

“Too much late night IRC?” I joked.

“No, about this whole ‘Tomas’ business, boss. Any theories?” Scrap asked with a swig of water.

I had been giving that very topic a lot of thought, and flipped through the Allison Technologies employee files that I had printed out earlier. A quick glance at Tomas’s file made me smile.

“Tomas’s emergency contact is a ‘Jerry Tomason’.” I read out loud. “Any bets Tomas has a brother?”

Scrap thought for a moment. “Or a same-named lover?”

That’s Scrap, always thinking outside the box.

Eight o’clock came fast, and we were parked outside the rear entrance of Allison Technologies. A white sedan pulled up behind us, and a shadowy figure emerged. Jon had an equipment bag slung over his shoulder, and appeared to have lost his razor.

“Nice beard.” I cracked as we shook hands.

“The wife likes it.” Jon replied with a grin.

We made our way into the building and surveyed the premises with Jon. Jon was making notes in a notepad and taking measurements.

“Here’s my plan.” Jon said, referring to his notes. “I’m going to set up wireless cameras here, here, and here placed covertly in the false ceiling tiles. We’re going to have a ‘birds-eye view’ of the activities that you were concerned about. I’m going to set up a test unit first so we can make sure that our receiver is going to get enough signal.”

“Awesome. What about battery life?” I asked. The units looked very small. I wondered how much power they required?

“We’re covered on battery life for twenty-four hours. I have battery packs for everything, man.” Jon responded in a confident voice. If Jon said we were covered, then I had no doubts.

Scrap wandered down the hallway and sat the receiver on a storage room table. Jonathan Allison had given us permission to take over a storage room as a base of operations, eliminating the need to keep the receiver outside in a vehicle.

“Hey Chief! I can see the top of your monkey head!” Scrap yelled out the door.

Nice.

Jon finished his installations and tests in record time. We had enough storage space on the receiver for forty-eight hours, much more space than we had battery life.

We thanked Jon for his assistance and made plans to recover the equipment before the weekend, in approximately two days. I locked the storage room door with a set of keys that Jonathan Allison had eagerly provided me. Jonathan assured me there were no other keys to this door. I wanted to believe Jonathan, but if experience had taught me anything, I never believed anyone. I removed a roll of clear marking tape from my pocket and created a transparent seal at the top of the door. This tape was similar to “warranty return” tape that one might find on the box of a very expensive piece of electronic equipment. The clear tape had a hard to see insignia pattern printed on it. If the door was opened before our return, it would be quite obvious, and difficult to ‘fix’.

Several hours later Scrap and I were back at Scrap’s apartment writing up our activities for the day.

“Hey, this is interesting.” Scrap said as he scrolled through a web page on his trusty Scraptop.

“What’s that?” I asked, trying to maintain my train of thought.

“You said that Tomas’s ‘brother’ was named Jerry Tomason, right?” Scrap asked.

“Yep. Why?” I queried as my eyes focused squarely on Scrap’s chimp-like face.

“Well, according to Google, Jerry is the owner and operator of a computer salvage company about ten miles away.” Scrap replied as he turned his laptop to face me. “And you’ll never guess what inventory item he seems to have an abundance of?”

Very expensive backup tapes.

Source: archived original

Part XII · Jan 18, 2006

The weekend arrived with haste. Scrap and I had maintained a low profile during the past few days using our time to create necessary case file documentation, and to theorize about our current train wreck of a case.“Come on Chief, he has to know.” Scrap said as he pushed a pile of geek magazines off of a nearby sofa cushion to make room for his monkey behind side.

“Know what? That he has a bunch of scheming freaks working for him?” I retorted as I cracked open a fresh bottle of Starbucks coffee-flavored Frappuccino. “Or that his brother is possibly neck deep in doo-doo?”

“That’s what I’m saying, man. Jonathan is ’the man’ at this company. Nobody can have their head in the sand that deep.” Scrap said with a shake of his long, mop-like hair. “He called you in to be the bad guy and do all the dirty work. It’s like Miami Vice, boss. You’re Sonny, I’m Tubbs and neither one of dress that well.”

I laughed quietly. Perhaps Scrap was on to something.

RING

“Chief.” I said into my cell phone.

“Okay dude, it’s Saturday morning. Are we going in to recover my gear?” Jon said impatiently. I had a feeling Jon’s wife wanted him back home to take care of his “honey do” list.

“You got it. Meet us down there in an hour?” I asked, motioning Scrap to get our gear ready.

“Check. I need to leave shortly after lunch.” Jon said as he hung up.

Apparently Jon was under the impression that I was buying him lunch.

“Did you say something about food?” Scrap said as tossed me my laptop bag.

An hour later we arrived at Allison Technologies to find Jon waiting patiently by his sedan. We marched into the building and approached the storage room where we had left the recording device. I glanced at the doorframe, carefully inspecting my makeshift tamper detector.

It was intact.

I removed the tamper seal, leaving a mess of sticky tape residue on the door’s frame. Jonathan would understand.

We entered the room, and Jon sat down in front of the recorder. He opened his notebook and started taking notes on the current date and time. Jon attached a portable monitor to the recorder and started scrolling through the time lapsed images.

“There.” Jon said as he pointed to the screen and scribbled more notes. “There’s your truck arriving right on time.”

The series of events that we then witnessed were exactly as Jose had described. Tomas and Jeffry assisted Pah in unloading the contents of the truck. Some boxes were sorted into a smaller pile towards the left of the screen, the rest were sorted into a larger pile on the right and scanned with an inventory gun. Jeffry moved the boxes on the right side of the screen into a nearby secure storage room. The boxes on the left side were placed back in the truck.

Jon scrolled through some uninteresting footage until he arrived at Jose in the secure storage room. Jose performed some arbitrary tasks on his workstation, and then walked to the back of the truck. He then proceeded to scan the boxes on the truck, and return to the storage room. For the next ten minutes, Jose worked diligently on his workstation and then appeared to go home.

“How much do you want to bet that if we pull the tag numbers on the boxes in the truck and check their status in the inventory system, they are labeled ’en route’?” I said to Scrap with a wink as I removed my cell phone from its carrying case.

“God I hope you’re ordering lunch.” Scrap joked.

“Nope, I’m calling Jonathan; and I’m about to give him a real upset stomach.” I said.

Coming up: The Conclusion!

Source: archived original

Conclusion · Jan 21, 2006

I could hear his footsteps coming down the hall; rhythmic, squeaky, and filled with anticipation. Jonathan Allison rounded the corner and practically leapt into the storage room that we called headquarters. “Chief, Scrap … I don’t believe that I know this other person.” Jonathan said as he extended his hand to Jon.

“Jon is a surveillance expert. The best I’ve ever worked with.” I said as I inflated Jon’s already enormous ego another ten p.s.i. “Jonathan, Scrap & Jon have some tasks to do. Can we talk in your office?”

“Certainly.” Jonathan replied as he lead the way to his office.

I closed the door to Jonathan’s office behind me and created a butt impression on a nearby leather chair.

“You said this was urgent?” Jonathan asked as he folded his arms neatly on his desk.

“Is anything wrong?”

I shot Jonathan my best poker face, my eyes revealing nothing.

“There’s very clearly something going on here at Allison Technologies. There is an organized effort to steal magnetic backup tapes placed in your care and resell them on the second-hand market.” I began. “And somehow, Jonathan, I think you already knew that.”

Jonathan stared at his desk.

“Perhaps.”

I raised my voice slightly. “And ‘perhaps’ you left out several critical facts from this case, like your brother being an employee?”

Jonathan continued to stare a hole through the desk with his incredible powers of concentration.

“You hired me to investigate the disappearance of company assets. I know who’s involved, I know what assets are being removed from the premises, I think I even understand their business plan. But what I don’t understand is why am I here in the first place?” I asked.

Jonathan peered up at me, obviously aware of his need to ‘come clean’.

“Chief, first off, let me say that I now know why you come so highly recommended. In a matter of a week you figured out a situation that took me months to uncover. However, things are much more complex than you may think.” Jonathan said quietly as he stood up and walked towards the window in his office.

“Jeffry?” I queried.

“Jeffry. Jeffry is my brother. I love my brother, but he’s completely worthless. If it wasn’t for me giving Jeffry jobs and bailing him out of jail in his younger years he’d probably be sharing a cell with a car thief right about now. Jeffry is the youngest sibling I have, Chief. Everyone in my family feels sorry for Jeffry, and respects me for giving him a job. However, when I mentioned to my parents that Jeffry was screwing up again and stealing from me, they became upset and told me to overlook his faults. They told me to transfer him to another job and give him another chance.” Jonathan lamented, his voice full of disgust.

“You didn’t want to be the bad guy in a bad situation. You bring me in as a consultant, and I uncover the great scheme to make money on the side at work.” I said.

“Correct. I could terminate Jeffry and his coworkers and not be the bad guy. Most of Jeffry’s coworkers are friends of his that I hired as a favor to Jeffry.” Jonathan replied.

“What about Jose? Jose was most helpful, and appears to be cooperating with the others out of fear?” I asked Jonathan.

“Jose has worked here a long time, and I know that Jeffry bullies him. Jose has a huge family to support, and Jeffry know that; and he exploits that. He’s a good guy, and I plan on taking care of him.” Jonathan said as he peered out of the window.

I breathed a sigh of relief. Jose had been cooperating with me under the assumption that Jonathan would seek no retribution against him. This was good news.

I suddenly remembered that I should be reviewing my notes on my notepad and actively engaging Jonathan in conversation, rather than daydreaming.

“My team and I have performed a lot of research and field work in the past week. We know that customer tapes are being removed from your trucks and placed in a garage that belongs to Tomas’ brother Jerry. Jerry owns a computer recycling business. My associate, Scrap, visited Jerry’s recycle center yesterday and located one of ten tapes that we had tagged with a dye marker. The tape was one of many that we found in the boxes that we opened in the truck earlier in the week. Careful examination of the tape showed that data from one of your customers was present. We’re talking one serious exposure of customer data.” I said as I flipped through several more pages of notes.

“Yes, you are correct. The guys … they all knew the procedures here well enough that they knew how to safely get around them. They were targeting companies that shipped us almost brand-new high-capacity tapes for destruction. The tapes were typically in a storage rotation of a year’s cycle, from what I could tell. The tapes that they wanted to steal were scanned into the system as received using the driver’s gun, and then Jose would mark them as ’en route’ in the system so they wouldn’t come up missing. The tapes were driven to Jerry’s house, and then the boxes were returned with a few tapes clanging around in the bottom. When the tape boxes came back and were checked back in, the destroyers simply opened the boxes, scanned the remaining tapes in the box, and ran them through the destruction machines. Our system always showed the tapes as destroyed. That’s what made it so hard for me to track down initially.” Jonathan said as he sat back down.

“Well, I can’t say this has been the most entertaining goose chase I’ve ever been on. You have quite the barrel of monkeys here, Jonathan. I hope you have a good attorney on retainer and a strong management team behind you. You have a few customers that aren’t going to be happy when they find out that their backup tapes were being sold as second-hand flea market specials.” I said.

Jonathan was looking more stressed as I spoke.

“However, my team will have a report complete with electronic media delivered to you on Monday afternoon. I’ll send you a bill for the remainder of my fee and expenses.” I said as I got up from my chair and wandered towards the door.

“Thanks for all your hard work.” Jonathan said as sprang from his chair and shook my hand. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you everything at the beginning of this, but I didn’t know if you’d stick around after you heard the whole story.”

“No worries Jonathan. You and the rest of your management team will have all the ammunition you need in the reports and video files on Monday. Oh, and Jonathan …” I said as I opened the door.

“Yes?” Jonathan asked curiously.

I reached into my pocket and tossed Jonathan the Allison Technologies badge and lanyard that Scrap and I had lifted earlier in the week.

“You might want to give this employee back her badge.”

Scrap and I practically did cartwheels after we left AT for the last time. We were very eager to completely wash our hands of this case. As a very clever reader noted in a comment on our last case file posting, this was a case of family politics. Jeffry was the bad seed, Jonathan wanted to fire him but didn’t want the pressure of being the bad guy.

Jonathan, along with his two attorneys, started a marathon of contacting law enforcement, having Jeffry, Tomas, Pah & Jerry arrested for theft and sale of stolen goods, Jeffry, Tomas & Pah were obviously terminated immediately (Jonathan was careful to delete their badge access), and several law suits were filed against AT by customers over the theft of their tapes and potential information disclosure.

New case file next week!

~ Chief

Source: archived original