Feigning Illness: Observations by Our Düsseldorf Detectives Bring Clarity

Frequent Absences of an Employee

An employee of a high-revenue German freight company in the Rhineland repeatedly called in sick while employed as a truck driver. It was known that his brother-in-law ran a small transport business, where the employee occasionally helped out. As the absences became more frequent, without any prior signs of health issues, the Aaden Detectives in Düsseldorf were commissioned to monitor the employee and verify his loyalty through surveillance.

Operational Area Reconnaissance by Our Düsseldorf Detectives

Before surveillance began, our commercial detectives from Düsseldorf conducted an on-site inspection and an analysis of the surveillance area at the target person’s residential address as well as at the company location of the brother-in-law. The situation at the company was clear and relatively unproblematic, but the residential building was located on a narrow street in a small town near Düsseldorf—there, everyone knows everyone, and unfamiliar vehicles are quickly noticed. For this reason, the operations management of the Aaden Commercial Detective Agency Düsseldorf decided to deploy three surveillance operatives. Two detectives were to continuously cover the two exit routes, while the third was used for a flexible rotation in order to reduce the risk of drawing attention.

Heavy Lifting Despite Sick Leave

No such rotation of the Düsseldorf detectives was ultimately necessary, because the target person left the house before sunrise, drove to a gas station to buy a copy of a famous German tabloid newspaper, and then went directly to the brother-in-law’s company premises, where the lights were already on in the main building.

After about an hour, the target person emerged from the house again with an unknown male individual and went out onto the open company premises, where both were talking and apparently making notes on a drawing board. After that, the target person of the Aaden Detective Agency Düsseldorf began loading pallets with a forklift and some boxes by hand into a truck on his own.

Engaging in Competing Work While Ill | Evidence Gathering by Aaden Detectives

Shortly before 8:30 in the morning, our commercial detectives from Düsseldorf began vehicle surveillance as the target person got into the truck and left the company premises in it. Over the course of the next nine hours, the target person visited numerous companies and, in some cases, apparent private homes in order to deliver the cargo from the transport vehicle. He worked with great endurance, took hardly any breaks, carried loads very diligently, and showed no signs of illness.

To confirm the findings obtained, surveillance by the Aaden Detective Agency Düsseldorf was repeated on the following two days. The target person displayed the same behavior, providing our private detectives from Düsseldorf with abundant evidence that the commissioning company can now use to enforce its labor law claims.