Why this private investigator loves the cases others have given up on
6/17/202652 min
Ken Gamble is very good at spying on people doing the wrong thing but perhaps the investigations that have had the most impact are the missing person cases he's taken on pro bono.
Ken spent part of his childhood living in a remote outback pub and by the age of 12, he was driving drunk jackaroos back to their stations.
When his family moved to the Sunshine Coast, Ken took up boxing on the amateur circuit and left school in Year 10 to pursue the sport full time, until a savage injury ended his career before it had really begun.
After stints in the Army Reserve and as a firefighter, Ken decided he wanted to be a private investigator and began working in personal injury insurance fraud where he became highly skilled in covert surveillance.
And with the arrival of the internet, Ken turned his attention to tracking down the humans behind online scams.
Ken has also been called on to help in some high-profile missing person cases, including that of Belgian backpacker, Celine Cremer.
Further information
This episode of Conversations was produced by Jen Leake, Nicola Harrison is the Executive Producer
It explores criminals, cyber crime, insurance fraud, covert surveillance, private detectives, Mt Isa, alcoholism, violence, boxing, counterfeit products, boiler rooms, online scams, missing persons, mobile phone data, geospatial analytics, Eumundi, Celine Cremer, police, bikies.
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSarah Kanowski· Host0:00
[instrumental music] ABC Listen. Podcasts, radio, news, music, and more. Ken Gamble is a private investigator. Over his long and colourful career, Ken has staked out bikies making false insurance claims, raided factories pumping out fake Bart Simpson T-shirts, and burst in on boiler rooms full of online scammers. Ken's focus these days is on complex cybercrime and large-scale financial fraud with his agency, IFW Global. But perhaps the investigations that have had the most impact are the cases that Ken has taken on pro bono, the ones on behalf of grieving families overseas, whose adventure-loving kids had come to Australia as young backpackers and then just disappeared. Hi, Ken.
Ken Gamble· Guest0:52
Hi.
Sarah Kanowski· Host0:52
You spent part of your childhood living in Mount Isa. What took your family there?
Ken Gamble· Guest0:58
I did. My father was a builder. We started our life in Mount Isa in the, in the '70s, and, uh, I started primary school there at Central State School in 1971.
Sarah Kanowski· Host1:08
And what are your memories of how Mount Isa looked and smelt back in the '70s?
Ken Gamble· Guest1:13
It, it was hot. It was very hot. It was a very hot place, and it had this, uh, the big mines were pumping out this sulfur all the time, so there was this incredible sulfur smell, which I never knew what it was as a kid, but years later I, I come to learn that it was the sulfur in the air coming