ROGER Zhang triggered the small silver "gun" lighter. Smoke from his pipe clouded his face and a long scar on the hand holding the pipe was conspicuous. Zhang is a private detective, a profession that has not been legally recognized in China.

Unlike Sherlock Holmes whose wisdom helped him to hunt down many sly criminals, Zhang said private detectives in China have to tread in a grey area that has not been defined by law, making use of well-developed and carefully accumulated informal networks to mediate contacts with criminal gangs.

Zhang said he was one of the first private detectives in the city since the birth of the PRC, entering the trade in 1992. His first investigative office was closed only a few months after opening when the government launched a campaign to suppress the profession.

Zhang has a decade of experience as an investigator, but his first training was in wrestling, as a youth. He once worked as a lawyer and later as a reporter after retiring from the army. Before he re-opened his investigative office in 2000, he was a teacher in the public security college.

"I re-launched the company because it was always my personal interest and there were more flexible policies concerning the profession by then," he said.

Hard-earned profit

The company has the Chinese name "bangte", similar in pronunciation to the surname of James Bond. But the work and life of Zhang and his staff bears little comparison with that of the legendary Bond, being far less risky and more mundane.

Along with investigations into "the other person" in troubled marriages - accounted for 30 per cent of total cases - Zhang and his company also dedicated themselves to investigating economic corruption and debt disputes in enterprises.

"Marriage investigations are actually less demanding of our skills - the economic cases are usually much more complicated," he said.

In a corruption case that he dealt with in 2001, the original head of a State-owned enterprises cheated it of 3 million yuan (US$362,318) by making fake accounts in order to set up her own company. When Zhang tracked down the woman, he found she had set up good relations with some regional policemen as well as criminal gangs.

Reasons for development

"When I was trying to prevent her from fleeing her hidden apartment, that I had entered after several attempts, dozens of people from criminal gangs surrounded the building - although I didn't realize it at first," Zhang said. A policeman in the district, who had been bought off by the woman, was also notified to come to the site and threaten Zhang.

Fortunately, he had already contacted police in another district who came to the rescue.

Success in the case earned him 120,000 yuan (US$14,400), the highest payment he has received for any case to date.

"District and provincial protectionism does have an influence in many situations. Some legal systems are also very inefficient," Zhang said.

Family members of a Shanghai local who was kidnapped and taken to Anhui Province were only supposed to report the case to the public security department in that province.

"My client employed me because it was difficult to get the person rescued - the local police bureau was protecting the criminals," he said.

With the help of his friends and relationships in the province, Zhang contacted a member of the kidnapping group through a local criminal gang. After days of mediation, the kidnappers agreed to release the hostage.

"Some of my clients thought it was too time and money-consuming to get the local police to deal with cases for them. They didn't want to have to keep inviting the police out for banquets, so they turned to private detectives instead," Zhang said.

People involved in economic cases may first take the problem to the courts, which then start investigative proceedings.

"People favour private detectives for these investigations because using official channels alerts the debtors, who then hide their assets," said the director of another investigation company, who refused to be identified.

Variable fees

The director, who himself worked for the public security department, said usually only major cases such as murder would be given serious attention by police bureaus and solved quickly. Other cases would just be laid aside.

"That opens a large space for the development of private detective companies," he said.

Depending on the difficulties involved in different cases, the company charges various fees. For example, marriage investigations might be priced at under 10,000 yuan (US$1,200), while the investigators could hope for 10-25 per cent of the debts they recovered from a defaulting company.

"The evidence we obtain is accepted at court. However, we confront dilemmas, for instance, with secret filming and taping. The status and responsibilities of private detectives have not been explicitly defined by laws," Zhang said.

At the end of last year, a private detective in Beijing was beaten to death and his corpse was thrown into the street. The sleuth, Huang Lirong, 39, was discovered secretly taking pictures secretly of a person whose background was of interest to one of Huang's clients.

Zhang has 11 staff, with varied working experience in police bureaus, courthouses, lawyer offices and the army.

Infrared cameras were the only "weapon" they usually took out with them.

"We seldom carry daggers or knives, even in very dangerous situations. But any items close to us could be used as 'weapons' to protect ourselves," Zhang said.

Confidential work

He once pretended to be a drunkard holding a bottle to escape the attention of several people from a criminal gang. "The bottle, if I had broken it, could have been my weapon."

The staff were divided into several groups and whenever they went out to investigate, two or three of them were required to go together.

Each group was responsible for a case, which they kept secret about. They could not talk to anybody outside the group about it.

"We also destroy all relevant materials after a case is concluded," Zhang said.