Safe Houses

​

A safe house is a place that is completely secure where an agent can go in times of trouble or when a safe place is needed. Safe houses are usually provided by the agency that the agent works for, but sometimes, the agent may set up a place for himself in the event that he needs to completely disappear from everyone, including his employer. Self employed agents, like most private investigators, need to establish their own safe houses.

 

Despite the name, safe houses are not fortifications or some special kind of structure. They are just a regular house, apartment or hotel. The thing that makes them safe is that they are a refuge that no one knows about and has no known connection to any agency or the agent who uses it. There can be nothing on the records that would link this place to the agent, including him ever visiting it. It is proper tradecraft for the agent to never visit the safe house until he actually uses it, whether for a meet with another agent or a dire event that forces him to "go to ground" or disappear. Only then will he use it and then he must never use it again.

 

Agents and private investigators with sensitive clientele must assume that if anyone is “on to them" or their client (investigating to trying to get them), the person doing so will know everything about them both. Therefore, any place that the agent or client is associated to, regularly visits or stays is now compromised. Going to the mother-in-law’s would not be a good safe house. Trying to get help from friends would also be dangerous, for them and the agent. The agent must assume that his enemy has been conducting discreet surveillance on him and knows every place he might visit.

 

While safe houses are mostly used by high end agencies and sophisticated groups, every Private Investigator or agent should have a safe house they can use. Such usage can range from the mundane, such as a secure meeting place for confidential interviews or meets clients with privacy concerns to a place the agent can go to, or send their family to, in times of trouble. Safe houses are also the perfect place to sent a client who’s life is in immediate danger.