Welcome to Spycraft, a podcast that tells gripping life and death spy stories and
the amazing devices and operations that made them possible. Now let's get started.
Welcome back everybody. Today, we have a special guest, Michael trot Trott.
He's the author of a book called The Protected. I highly recommend it
if you're looking into getting into the field of executive protection or if you just
want to learn more insight about situational awareness, I recommend it. So who
is he? He began his career as a security specialist in the US Air
Force, serving six of his ten years in Europe, but he was also
assigned to the Air Force Office of Special Investigations the OSI. He was also
a team leader and field supervisor for an operational fifteen man tactically unit in a
conducted bilateral account Counter two. There was some training and joint ops with the
German Special Police and military Special Op units. Between his military and private sector
careers. For many years, he was a special agent for the CIA.
Actually should be a special officer, but we'll go back to that. We'll
ask him in a minute. Assigned to the Protective Security Detail for the CIA
Director and several deputy directors. Concurrently, he supported the agency's clandestine efforts to
provide critical, low prop profile protection and various overseas locations, and conclude his
tenure supporting other assets as well other agency directorates. So, without wasting any
more time, make sure to share, subscribe hit I like, but you
know we like it. Let's work to the show. Mister officer, mister
Mike Trott, Welcome sir, Thank you. Doctor Carlos have been called worse.
It's that special agent. And I don't want to make this faux pad
many years ago and I wasn't as familiar and I got a tongue lashing to
call it CIA officer an agent. But is there a special agent category?
There really is, And thanks for asking for clarifications so some people don't get
confused. In general, yeah, CIA would probably classify the majority of their
field operators as officers. But I have a badge hanging on the wall behind
me that says special agent. And so when you provide protective operations or protective
services for someone like the Director, you are issued an agency badge and that
badge says special agent. So it's a it's a rarity. It's not too
many people that have that distinction or that title, and yeah, you're right.
Some people do the confused they go, oh, you think you're a
special agent. I don't think I was, actually was, but that's just
by the title. Doesn't mean I was out there doing you know, James
Bond special agent stuff, and that's just the title that they used. So
thanks for asking the question. That clarifies it absolutely. You know, it's
always funny that other people think they think CIA and they'll think automatically or an
identity or or Liam Neeson and taken and things of that nature. But even
if you did do that stuff, you wouldn't tell us anyway. Let me
ask you this. It's okay to call you Michael. It is you mentioned
before the interview of human complexities, and I'm seeing one right out of the
gate, which is I'm here to protect the head of the CIA, now,
George Jennet. At that time, that seems to add a little complexity.
If something goes wrong or if he wants me to do something that I
think is not as safe, the risk factors go up. How was that
little juggling act? You know, it is complicated and to do to talk
in the book about it quite a bit of human complexes because it's not as
black and water as we want it to be. Working for someone like a
cheminant level official or a CIA director or the CEO of a company with that
fact, it's complicated navigating that, and it's part of it is the relationship
that you build with your principal to where there's a trust factor. At the
end of the day, someone like the director, he still has a job
he has to do, regardless of the risk factors where he acts to where
he needs to travel. I can remember many times Doddie has secretary coming into
the office and saying, hey, you know, George wants to go to
X location and we're like, oh my gosh, it's can we go somewhere
else? But at the same time, he's got a reason why he's got
to go, and you know, eight out of ten times it's the President
directing him to build that location to conduct meetings. So we get it done.
We get it done the safest way we can. Obviously we luck to
kind of going quietly and leave quietly, and there's a reason behind that.
It's just the very nature of what the agency does. It's not a fanfare
trip in this case, the director of the agency is not at a presidential
level, it's not a state department official. We got to stay out of
politics, going in and going out as our preference, which works to our
advantage. But it is complicated and there's a lot that goes on behind the
scenes, as you can imagine, to make sure it's done safely and still
allow the director to do the job, probably wishing, you know, don't
we have an espionage issue in the Bahamas somewhere that we can go tackle for
a while. I guess that leads me to my other question. A lot
of people maybe they're getting the idea of if you're familiar with the industry,
you probably understand this already, but there's a lot of prep work that has
to go on here. So if you're going into a particular state or a
nation state that has a high risk environment, how long is the typical preparation
for it, and you have assets over there that start giving you ideas,
Hey, Mike, I gotta be careful with this or that, what's going
on there? Whatever you can share, of course, yeah, well I'll
take it out of the agency and go back into PREVACE secret because it's kind
of actually similar So whether you're in a government organizational with private sector, if
you're working for a high profile CEO and that person needs to go to a
particular country still high risk, you still sort of follow the same methodologies,
and so a lot of that, to your point, is prep work a
trip that might be into high threat area. To be quite honestly, quite
honest, it could take weeks to months, or you might go in twenty
four hours. So it just depends on the nature of the trip. I
can remember many times when at the agency I would have what we call go
bags in the car and many times leaving a shift heading to the house and
I get a call instead of heading home, head to Dallas Airport, we
need you to go X location. So sometimes it works to your events because
if you don't know where you're going there, how does anybody else know going
there? So it works to your vantage. It depending on how big the
trip is, how many moving parts, how many people are traveling, you
know, what are the meetings. And again let's take the agency aside,
it's the same in private sector, so it really runs the wide range of
It could be weeks to months, and it could be as less as twenty
four hours. It really depends on the mission and the request. Now we
might as security professionals, work with the executives and say, you know,
let's don't go on forty eight hours. Can we push this back for a
week because we do need to move certain assets into a location. It could
be vehicles, it could be people, it could be other assets as well
as we need to maybe get ground truths what's going on in that location that
we really need to be concerned with. So there's a lot that goes into
it, and there's a lot of specialists that have their you know, their
nuanced capacities of what they do. It's not a matter of just the guys
that you know, jump on a plane and get off. There's there's a
whole lot of people working in the background to make sure these trips go smooth.
I don't know if this question is too sensitive or not, but I
guess all that's I'll find out. But how important becomes certain individuals in countries
that are higher risk or countries that you may not be as familiar with in
the sense of like a diplomat, a sense of an ambassador attache the FBI,
even in the CIA, we have you have recruiters obviously that go down
and they get to mingle with a lot of people, especially down in the
I would you say, boots on the ground environment where they get to meet
area. Do you ever access those individuals, recruiters, ambassadors, diplomats to
see the field politically of it, if you're going to a country that maybe
doesn't look at us the same way, anything like that at all, to
get additional resources, well, for sure, especially in terms of the information.
Let's take the State Department as as a case in point. The State
Department has probably more resources and assets in other countries, and there is a
a process of reciprocating or sharing assets and information. So obviously you take the
State departmental security. You know, your local RSO regional security officer reason when
it's in charge of the security of that particular local embassy or consulate, as
well as the people, whether it's the counselor or well it's the ambassador.
So yes, we do work alongside them all quite often. We share information.
We ask them, you know, to your point, what's the boots
on the ground threat right now? That's the risks and sometimes they can provide
you know, human assets to us and then vice versa. You know,
you're probably familiar what happened in BEng Ghazi where it was kind of a shared
scenario where both sides came came together to you know, to fight a local
enemy. Unfortunately, Uh, and the high price was paid on both sides.
So now we do we do tap all those resources. There's very few
resources we may not sort of tap. It really just depends on the mission,
who's traveling, and what's going on currently politically, Uh, in that
particular region. Yeah, the there, I know, it's speaking to one
gentleman who does not name the work a lot. I guess as he puts
it, do you, he uses a lot of unconventional means in the sense
of it. You know, maybe this is unconventional for me. I guess,
uh, where he talks to. He might talk to a homeless person
who's sitting outside, who's been out there a lot, who sees who comes
by all the time, who doesn't come by, Maybe the old lady that
sits outside her balcony every day and then they've noticed her sitting there for five
hours a day? Is that unconventional tactics? Also? You sometimes it is.
And again it goes back to what's what's the miss h for sure.
You know when you start talking about situation awareness again, whether it was at
the agency or whether in my private sector road, you know, one of
things I talk about as soon as I would land in a foreign country and
get to the hotel, honestly starts to sit as you land and excellent airport,
you're already beginning to put your all your senses together, and you're you're
starting to start to put the post together of what it is like in this
particular region, this area everything from weather to smells, to senses, to
access and communication. And if I'm going into a particular country where I should
expect certain accents, but I'm hearing a lot of other different accents that might
be of interest to me. Why do we have a lot of other people
from other countries in this particular area. And it could come down to the
hostile surveillance I might expect. But from the time that I get to the
airport or leave the airport to get to the hotel, usually probably nine percent
of the times, so I get into a room, it's change clothes and
get out on the street and let me let me feel the vibe of the
street, let me see what's going on, let me see who else,
who else is around that I may see a couple three hours later, and
I may see the next day or the day after. And what we consider
our advance work. So if I'm traveling in advance of a protectee's traveling to
a certain location, we typically would send one, two or three or maybe
more advanced individuals. And that's both private sector as well in the government.
So we're preparing for that arrival of that principle, and we're trying to understand
all the unknowns. That's the whole purpose of an advance is to take away
those unknowns. So we want to know where the hospitals are, We want
know where the routes are, what their alternative routes are, who will be
meeting, what time should we be there. We want to drive those routes
typically the same time, but we're going to be driving those routes when we're
there. Over the principals, traffic patterns change. You know, today we
do rely a lot on technology, and that's great. You know, the
GPS system and our smartphones are just an amazing piece of hardware. But sometimes
we rely a little bit too much on that and you've got to get out
and walk the street and get to fill for it because that smartphone is not
going to tell you everything and you have to get out and see it for
yourself. But definitely definitely aid to us, that's for sure. I think
it hit me because I know at the beginning of your book you were talking
about what was that individual's named her house, and I think it was but
you saw the boy in the bicycle and he kept popping up for you,
and that was really situationally aware because you have something kept standing out to you
a little bit made you think about it and you're like, I can't remember
that. I think you, yeah, satchel or something behind the seat of
those bike or something like that. But that was a pretty good spot for
hair house. And that's not a location. I was not on that particular
detail. I was about fifteen to twenty minutes away. It's not an assassination
because we were with our principal another location, but that particular scenario, the
Red Armu faction was highly believed to be the one that was behind his assassination.
They had been surveying that route that he would take his home to work,
probably for weeks, if not months and looking for the right location to
put this this shake charge at a location that had a high level of success,
if you will, And through their probably calculations, they determined that the
bridge that he went across, which is kind of a choke point, if
they could put a bicycle on that bridge and put a satchel behind the bicycle,
it would be at the right height with that for that debt to go
through the car, which it did. So that bicycle was there on and
off for several days in weeks prior to him crossing that bridge, So it
got the probably the surveillance team or the security team familiar with seeing something that
wasn't out of place, and so now they got used to it. Except
for that one particular morning, there had to be something else on that bike
and that was a central charge that blew, but they unfortunately missed that,
and yeah, Alfred, he died because of that. It was an intense
story and it's an amazing just that that's it was really clever, unfortunately,
really clever technique. You get to look at it sort of roadside bombs and
IDs. I mean, obviously it was one of the kind of the catalysts
to where things started to go and the later later eighties and nineties and two
thousands. Of course we saw way too much of that, and I reckon
if we understand from those kinds of tactics, but definitely was a very successful
and almost a nexus for that kind of tactic at that time. Yeah,
we're starting to see it now with the drug cartels done in Mexico. Is
kind of surprising. Over the last few months, I started seeing a lot
of Ied attacks, So what are these guys up to? All of a
sudden, It's almost like al Kaita's down there. Very strange stuff going out
over there. But back to you on the the interesting thing about your book
too, I think it is in chapter one. I can't remember. It
was either chapter one or at the intro. You actually went into some of
the history of some of the protectors of centuries ago. I mean you went
to the Samurais way back when, and then you even went to the mysterious
Swiss guards and the Vatican and why are the Swiss at the Vatican? But
that's another mystory for another story, not much my restory. So did you
learn a lot from looking at all these protectors in history as well? Did
you blean some information from those. No, you think we do. I
think all of us do. And probably more than anything, it might get
down to a few tactics. Protactics have kind of changed a little bit of
over here's based on weaponry and technology, But at the end of the day,
it comes down to mindset. I think probably as I did mention.
You know, from the time you could go back, you know, thousands
of years ago to tribes. The very first time that one tribe said that
they were going to harm another tribal leader, you probably had somebody from that
tribe standing up and going, you know, we're not going to let that
happen. And so you started to see the emerging of protecting people or protection,
whether that's by hire, whether it's contract or you're some sort of incentive,
or just for you know, just for the mission of it, that's
what you do. So over the time, you know, while we've evolved
into better equipment and tactics, weaponry, the mindset stills the same. Nothing's
changed there. I mean, your desire to protect someone has to be at
the forefront of your decision to do this kind of work. If your mindset's
not right, it's going to show. It's going to show and you're going
to tell, and so is your principle on your mission. We talk about
that all the time in the military or first responders. Mindset is so critical.
I mean, how do you how do you train somebody to put on
a suit money to burning building? And that takes a pretty strong mindset as
environment. So mindset is very important the concept and this line of work,
and I don't know that that has really changed much in the thousands of years
in terms of, you know, understanding whether it's a samurai, that the
commitment to the mission, the training, the time that goes into this.
It can't be just a job. You have to really kind of dedicate your
whole heart, mind, and soul into this kind of work, just as
a police officer does, or a firement or anybody else. I'm a part
of my friends, but you just can't go into half assed. You're gonna
get You're gonna get hurt, killed, You're gonna kill somebody else. We
let me ask you this regard. You made an interesting comment in your book
and I've never thought about it before, maybe because I'm not as familiar with
that area. But technology, we know that technology is advanced. That's not
that's not the surprising part. But you mentioned all the new things that are
coming up in the three D printing, which is kind of really strange.
But you also mentioned that a lot of the EPs of today's world executive protectors
don't move along with technology, which was kind of surprising. Way, why
is that tell us a little bit about that? I think it gets down
to the individual Again. You've got some people that are early adopters to technology,
some are late adoptors, and that's probably the human element to it.
I get probably gets back to the human complexity. Yeah, some people that
just love to sit around play computer games all day long, and some people
use it only as a tool to memes. So it's probably the matter of
the accepting of the technology. Age can definitely be a factor, for sure.
I think, you know, I'm a couple of years away from sixty
myself, and while I feel like I'm an earlier adopter of technology and I
try to stay ahead of as much as I can, butever three or four
years I have to get a new iPhone. I'm like somen of a gun.
You know, here we go again. You know, what is this
doing? How does this work? You just get to a point in time
of your life you're like, just give me my own flip phone back.
So I think it goes back to mindset, you know, what's your mindset
for accepting the technology. But yeah, some of our younger operators are more
in tune to technology operators. That's a new skill set. If you went
back thirty years ago, twenty five years ago, the technology component wasn't as
important to maybe the operator to a degree. You have to be able to
operate a vehicle very effectively, in your weapon effectively, and maybe some communications,
definitely your first aid and your medical response. But beyond that, we
didn't have a lot of technology per se that we were using at that time.
We've seen that explosion the last twenty years. That just keeps driving faster
and faster. But what comes with that technology for us to help us do
our job, also aids an adversary to come after us, such as IEDs
and those kinds of things are you know, we talked about the cartel in
Mexico were beginning to use their own levels of drones. You know, Okay,
that gets a little complicated. I'd hate to be out to protecting somebody
that I know that my enemy has a drone capability against me. That's not
going to be fun. So technology is driving changes on both sides. But
to your point, we have to adopt it. We have to be part
of it, and whether it's the operator himself somebody owned, that team needs
to be deep in the technology and understanding how to operate, how to use
it, and then how to disseminate what information is derived from that technology to
helper operators. It's it's only coming fast compurids. That's a great point because
I know I'm aging myself a little bit with this movie with sneakers popped up
in my head, remember that one was and the reason that popped up in
my head because some of the as you mentioned the drug card tales, but
some of the organizations are more sophisticated than others, and they do have teams
and me for me speaking with individuals in this world every so often. You
know, I've learned things about the raspberry pie and the pineapple and how you
can access IP accounts and transmit information secretly nobody knows, and these little handheld
polaroid picture things and those whole sorts of things you can do. That technology
is just wasn't there years ago, there's no way and even putting even little
film and microfish really in small little things and you can contain anywhere. It's
really phenomenal. That makes your job so much more complicated. But at the
same time, I could make it a lot easier if you're embraced it right
can But like I said, those tools are used for both sides. You
know, you look at the Google glasses of Google that came out, you
know, ten years ago, so those are very interesting, but they're also
you know, alous. The question in terms of privacy that I can walk
into a room and just you know, immediately begin filming a video and somebody
without giving them the operation, the the authority to improve that, the fact
that the video or recording audio. But I think we're going to begin to
see even more of that. I think a band don't quote me, but
I think there's another company just come out recently with some glasses that have the
same capability. So to your point, you know, you know, privacy
is a big thing that we do for our principles. When we're protecting someone,
we're not just protecting them physically, but we're protecting their privacy as well.
So the fact that you could wear technology g that can easily be concealed
to listen to your conversation or to record video of a conversation. That's that's
problematic. Now we can use that on our side as well for doing our
advanced work and U to be used for positive influencer factors. But the end
definitely can take pretty much anything that we've created for good, as you know,
turning it into something bad. And we see it every day. And
you were right about the reband. I think the rebands smart glasses or something
like that, so you can take photos and videos and the whole gadgets on
there. It's insane because it is. I mean, I remember watching stuff
from the old Mission Impossible with Peter Graves and looking at these things, going
wow, this is incredible. And then now it's like you can just buy
it for fifty bucks. You can be Peter Graves if you want it to
be. It's unbelievable. I guess my next question. Your book has a
lot I get that, folks. The book is called The Protected by Michael
Trott. To our Tt, you focus a lot in psychology and I actually
had this conversation with another individual who's in the executive protection space, and he
was talking about you phrase it as learning to live with EP the reluctant executive
and also determining your risk appetite, and that could be challenging sometimes. I
don't know if you ever encountered this in your work, where somebody who may
have a family, sometimes you're going to have to put your body on the
line to be able to protect this individual. And I wonder have you ever
seen it or is there something you work with in the sense of people having
doubts In other words, I got two kids at home. I really want
to end my life here protecting this individual and living in them without a dad,
Or do I actually do what I'm supposed to be doing? Is that
Is that a big challenge? It's a huge challenge, and it really depends
on the kind of work you're doing. If you're talking about high would go
back maybe twenty years, and you know, our most recent wars and conflicts
where you have contractors and you know, military government operators going into high risk
areas, We've lost a lot, I mean, we have lost a lot,
a lot of human treasure there. And these are guys, like you
say, guys and gals putting their life on the line for somebody else,
and unfortunately we've lost hundreds and you can expend up to thousands if you're bringing
into our military. So yeah, absolutely. You know, I've got conversations
with a couple of people very close to me who after their tenth, eleventh,
and twelfth trip, you know, the little bit of the uh,
maybe the mentor the dad in me comes out and I'm like, dude,
you're done. You know, why why you why do you keep pushing this.
You've got a couple of young ones at home that they need, they
need you, and you need to be in one piece. And you know,
after you've done five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten
years of this, you've done your time. And so you know, sometimes
you take somebody on the other to have that conversation to wake somebody up to
what they could be, you know, leaving behind. But it gets into
your blood. It's it's an adrenaline, it's a it's a camaraderie, it's
it's something that you just can't you just can't understand until you've done it yourself.
There's there's nothing, there's nothing, there's no stronger sort of you know,
when then doorphins kick in when you land a plane in a certain location
and you know, when you get out, shots start happening, and you
get out with your team and you do your job and you protect somebody a
higher risk for several days or whatever the mission may be, and you get
back on a plane and leave. That adrenaline is a rush and some you
know, people really get into that, uh. But also there's a lot
of close calls. You could have lost somebody on that trip, or you
get back to the house when you look at your little one in their eyes
and you go, you know what, this is where I need to be.
So you have that sort of reckoning internally, you know, I wouldn't
want to I wouldn't want to mess this up. So absolutely, I think
you ever operator goes through it at one point in time. But that goes
back to that to what I consider the human complexities of this job. It's
it's not a matter of just saying I'm going to protect somebody or put a
gun hount or drive somebody whatever, whatever your role is. There's a lot
of other moving parts to this and some people last a few months in this
business and some people last decades. It's a human factor. That's what The
interesting thing about the CIA compared to other agencies, and not disparaging any of
the other agencies. They all have their their wonderful qualities as well, but
the CIA has a very unique, I've learned over the years of doing these
interviews, a very unique psychological component, because if you're a recruiter, for
instance, there's a lot of stuff that you're doing which you normally might not
do. There's a lot of lying, there's a lot of deceptions stuff like
that with people you like, people you love with there's a lot moving not
going on. And the CIA in general, you also have things they have
to keep quiet. Even if you're not a recruiter, your other types of
cases and things are involved in. It's a very unique world in regards to
psychology. As you mentioned, human complexity that I don't always see. I
mean, every law enforcement has something right. I can't talk about this case
or something like that, but you guys have a lot more, it seems
like from what I have gathered. Let me get this from you, because
you have the unique perspective of having the agency perspective and outside an EP work,
which I've never seen before in regards to that. When I talk to
people in the private sector who do EP they said, the overwhelming majority never
draw their weapon, never have had to use their weapon. For you,
it sounds like was that the same for you in the private sector compared to
the agency or were you just in particular situations where both required something or nothing.
I don't know, it sounds a little different for you. It's really
a situation. And again, you know, I had the unique scenario or
the opportunity transition from because I did what we call PSL protective service operations in
the military. So I was on a detail for by some time protecting a
particular actually three different generals who was under threat from the Red Army faction Terria
script and the same group that assassinated Herrhausen had basically put out a wish list
internally that they wanted to also assassinate our general. And he was in charge
of the largest military community outside of the United States, and it's called the
Kaisenslovan military community in Germany, about seventy five thousand military people. And you
have to go back into a little study of the Red Army faction and sort
of their methodology and what they were hoping to accomplish, which they did not,
but looking at seventies and eighties of really assassinating a lot of people who
were political leaders, scientists, bankers, military, app say, individuals,
and it just really was against the system. So when they said that they
wanted to come after our particular general, we took that threat seriously. So
how we're going to operate and handle the protected detail for someone like that might
be different than the CEO for name a company in the US. It's really
you know, doesn't have the same risk level that is known, so you're
going to react. You're going to provide a level of a protection that meets
the risk factors that that individual is facing. So it's different. And you
mentioned, you know, take an ambassador or a high level diplomat or agency
employee in a high risk area. For sure, those guys and gals,
when they're protecting that individual, they may get out of the car with their
long rifle slung in a ready position where you're not going to see that.
In the private sector, you know, there have been at times I've been
with a principal down aark alley in a location and guess the handgun was was
out and we were expecting you know, potential Uh, you know potential hazards
if you will. So are you going to walk down the street in New
York LA with your gun out? I would say no, But to day
may they may be different. Uh. It was just in l A a
few days ago for helping out on a function, and you know there was
a shooting just about a half a mile from where we were where somebody was
killed. So you know, it's a situation dependent, that is all I
can say. And it's every scenario is different. Of a protecte is different,
and a mission is different. Threat information is different, and as the
human operators, we're going to respond in kind, uh will adjust as we
need to. And and but you know, to your point, whether it's
private sector, whether it's the government, it really depends on who your principle
is and what your authority is and where you're operating In terms of the weapon
you were talking about in that readiness, I mean flashbacks of gangs and working
Kurt Russell a snake, right, is those were the crazy days back then.
Yeah, we think it's bad now, it was. You know,
people kind of romanticize about you know, two hundred years ago. I'm got
me tell you what I'll take the day, all the way along. Yeah,
that was some tough. That was some tough times back then. Well,
nineteen eighties was even tough. Right, it was like two thousand homicides
a year in New York. I mean, yeah, obviously if it goes
from three hundred to five hundred, you feel it. But I guess that's
whatever's most most recent for you. Let me ask you this question. I
don't know how much work you did in this area, but this is a
question I get a lot at times. It is hotels and airbnbs. I
don't know if you do any work with that high profiles, but a lot
of people ask me to how do you protect yourself in hotels? Every so
often you'll getting news probably once a year, you get the news story of
the show somebody's sticking some kind of wire cable underneath the door to be able
to watch whoever's in the room. Cameras hidden somewhere. Airbnbs, we just
saw the story a couple of months ago, somebody the owner had planted cameras
all over the place. Do you have a standard or a protocol that you
teach individuals or you work with the clients in regards to hotels? And Airbnbs
that can maybe even be applied to civilians. You know, there are certain
what I would consider protocols or practice as best practices. Can you as an
example of Airbnb, if I go rint somebody's house, I don't know who
it is, you've got to know. You can do a cursory check and
look, But are you going to go in and turn over every piece of
furniture. You know, to your point earlier, you can hide cameras today
in such small areas, it's almost it's nearly impossible unless I'm going to bring
in a technical sweep team and spend time sweeping that. Now, if I
have a high level principle, it's going to be staying at a hotel or
a residence and they are of risk in terms of espionage or other factors I
would be concerned with, I will bring in a sweep team and we will
sweep every inch of that hotel room or that house to make sure that there's
no electronic devices that are recording. And we will physically inspect everything that we
possibly can vent spaces, you know, pictures, anything that we can to
determine to make sure that there's nothing there. And I can tell you right
now with the days technology, even with all that, if somebody really wants
to plan a camera somewhere, there's a high degree chance they're going to get
away with it. So you have to know, you know what that looks
like or what that risk is, and then conduct yourself appropriately in those locations.
That would be the other side of that. There's two sides of this,
because we are in a place now where privacy is extremely difficult, whether
it's on line or it's in a hotel. But but yes, can we
go in and visit visually and physically, uh, you know, walk through
the hotel room. They're not huge rooms, and just make sure that it
looks appropriate, nothing is out of place, there's no devices or something that
just doesn't belong. You know. I speak to to some females of travel
and there are devices you can, you know, use to supplement your hotel
security. There's wedges to put under the doors. There's certain things you can
do to give yourself a little extra awareness and a little extra level of protection.
But you know, no one you knowing where your exits are just as
just as important when you leave a hotel room. It may not be the
physical risk, it could be a fire. And so where where am I
exit? Where the stairwells? Do the stairwells come out to the street or
they come out inside the hotel? What floor am I own? How many
floors I got to go down? You may have a preference of staying,
you know, between the third and seventh floor, because in most countries they
don't have far light up trucks that can get up past the seventh ordy floor.
So if you want to go up to that fiftieth floor and have that
great email, well that's fine, but just realize there's a risk that comes
with that. So you know, I talk about the risk appetite in the
book, and that's true. You mentioned that it really comes down to,
you know, we've seen a lot more principles that are younger in the last
couple of decades. They're in twenties and thirties, and they're risk takers.
They're they're you know, they're jumpers, base jumpers, their kite surfers or
motorcycles and skied and they're doing all kinds of activities. So if our mission
is to protect them, sometimes it goes beyond just that sort of physical protection
from my threat. Sometimes they're the biggest threats themselves. It's kind of the
risk factors they put themselves into. But at the end of the day,
unlessure the President United States that there's a certain level of mandated protection for him,
just about everybody else can do what they want to. So at the
end of the day, you as a principal or CEO, I personally feel
you are the senior risk officer. You're the one that decides what level of
risk you as a company or you as an individual is willing to take.
And then you have to have a certain level of sort of reasonable expectation of
how people are going to protect you. And you know, at the end
of the day, it's your decision. You know, flying in a helicopter
maybe in areas where there's higher risk and you've only got one pilot and the
weather's not good, but you're pushing your pilot to jump on a helicopter and
take that trip anyway, you just made that decision as the principal, as
a CEO possibly and I would I in my job may say no, this
is not a good time to fly. The weather's not good, and we
don't have two pilots. It's not a twin engine whatever the six situation may
be. But at the end of the day, principles can put undue pressure
on individuals to perform. And that's where we get side is I guess my
last questions? We're ready to wrap up, folks again, It's Mike Trout,
Michael trot t r O T T. The book is called The Protected
I guess my last question would be just dawned on me, But I was
kind of curious to see what your thoughts. Have you ever encountered it?
We know certain there's honey traps, We've seen honey traps before, We've seen
Romeo spies. You have a principal who somebody is making a move on,
how would you might handle that? That's a tough one. Uh, that
is a tough one. You know that A lot of that does come down
to the principle themselves and what they're willing to accept. Uh. And then
what's the risk factor of that principle? Are they a person who is in
possession, whether it's you know, sort of mentally or physically in possession of
classified information or an air information. Doesn't it to be just documentation that could
also be your conversation that's in your head so you know, we'd have to
think about what might be the risk factor of an exploration of someone trying to
exploit that weakness. Uh So, really it just gets down to the situation.
Everything's dependent, you know, if we I have bene scenarios where you
definitely see that coming on and it might be a tap on the shoulder and
sir, you've got a phone call, you know, can you step away
and you may have a conversation with him and go, hey, you know,
just just f yi, this is who this person is. And you
know, you may want to be careful and that's our job. Now.
Some principles may get upset with that, but that's what you've hired me to
do. And there's been more than one time I tapped on a shoulder or
made eye contact and at least let somebody know think, think twice. As
you know, I kind of add this in my books is too as a
as a as a car you know, I grew up as a as a
carpenter apprentice and loved that skill. And I remember my first my first lesson
was, you know, measure twice and cut once. And I kind of
apply that in this business. I think twice, act once, and you
know, fifty percent of the time, if you think about something the second
time, you're like, you know, I've reached a different conclusion of what
I should do. Maybe this is too high a risk. But no,
that's a very it's a touchy subject, but you're one hundred percent spot on.
It doesn't happen out of the curiosity for our listeners. I don't know
if you can even answer this question either for my last one, is you
mentioned something now so you have let's say it was a honeytrapped situation, possibly
that the woman approaches a male principle. Is there well, I wouldn't even
say if you or the agency, but is there someone who has the ability
to, Hey, I'm going to take a snapshot of this person, send
it through the file for facial recognition and we have a hit. Is that
a possibility in today's world? Is that more Hollywood? Still? No,
that's possible. Uh. And there are people who have a history of that,
and whether or not, again it is a sensitive topic, but there
are certain people out there that are that are known for doing that, are
known for trying to exploit a situation. And you may you may even see
somebody and go that faces from here and find out that they have an Instagram
account and they are they have a history of this, and they're really trying
to find their way into somebody's pockets or exploit a situation. So one hundred
percent you could take that, take that opportunity to your point is where technology
comes in a quick photo, send it back to If you have the workings
of a protective intelligence group behind you, they can take that photo, take
that information, take that name, and today, you know, doctor,
you're probably within about five or ten minutes of coming back with some pretty good
information on somebody or you know what, I'll tell you what anything you don't
come back with a face or name that is to hit anywhere. That would
also be a concern in today's world. If you're that kind of person that's
at those kinds of events and you have that kind of lovely face and name
and I can't find anything on about anything about you anywhere, that's going to
be just as much as a concern. That's a great point the active commission
and mission on that one. H Wow, fascinating stuff again, folks.
Michael trot t r O t T. The Protected is the book. Thank
you so much. Michael for doing this the Curls. Thanks for reaching out.
I appreciate it. It's been fun. Thank you, crazy right,
thank you, thank you everyone for listening. Make sure to share a subscribe
hit that I like button. Stay aware out there.