FOIA Advisor

FOIA News: How Private Detectives Use FOIA

FOIA News (2025)Allan BlutsteinComment

FOIAengine Tracks Three Private Eyes on the Trail of Short-Seller Culper Research

By John Jenkins, Law St. Media, Aug. 6, 2025

Brian Willingham is a licensed private investigator in New York, ID# 1000149418.  He runs an investigative agency called Diligentia Group.  The company’s motto is “We Find Evidence That Normal People Can’t.”  

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Apart from sharing a furtive line of work, all three detectives have something else in common:  They are using the federal Freedom of Information Act to conduct counter-surveillance on behalf of anonymous clients.

The use of FOIA proxy requesters is common and well known.  We first bumped into the above three investigators a few weeks ago, while researching our story about the activist short-seller Christian Lamarco; his firm, Culper Research; and the mysterious “Jeff Bourland.”  (See “Some Research Into Short-Seller Culper Research.”)   

Read more here.