Expert: Cesar - 2/16/2009

Question
QUESTION: I just started the search for my dad and i don't know how to start. I only know his name (William Arias Jimenez) and that he lives in Colombia. I've never seen him or met him, but I'm hoping to change that soon! I need help on how to search for him and I'm hoping you can help me with that.

Thank You,

Vanessa

ANSWER: Dear Ms. Vanessa:

One way to find him is looking at Colombian White Pages. Since there are many of those books for many cities in Colombia it would take a long time to find him that way, but the search could be narrowed to major cities. I only have the White Pages for Medellín and when I looked at them there were about 5 people named William Arias, but not William Arias Jimenez (the last name was different), therefore they were not the person you were looking for.

Maybe you could do Google type searches on the web to see if his name appears in one or some of them. I did a search by William Arias Jimenez and the results appeared at (there was a William Arias in Facebook):
http://www.google.com/search?q=William+Arias+Jimenez&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-

If your father is somewhat young then he might be registered in some community web sites, but if he is a much older person he might not be computer literate and might not be involved with the Internet at all.

It would have helped to know the name of a business or company and use the Yellow Pages in Publicar which appear at http://www.paginasamarillas.com/Colombia/TodoslosEstados/ES/PaginasAmarillas-Col

The publisher of the White Pages is Publicar and they have a web site where they publish White Pages for some cities and communities, but skipped several major ones including Medellin. You could try finding him there, but many of the cities listed could be towns, etc. and it would take some time to look for his name for each city. You could try to do that if you want to. I wanted to search major cities such as Bogotá and Medellín, but they were not listed. Cartagena was listed.

It helps to know his approximate age, if he has relatives in Colombia (he probably does), etc., but it seems like you only have his name. See if you have a birth certificate that gives more information. A private investigator could be hired. I could hire one for you.

I sent an email to a cousin in Bogotá asking if he could look in his White Pages.

Here is the link, but because of the cities currently listed the search on that web site might be a waste of time: http://www.paginasamarillas.com/pagamanet/web/homewhite.aspx?ipa=1&idi=1

You need to enter:
The first last name (required field)
The second last name (not required to be filled in)
First name (required field)
Second last name (not required field)

City (need to pick from the list, cannot be skiped)

Government offices could be contacted in attempts to find him. Some could be DAS, which issues police certificates (certificado judicial) to leave the country. Their page is located at http://www.das.gov.co/

Another is the police department, the Registraduría (a records office that keeps track of what notaries do and could/would have information about birth certificates and other document related matters such as business contracts) at http://www.registraduria.gov.co/

There are city registry offices too such as
Registraduría de Cali at http://www.cali.gov.co/corporativo.php?id=418

You could do searches by typing: Registraduría de (and the name of the city)

You could use government web sites such as http://www.bogota.gov.co/showserv.php
to contact agencies and people in Colombia. It is a matter of searching actively and having a Spanish speaking person helping you. Some web services and some computer programs translate whole web pages into English and I suppose English into Spanish.

I have a couple of web pages about Colombia that should be useful for visiting Colombian web sites:

www.cesarusa.com/Colombia.htm
www.cesarusa.com/dian.htm

Regards,

Cesar
www.CesarUSA.com

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Ok !
Thanks for all the information you gave me. I think it'll be heplful. Can I give you more information about him and maybe it'll be easier for you to help me? How about the detective work, is it alot of money? My mom doesn't know I'm looking for him so i don't really know about that and i have no money. Im guessing to hired an investigator is going to be really expensive! I think he is in his middle ages 35-40 not really sure, but I'll get that information i have a certificate. Hopefully it will help.

Thanks again,

Vanessa.

Answer
Dear Ms. Vanessa:

You are welcome. The more information the better. Yes, you could give me more information about him to see it would help.

I am not a private detective who finds people. I am familiar with other kind of private investigations. Those jobs could pay somewhat good to very good depending on experience and they company hiring the investigator (from a small one to few people private office to a large insurance or employment company). You could get paid for example $100-$130 per case for a WC claim handled over the phone or get a salary. If you are able to handle many cases quickly then you could get good money, but if you are slow in your reporting (making reports) then you would spend a lot of hours per case. If the investigator makes the reports short and to the point and types fast then he would be able to handle more cases and make more money or get more raises since his productivity would be better. For pay ranges you should do a search on the Web. I could say it could range from $30,000 to $90,000 per year for a full time investigator. It varies a lot. Most of them should make between $33,000 to $50,000, but for more accurate information the web would tell you better for the current economy and based on offer and demand.

It is a lot less expensive to hire a private investigator in Colombia than in the US. I imagine they could charge maybe $80 to $300 per case based on difficulty and time required to do it.

Cesar