Frontline Confidential: Conmen, Private Investigators and the Media

Jeffrey Katz, the Chief Executive of Bishop international, talks about private investigators, the industry’s relations with the media and tells the story of Barry Edward Gray (aka Joe Flynn), who conned an American news group into paying more than $50,000 for false information about missing union leader Jimmy Hoffa.

Jeffrey Katz is a New Yorker who came to the UK in 1968 to serve with an intelligence branch of the US Air Force. He returned to the US in 1973 to complete an undergraduate degree and to work as a journalist. He later became an editor at a British provincial newspaper.

In 1987 he was invited to join Kroll Associates in London and by 1995 he had become the company’s Director for European Operations, having managed a significant number of high profile and sensitive investigations. The following year he was named UK Country Head.

He became Chief Executive of the Bishop Group in 1999, since when he has lead the Group’s acquisition of Farncombe International, a company specialising in intellectual property investigations.

The event is organised in association with the Centre for Investigative Journalism.