Assaults perpetrated against executives by professional criminals involve a relatively long preparation process. This includes several phases, such as: gathering information about the victim, observing and monitoring the victim, choosing the right place for the attack, specific positioning and planning the time (minutes and hours) before the aggression.
Below, we share three steps to cut off the attack before it happens.
Counter-surveillance.
The attack against an executive lasts only a few moments, but its preparation involves both observation and prolonged monitoring of the victim's activities, which can last for months. Counter-surveillance detects and defuses the attack in this early observation phase, but without exposing the protégé to the risks and uncertainty involved in the reaction.
Control of the "seams".
In the jargon of the executive protection we call seams to the executive's exposures in uncontrolled, higher-risk environments. For example, the steps the executive has to take when exiting a building to enter his or her vehicle represent a seam. A number of attacks, assassination attempts and assassinations have occurred around the world during seams, from the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan in the 1980s to the recent assassination of Mexican businessman Martin Rodriguez. Through planning and communication with the executive, seams should be eliminated through exits and entrances that do not generate exposure, being trimmed, reducing the length and time in the seam, or they should be reinforced with the use of protective agents.
Intervention and early warning.
If all else fails, we will have to respond to the final phase in the preparation of the attack. In this phase the aggressors position themselves at a previously selected point from where the victim is vulnerable. This point implies an exposure, an obligatory step for the executive, a "choke point", but at the same time it will be easy for the offenders to escape.
Early warning operations detect these risk points and intervene early, discovering the attackers in their waiting phase, which alerts the protection team and prevents the executive from entering the trap, thus defusing the attack minutes before it occurs.
These three steps significantly reduce the risks, making the executive protection an increasingly secure profession for both protectees and their protectors.
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