The origin of a tradition, by Carina Villena Barjau. Detective Barcelona.
The figure of the Private Detective in Spain found one of its first great hubs of development in Catalonia. The emergence of Private Detectives in Barcelona is set against the urban and industrial boom of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
With figures such as Enrique Cazeneuve Cortés and Daniel Freixa, who founded in Barcelona the first Private Detective agencies on record (in 1907 and 1910), Catalonia thus became the epicentre of the professionalisation of Private Investigation in our country.
It was here that the first professional association of Private Detectives took shape, the Catalan-Balearic Association of Private Detectives (1976), which, over time, raised the profession's prestige nationwide (it came to have some 500 members, half of them from other regions), later dissolving to create what is today the Professional Association of Private Detectives of Spain (APDPE).
The first professional college of Private Detectives in Spain was the Official College of Private Detectives of Catalonia (CODPCAT), established in Barcelona, reinforcing Catalonia's image as the cradle and driving force of private investigation in Spain.
New Challenges
Private Investigation in Spain still carries a deficit of visibility. Although Catalonia has been a pioneer in its regulation and professionalisation, the figure of the Private Detective remains unknown to much of the public. Hence the need to explain clearly what a
Private Detective does, what their legal powers are and what value they bring to society. Public outreach becomes a key tool for explaining to society at large, to the administration, to the legislator and to legal practitioners how the Private Detective contributes to transparency, to justice and to the defence of citizens' rights.
And it is in this spirit that the LSC was born, as a tool for raising the profile of the profession, becoming a modern megaphone for a profession that, from its very roots, seeks to project itself towards the future with transparency and rigour.
