Hard Boiled Detective, Hardly

One look at John Hoda of International Missing Heir Finders and you get the sense that he should be coaching a youth soccer team or sitting at a church board meeting, rather than standing in the shadows and wearing a trench coat on a stake out.

“I try to dispel the myth of the TV and Movies PI by explaining to clients that there is very little violence and only occasional mysterious intrigue in my profession. We spend most of our time in dusty archives, governmental repositories, and using the latest in internet-based database technology.” With an equal mix of shoe leather and microchips, he and his staff of missing heir researchers investigate cases anywhere in the United States and across the world for Fortune 500 companies, insurance companies and law firms.

Hoda jokes that, unlike Jim Rockford played by James Garner in The Rockford Files, he won’t kiss the girl, get beat up, get into a car chase and solve the murder in one hour minus the commercials. International Missing Heir Finders investigations can take years to complete.

Where it all began…

In December of 1975, John graduated from Indiana University of Pennsylvania with a B.A. in Criminology and went to work at his hometown police department outside of Philadelphia just in time for the Bicentennial celebration. A few years of working the graveyard shift, weekends and holidays convinced him to apply his abilities and talents in the daylight hours. His big break came when he went to work as a Special Agent for a national insurance fraud fighting organization funded by the insurance industry. In very little time he racked up some big cases.

On to Bigger and Better…

When his last employer shook up the management structure, he realized that it was time to go off on his own. “It was scary”, he reminisced, but armed with a solid business plan, good technical skills and a Rolodex full of contacts, he jumped off in the fall of 1997 and he hasn’t looked back.

As time moved on, John’s agency evolved into the thriving agency it is today, International Missing Heir Finders, LLC. The organization successfully weds private Investigations with a specialty in Genealogy, the science of family lineage.

International Missing Heir Finders has been built from the ground up, combining the latest digital processes with old school mentoring and apprenticeship. This leads him to say with confidence “We Find More Heirs More Often.”