There’s a lot to be said for being unseen, unknown and unheard of when you’re a private investigator, but sometimes it’s just not that great for business. Julia Hartley Moore’s high profile work has led to success investigating extortion, money laundering, kidnapping, fraud and infidelity.
Story by Katie Foley, photographs by Isaac de Reus

SHE’S a very well-known face in a very private industry, but Julia Hartley Moore’s 15 years as a private investigator is only her most recent incarnation. At the age of 16 she was mother to three kids under the age of one. In her 20s and married to a millionaire Waikato horse-stud owner, she, along with many of his friends and family, lost everything after money they put into his finance company was poured into his farm instead of invested.

In her 30s she worked as a “groom” – keeping jumpy young thoroughbred horses calm on the 13-hour flight from Auckland to Hong Kong, before ending up working for Mohamed Al-Fayed at Harrods of London, where she blew the whistle on a multi-million poundstaff theft ring while working on the perfume

Back in New Zealand in 1996, aged 42 and wondering how on earth she was going to make a buck, she decided to set up her own firm after a little extra motivation from none other than Oprah. While watching a show about turning passion into a successful home business, she decided “well, I think I will”.

At age 18, she had been turned away from the New Zealand Police for being “too feminine”, but had always had good instincts. And after the experience in London, Harrods’ head of security told her she’d make a fine private investigator. So “Arbeth and Co” was started with just a telephone and an ad in the Yellow Pages. She runs the business discreetly from her Auckland-fringe home with the help of “a very good accountant”, deliberately shunning the big flash offices, big signage and the fleet of leased cars which was, and still is, so appealing to others.

And therein lies the contrast between keeping a low profile and having a well-known face, but it’s this combination that’s kept her in business. She’s seen many private investigation firms come and go. “You’ve only got to look at the yellow pages now, and see what the advertising is like for us compared to when I started when every other cop had a full-page ad [saying] ’28 years ex police’, ’25 years ex police’ – big massive ads, and now how different it is and how small it’s got and yet I still tick along very nicely.”

Her high media profile, including several books and appearances on Sunday, 20/20, Fair Go, Good Morning and Radio New Zealand, means sacrificing anonymity in an industry where most prefer to remain anonymous. But that allowed her to give up surveillance work – which tends to swing between wildly exciting and excruciatingly boring – to focus on the side of the business she enjoys the most.

The good surprises her every now and then, but it’s the bad and the ugly that keep her in business. “You’ve got fraudsters, like betrayers,” she says. “They will always be there. A lot of people that do this kind of thing, it is just the way they are – they’re opportunists, they’re always looking for an easy way.”

Tracking down and dealing with schemers and scammers takes, she says, a certain kind of person. “To do this job you have to be the eternal optimist.”