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We are often dazzled by television shows like CSI, where glowing fingerprints, instant DNA tests, and magical databases appear to solve crimes in under an hour. The public has been trained to believe that science alone cracks cases.
But the truth is more complicated. Investigations are not only about collecting evidence, comparing forensic samples, or cross-checking databases. In my career, particularly in diplomatic intelligence I learned a hard truth: to catch a spy, you must think like a spy.
To understand who committed the crime, you must momentarily step into their mind—not simply analyse how it was done.
In April 1995 I was selected to attend a six-month undergraduate course at the Police Academy for Forensic Crime Investigations, and my very first class was about the role of imagination in the investigative process. At the time, I found it almost laughable.
How could imagination, something we associate with creativity and daydreaming, possibly have a place in the complex science of forensics? Yet within that classroom, the lesson became clear: imagination is not a distraction from facts—it is the tool that allows us to interpret them, to see beyond the obvious, and to reconstruct hidden truths.
The “how” belongs to the technical method, the modus operandi. But the “who” demands imagination, empathy, and the courage to mentally inhabit the criminal’s perspective.
And this brings us to the question: what is imagination in investigations?
It is not wild daydreaming. It is the disciplined capacity to take incomplete facts and mentally turn them over until hidden patterns emerge.
Imagination is the bridge between what is known and what is possible. It allows the investigator to reconstruct motives, anticipate lies, and test hypotheses before evidence is fully available.
Without it, investigations collapse into clerical work—a catalogue of disconnected facts with no narrative to unite them. With it, the investigator can simulate multiple realities in the mind and then test them against evidence in the field.
This is the art of investigative scenarios.
They are not fantasies but structured acts of imagination that allow us to turn over possibilities, reconstruct motives, and envision the unseen.
An investigator’s task is not so different from an author constructing a novel. Before the truth is revealed, several alternative plots must be written, tested, and discarded.
In investigations, these are called investigative scenarios—hypothetical narratives built on fragments of facts and assumptions, designed to stimulate ideas about where to search for evidence.
As I explained in my book:
“Investigative scenarios are simulations of some event in our mind, basically answering in your consciousness the golden questions of criminalistics. Although they are only a semi-fictitious product of imagination, they are a means for the investigator to reach the ‘truth’ with the help of imaginative explanations—‘verto, vertere, verti, versum’ (to turn).”
This act of turning—of reshaping the facts in the mind until a plausible conclusion emerges—is the heart of investigative imagination.
Investigative scenarios serve two critical purposes:
The first purpose is to stimulate the search for new evidence. Imagination directs the investigator toward leads that logic alone might miss.
The investigator uses imagination to either confirm or disprove existing evidence (thesis). Scenarios are tools for verification—or for exposing contradictions.
But investigators must develop several scenarios simultaneously. Many will prove false, some fanciful, and a few dangerously misleading. Yet the elimination of false scenarios is as vital as confirming true ones. Exclude too quickly, and one risks missing the scenario that leads to the truth.
Every investigative scenario is built on the enduring Golden Questions of Criminalistics.
Most people know the simple formula: Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? Yet these are only the beginning.
In truth, there are ten golden questions that every investigator must ask. I will not list them all here—instead, I challenge you, the reader, to think: which ones might be missing? What additional questions go beyond the obvious six? Investigations are not solved by answering only six questions.
They require ten layers of inquiry, each digging deeper into motive, method, and opportunity.
When I worked as an intelligence operative, it became clear that these questions were more than a police checklist. They were a thinking framework—a way of building and discarding investigative scenarios until the truth emerged.
And here is the crucial insight: these Golden Questions are not confined to the world of crime. They are equally powerful in the corporate world.
A CEO under pressure, a risk manager facing fraud, or a compliance officer testing vulnerabilities must use the same methodology. For example:
Who benefits from this decision?
While the corporate boardroom may appear distant from the interrogation room, both serve as arenas for truth. The Golden Questions, supported by imaginative scenarios, expose deception, clarify risk, and reveal opportunity.
This is not a romantic exaggeration. Decades of criminological and intelligence research confirm that structured imagination is indispensable.
Richards Heuer, in his seminal CIA study Psychology of Intelligence Analysis (1999), argued that investigators must employ imagination to avoid cognitive traps such as confirmation bias.
Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, pioneers of behavioural psychology, demonstrated how human decision-making is riddled with biases. Without imaginative scenario-building, investigators are prisoners of their assumptions.
TheFBI Behavioral Science Unit, in the 1970s and 1980s, used imaginative reconstructions to profile serial killers. These were not “guesses” but disciplined acts of imagination grounded in partial evidence.
Thus, imagination is not unprofessional speculation. It is a disciplined investigative tool, as critical as fingerprint dusting or digital forensics.
Modern investigative technology has even recognized the importance of imagination. The International Press Institute and OCCRP funded the development of the Visual Investigative Scenarios platform—a data visualization tool designed to map corruption and organized crime networks.
It translates complex narratives into a visual language that anyone can understand.
But let us be clear: technology can aid, but it cannot replace, the human imagination. Algorithms may show patterns, but only an investigator’s creative reasoning can interpret them.
In my career as an investigator, intelligence operative, and interrogator, I have lived this reality. During interrogations, imagination often mattered more than the script of questions. To see the lie, I had to imagine the truth.
To uncover deception, I had to imagine how I might deceive in the same circumstances.
Many times, the turning of scenarios in my mind—verto, vertere, verti, versum—allowed me to find the overlooked witness, the missing link in a chain of events, or the weak spot in a perpetrator’s defense.
In the end, investigative scenarios are not idle daydreams. They are disciplined acts of imagination, grounded in evidence yet free enough to explore possibilities.
They are the bridge between silence and truth.
As I wrote in my book” Corporate and Workplace Investigations Crime Investigative and Interviewing Techniques”: “A working investigative scenario is an almost purely intellectual and cerebral activity… Obviously, not all of them will be anywhere truthful; some will be fanciful, and many of them will be abandoned due to a lack of evidence.”
Investigations do not solely take place in laboratories or courtrooms.
It is fought in the imagination of the investigator—turning facts, lies, and possibilities until the truth emerges.
