Cai Meng / China Daily

Wang Tong's colleague quit after he was beaten and had a gun shoved in his face two days after becoming a private investigator. He was caught trailing a man in an infidelity case.

"We thought it was simply an extramarital affair. But the guy was a bigwig gangster," Wang recalls. "Our car and cameras were smashed. The detective was beaten, and the target put a gun in his face."

PIs enjoy little legal protection since they fall into a legal gray area－albeit one that rakes in a lot of green.

"The profession is still without a legal status in China," Beijing-based private detective Mu Yeyue says.

"So we don't call the police when we're attacked or our equipment is destroyed. We just call it a bad day."

Wang recalls another time when he'd been scheming for days to infiltrate the well-guarded factory in Liaoning province's Anshan city in vain－until he saw a stray cat. He realized he could make the creature his unwitting accomplice.

He captured the feline and tossed it into the factory. Then he approached the guards on the guise of searching for his "pet" and was allowed in to retrieve the animal. Wang wandered around the factory under the pretense of looking for his "housecat", until he found the plastic film he was actually hunting for. He extracted a small camera from his pocket and snapped a few shots. His mission accomplished, he caught the cat, thanked the guards and left. Quickly.

The Liaoning Fuer Investigation of Affairs Co private investigator had the evidence he needed to show the factory was infringing upon his client's intellectual property rights. His client had applied to patent the plastic film but discovered the products were already on the market. He suspected a technician had sold company secrets.

"The technician couldn't deny it when faced with the photos and records of him visiting the factory," Wang says. "My client recouped a great loss."