It started on Valentine's Day: The wife in an ultra-affluent family among our clients found a Fernande Krier rose with a monarch butterfly glued to it on her bedside table with a note saying: "Be my valentine." She initially thought it was from her husband, but he denied it. Nor were her children responsible.

While it was somewhat confusing and made them anxious, the couple just ignored it and forgot about the rose, the butterfly and the valentine until about a month later, when it happened again. This time they got nervous. What made the couple especially concerned was that their house had a very high-quality alarm system in excellent working order that had not been set off by an intruder. They also had closed-circuit television cameras that did not show anything unusual. The house staff did not see anything out of the ordinary. After finding out that the police could not do anything for them, the husband made a number of calls and spoke to some associates, then waited to see if anything else would happen.

A month went by, and then another, with no rose, no butterfly and no letter. Finally, in the third month there was another rose on her bedside table with another butterfly attached, as well as a page-long love letter and pictures of the wife as she did routine errands in the neighborhood. When she went on her personal computer, she found a file there with more pictures and more love letters. This disturbed her greatly, since her computer-where she also stored her diary-required a password that only she knew-or so she thought.

Having a secret admirer can be disconcerting. Having one that can circumvent your security and one that is so obviously intense can be terrifying.

The couple hired a security consultant to address the safety of the wife and family. The security system at the house was significantly upgraded. Comprehensive background checks were conducted on the staff. Even the husband, the children and the wife were put under a microscope. Everyone came up clean.

At this point, after the security firm investigated all the known parties and made a forensic document analysis of the letters, it concluded that it was dealing with a "predator master criminal." It was clearly a case of erotomania, and considering the complexity of the predator's efforts, he or she was likely an exceptionally adroit and resourceful individual.

The house was swept for listening devices, and six were found as well as one micro-camera in the foyer. Close protection with bodyguards then became the primary security solution in this case. Most of this close protection of the family was unobtrusive.

At the same time, armed guards were placed on the grounds. Additional closed-circuit television cameras with taping capabilities were installed. All the cameras included night-vision technology. And software was incorporated that filtered out distortions produced by rain and falling snow.

After all these security solutions were implemented, the secret admirer vanished. More than two years after the first incident, there have not been any roses with accompanying butterflies, love letters or any signs at all of the secret admirer. If this were the movies or a best-selling thriller, we would have caught the criminal. Since we are living in the real world, that didn't happen, but the ultra-affluent family is safe-and that is what matters.

Criminal Archetypes
It's not surprising that wealthy clients are often high-profile targets for criminals such as this stalker. That's important enough for you to know, but it's also important to know that they face not just one, but several different types of criminal, all of whom have different motivations, temperaments and degrees of prudence.

When you are working with the wealthy, there are basically five criminal archetypes that your security consultants need to be intimately familiar with. They are the master, the predator, the professional, the opportunist and the terrorist. Exhibit one shows the general characteristics attributed to each type.

Master Criminals
Master criminals are primarily focused on pecuniary reward. At the same time, they seek a high level of power and control over their surroundings and over the people they interact with. In general, they are exceptionally intelligent and can be absolutely brilliant, very sophisticated and highly rational, though their logic may be distorted. They are very planning-oriented and can access extensive resources when they need to. Thus they come in all sizes, from those who are like CEOs managing wide-ranging criminal enterprises, to those running specialized crews to soloists.

In all cases, master criminals are extremely private, operating far below the radar screen. In fact, they often take exceptional pains to disguise their involvement in illegal activities. The master criminal might plan the crime in one country against citizens in another country who are living in a third country, using personnel from a fourth country and paying for them from a bank in a fifth country. They can easily be wielding state-of-the-art technology and weaponry that are often far more advanced than that available to most law enforcement agencies.

Predator Criminals
Unlike master criminals, predator criminals are those motivated by emotion-mentally damaged people operating in their own fantasy worlds. As such, they employ a calculus that other people usually have difficulty comprehending. Serial rapists, child molesters and other sexual predators-as well as the array of different stalkers-are all variations of the predator criminal.

Stalkers are the variation of predator criminal often confronted by the wealthy, who face three broad categories of this type:

Intimates. These are people who have had some relationship with the wealthy person who later can't let go, refusing to believe it when a relationship has ended. The general perception is that by pursing their well-to-do victims, they will win them over.

Delusional. These criminals have some false belief that keeps them tied to their victims. In erotomania, for example, the stalker's delusional belief is that they have a relationship with the moneyed victim-or that the victim loves him-even though she might never have even met him. Another type of delusional stalker might believe that he is destined to be with someone, and that if he only pursues the target hard enough and long enough, she will come to love him as he loves her. As all these stalkers act on their delusions, they become threats to the wealthy.

Vengeful. These stalkers become angry with their wealthy victims over some slight, real or imagined. High-profile people with strong expressed opinions, for example, are more likely to attract these kinds of stalkers. These stalkers also include disgruntled ex-employees such as celebrities' assistants who might target their renowned former employers.

Predator criminals, a diverse lot, have many different characteristics. Nevertheless, they are often of average intelligence and are moderately sophisticated, often being more clever than ingenious. Because of their motivations, they are not rational. Their planning orientation and access to resources vary to a large extent, and they operate in both the public and private domains.

Professional Criminals
These criminals can be part of a team or soloists. They range from armed robbers to jewel thieves and from smaller-time matchstick men to safecrackers. Their motivation is mainly money. Although we focus on master criminals as a separate archetype, they are actually a subset of this category. In fact, they represent its pinnacle, and we estimate that they account for less than 3% of professional criminals.

As with predators, there is great diversity in this archetype. Nevertheless, professionals tend to be of average intelligence and moderately sophisticated. They are often quite rational. Their tendency to plan, as well as their access to resources, varies considerably. They shun publicity and notoriety.

Opportunistic Criminals
This type of criminal is impulse driven-the kind who decides to just steal a personal computer while at the airport or mug an elderly person or break into a house when they think the owners are away. They may often be stupid, but that doesn't mean they aren't threats to the wealthy.

Generally below average in intelligence, opportunistic criminals are usually not sophisticated, nor are they particularly rational. By definition, they do not plan. So their access to resources is very limited. Still, they opt for privacy, even though their actions will regularly draw attention to them.

Terrorist Criminals
The wealthy per se are rarely specific targets of terrorism, though they have the same chance of being harmed as anyone else.
Terrorists are politically motivated, committing crime to bring about a change in social policy. Though they're generally of average intelligence and moderate sophistication, they are not rational. However, they do indeed plan and they sometimes find extensive resources. Unlike the other types of criminals, terrorists are looking for exposure for their cause at one level or another.

Kidnapping Comparison
To better understand these criminal archetypes, let us look at how each one would approach the crime of abducting an ultra-affluent couple's child (Exhibit 2). It is likely that the master, professional and opportunistic criminals would be seeking a financial payday, and would thus ransom the child.

The master criminal begins by accessing the financial records of his well-heeled targets to calculate the optimum size of his ransom demands. The kidnapping itself is planned and rehearsed to the nth degree. Moreover, the criminal's process of communicating with the ultra-affluent family ensures his anonymity, as does the trading of the child for the ransom. Furthermore, there will be a number of well-thought-through contingencies. In all respects, the master criminal will execute the plan with precision.

In contrast, the professional criminal has chosen the child of a family that people know have money. There is usually a certain amount of planning, but it is often littered with gaps and few, if any, built-in "plan B's." The process of communicating with the family, as well as exchanging the ransom for the child, is similarly weak. Professional criminals range extensively in competence.

Opportunistic criminals see a situation and react generally without taking a multiple perspective view of the matter. Consequently, there is little, if any, planning. When there is planning, it is likely done no more than a few hours before the kidnapping. Even if the abduction is successful, there usually has not been any forethought given to how the kidnapper will communicate with the family or exchange the child for money. And there are no contingency plans.

Because their motivation is not money, predator criminals are much more dangerous when they kidnap a child from an ultra-affluent family. Usually, they have no interest in establishing contact with the family once the child has been taken. This type of criminal often has some sort of emotional bond with the victim and so has no desire to return the child under any financial arrangement. The planning for the abduction varies according to the opportunity and the capabilities of the criminal. In most cases there are few, if any, built-in contingencies.

When a terrorist targets the child of an ultra-affluent family, the aim is to make a political statement (unless the kidnapping was the unintended result of an unrelated criminal act) and the terrorist's goal is often to pressure the wealthy family to use its influence in enhancing his political goals. The planning is often not as well done, as it would be by the master criminal. Hence, there will be few, if any, built-in contingency plans, and there are likely to be weaknesses in the communication with the family and the transfer of the abducted.

Amalgamations Of Criminal Archetypes
Up to this point, we have discussed criminals as archetypes and from the perspective of the wealthy. But rarely do criminals completely conform to one type or another. There are also people who are an amalgam of criminal types.  

In these cases, a particular criminal can be a combination of a primary criminal type and a secondary criminal type (Exhibit 3). The interaction is such that the traits of the secondary type can magnify the most deleterious aspects of the criminal's primary type.

For the wealthy, the worst combination is the predator criminal type as primary and the master criminal type as secondary. In the stalker we discussed earlier, we see the combination of something like erotomania coupled with a brilliant deviousness and the precision of a finely tuned watch. This amalgam generates greater intensity and proves to be the most difficult to protect against as well as deal with after the fact. There is considerable difficulty in ensuring security when faced with a predator-master criminal of this type.

Applications Of The Criminal Typology
A thorough knowledge of criminal types can, at times, be advantageous in crafting security solutions for the wealthy. We can apply our understanding when we are looking for ways to ensure the safety of our high-net-worth clients. Furthermore, in crafting security solutions, we can use the concept of negative migration-which is when criminal behavior migrates to the path of least resistance. Certain criminals are more inclined to look for the easiest target, all things considered. Let's look at the behavior our five types when they are come up against obstacles. (Exhibit 4).  

With quite a number of ultra-affluent victims to choose from, the master criminal will engage in extensive analyses and then select the easiest target that can bring them the highest target. However, negative migration has little relevance, if any, for predators. As these criminals are bereft of rationality-and instead act on emotional impulse-they are targeting very specific ultra-affluent children. Professional criminals, however, will seek out an easy target since they tend to lack the expertise to combat well-crafted and implemented personal security solutions.

Meanwhile, the opportunistic criminal will not find an opportunity, because if security is tight, there will not be any chinks in the armor for him to gain a point of access. Lastly, terrorists looking for people they can use to send their political message will mirror professional criminals, especially when there are many targets with little or no protection in place.

The greatest value that comes from knowing the five criminal archetypes and the 11 criminal amalgamations is not in crafting security solutions but in knowing what to do in times of crisis. An understanding of criminal behavioral patterns proves a distinct advantage when we are called upon to deal with emergencies. By knowing the possible actions and thought processes of the antagonist in a crisis situation, we are able to act most quickly and effectively to stem the threat.