Carratu was set up in 1963 by Vincent Carratu as a corporate investigations company. As such it is the oldest privately owned corporate investigations company in the UK. Since 1963 it expanded its service base to include employee screening, as well as computer forensics. The company is now based in central London

Central London

Central London is the innermost part of London, England. There is no official or commonly accepted definition of its area, but its characteristics are understood to include a high density built environment, high land values, an elevated daytime population and a concentration of regionally,...

. The company previously traded as Carratu International Plc until September 2010, when it changed its name to Carratu Ltd.

History

The company was involved in a number of high-profile matters, including the UK investigation of Claus von Bülow

Claus von Bülow

Claus von Bülow is a British socialite of German and Danish ancestry. He was accused of the attempted murder of his wife Sunny von Bülow by administering an insulin overdose in 1980 but his conviction in the first trial was reversed and he was found not guilty in both his retrials.-Biography:Born...

. It also acted for a number of governments, FTSE

FTSE

FTSE may refer to:* The FTSE Group* Stock market indices published by the FTSE Group, particularly the FTSE 100 Index on the London Stock Exchange* The Fundamental theorem of software engineering...

100 and Fortune 500 companies as well as various celebrities. Unlike a number of other investigation companies, Carratu does not put its clients' names into the public domain, and is famously discreet about its clients' identities. In light of recent media revelations regarding Private Investigators and the use of illegally obtained information, Carratu Ltd have taken the step of clearly stating on the website (www.carratu.com) and company emails "Carratu does not trade in information that has been obtained by unlawful means".