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Robert Papinyan was Odessa's first private investigator. A former murder squad police detective, he started his own agency in 1996 and since then he has seen an increasing demand for his services. But although he earned his reputation as a police detective solving big criminal cases, it is his work with smaller domestic investigations that gives us an insight into some of the realities of the new Ukraine.

Ukraine's 2004 "Orange Revolution" threw out the old Russian-backed political regime with promises to fight corruption, but since then crime and corruption rates have in fact increased. All of which makes work for the growing numbers of private investigation agencies springing up around the country. And Odessa, often called the "Miami of the Black Sea", has its fair share of those.

Odessa is a beautiful, historic and truly international city where Turks, Armenians, Orthodox Jews, Bulgarians, and Chinese rub shoulders with European sex tourists in Parisian style boulevards. This Russian-speaking resort town is also famous for both its thriving criminal underworld and its entrepreneurial spirit. Filmmakers Raj Yagnik and Grigory Charushin follow Robert and his business partner and fellow detective as they take on cases which lift the lid on real life in Odessa.

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About Al Jazeera - Witness

Rageh Omaar presents Witness, a half-hour daily documentary series which features short, specially commissioned or acquired films gathered from independent filmmakers.
 
Each documentary reveals the unknown lives of ordinary people, following their lives, telling their stories and portraying the challenges that confront them. Our witnesses are people in a situation or those who have observed them first hand.
 
The films cover conflict, belief, the past and the future and as well as bringing new stories to light they showcase the talents of a new breed of multi-skilled, frontline journalist. In the studio, Rageh will further explore the issues raised in the films, with expert guests on the subject matter and the filmmakers themselves.

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