Where would the Hunted’s Chief David Craig hide?

“Most people think, ‘let’s go off grid’ and that can be really good,” Chief Dr. David Craig says of Hunted contestants.

“If you’re going off grid, then you’re going into really remote areas where there’s less people, but you get noticed by those people. So if we get any inkling that you’re anywhere within that 200 kilometre square area, and we’re making inquiries through the community, or we do a poster campaign, or hit the local radio station or something, you may well be noticed. So it’s not as easy as what people think by just going off the grid.

“Additionally, you can hide in amongst millions of people in the city, but then with CCTV and facial recognition technology, we can find you too. So it really depends on the skill sets of the person.”

So where would the man who is tasked with finding its reality contestants go, if he were on the run?

“For me, I would go bush, and then I’d go to city,” he tells TV Tonight.

“Or if I was in the show, I’d just contact the Hunters on Day One and say ‘Look, you guys are too good!'”

People still contact close family. But just don’t do it because we’re going to be there,” he warns.

“When you’re on the run and you’re tired and you’re paranoid and you need something, and you know that something can be at the end of the phone. It’s very tempting.”

The second season of the 10 series has increased from 18 to 20 contestants, running across the state of Victoria for 21 days. If they can make it to the extraction point, reveealed to them later, they will win a share of $100,000.

On their tail are the Hunters, simulating powers of surveillance such as CCTV, ANPR (automatic number plate recognition), telecommunication information and access to bank and phone records. They will be able to search Fugitives’ homes, data-mine their electronic equipment, and question family, friends and associates.

Craig, a former Detective Superintendent and Australian Federal Police (AFP) Agent, leads the team from a studio base, itself simulating a high tech warroom of a city skyscraper.

He insists the fugitives have stepped up their game this season, to the point of aggressively tracking the Hunters themselves.

“The fugitives have had the chance in the hindsight of the previous season and other overseas versions, so they’ve come up with some fairly innovative ways to taunt us. Which is great, because while it does piss me off it also makes me more and more determined to catch them. So it probably works against them,” Craig continues.ss

“It’s 20 people on the run, which is huge. It’s never been done before -this many people in a shorter amount of time. It’s probably great for the viewers, not so much if you’re a Hunter.

“We’ve got some new people. We have a new analyst who’s extremely good. We have a new female Ground Hunter, ex-Northern Territory police, who has come down to join us and she’s a fit professional rugby union player. She’s not someone that you’d want to chase you down.

“And we have another couple of ground hunters as well. The team has bolstered a bit but 20 people is still a lot to track down in that amount of time.”

Filming took place in January / February, but Craig remains tight-lipped about what goes down this season.

“A lot of it is unpredictable, in what happens to human dynamics and the pressure that people are under. But there’s a couple of events, one in particular that comes to mind, that was just mind blowing. That’s all I can say. Sorry, I’d love to give you something else!”

As to the show’s own credibility, last season some viewers spotted mistakes or found disconnects which suggested some elements were simulated. Craig only defends the way his direct team work, preferring field questions be answered by production.

“We don’t we don’t re-enact anything. Certainly, I’ve never been in the field with the fugitives. I’ve only ever worked in HQ and I know what the Ground Hunters do. It’s not like there’s any acting,” he insists.

“They get the footage, however they get it in the field. So it’s really a production sort of thing. I’m not a TV person, I honestly don’t know the difference between a line producer and an executive producer.

“I know the investigation. And I know we put in requests for CCTV footage and sometimes we get it and sometimes we don’t.

“If we request a listening device, or if we request a phone interceptor or vehicle tracker, we have to justify it. We don’t just simply write a form out, we have to justify it with the reasons why. And that gets submitted to the command centre and they will determine whether or not we are justified the grounds to get it. Just as a court does in Australia, when police are wanting to do the same thing.”

But he pours scorn on the idea that fugitives can be spotted simply by identifying camera crews running with the contestants. Teams have one cameraperson, and Go-Pro cameras are tiny.

“That’s exactly what I thought when I very first saw Hunted. I thought ‘This is gonna be obvious.’ But it’s actually not. The first thing is, you’ve got to get to the location where that camera person is, in the first place out of the whole of Victoria. Additionally, it’s not like a big camera crew is walking with with the fugitives. They have an embedded camera person that lives, sleeps and dreams with them and is on their side. So it’s really just like three fugitives,” he explains.

“If they have any ideas that we’re anywhere near them, they will hide just like the fugitives do. They dive behind hedges and that’s why there’s a lot of footage that is sometimes a bit dodgy or a little bit missed -because the camera people themselves are on the run.

“I actually spoke to one of the fugitive camera crew after the series was filmed. Just by coincidence, I bumped into him and he actually said to me, ‘You seem like a nice sort of guy. I’ve spent the last three weeks hating you.’

“That’s how serious they take it. So that’s a camera guywho was with the fugitives. I don’t know who he was with because we didn’t discuss that. But they are 100% Team Fugitive. So there is no advantage to having the camera crew with them.”

Hunted screens 7:30pm Monday –  Wednesday on 10.