What "hidden" tactics do the authorities employ?

Ruses.

In the US cops are legally allowed to lead you down a path that will trap you in a suspected lie by flat out telling you "miss-truths" . For example:

You and a buddy are being interviewed by police as suspects for a crime. The police then tell you that your buddy has admitted that you both committed the crime. The "ruse" is that the police have not talked to your buddy yet, or more likely, they are in the middle of interviewing your buddy telling them the exact same ruse and getting your friend that you have confessed already to the crime. This is a pretty standard play by detectives, commonly called "flipping".

Another example from a real-life case I was a juror on:

The suspect was being convicted of a double-rape, two separate occasions. The officer who interviewed him took out a piece of paper from his briefcase and turned it face down on the interview table. He then proceeded to tell the accused that the paper had his DNA profile on it and linked him to both rapes, when in reality it was just a blank sheet of paper. Interestingly enough, they did have a hit on the second victim, but not the first one as she had never had a rape kit performed. On top of that, before taking out the sheet of paper, they spent about 30 minutes asking him over and over again if he had ever met, seen or had sex with the second victim at any point in his life, all the while knowing that they had a positive sperm DNA hit taken from her vagina as part of the rape kit. So there he was, adamantly denying having ever seen her or had sex with her, all the while the cops already had his DNA hit taken from inside of her. They already had a smoking gun, but they used a ruse to make sure he put it in his hand.

/r/AskReddit Thread