OSINT Blog
Offshore Leaks: Investigating Dirty Money and White Collar Crime
Tax havens are jurisdictions with significantly low rates of taxation for foreign investors, which may also offer financial secrecy. With the help of white-collar professionals, like lawyers and accountants, the wealthy can avoid taxes by shifting their money offshore and parking it in foreign nations.
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Connecting the Dots: Social Network Analysis in Criminal Investigation
Investigators frequently need to establish if two or more individuals or businesses connected to an investigation are associated with one another in any way. Identifying an association may mean identifying if two people know one another or may involve identifying an array of links between a large group of people within an organized crime group.…
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Executive Protection with OSINT
Executive protection refers to security and risk mitigation measures taken to guarantee the safety of individuals, particularly those exposed to elevated risk due to their employment, status, or net worth. Executive protection of VIPs previously involved hiring close protection specialists to provide physical security measures. However, in the modern…
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OSINTforGood: The Philanthropic Application of OSINT
Open Source Intelligence, commonly referred to as OSINT, is the collection, collation, and analysis of publicly available information. OSINT is a tradecraft developed in the national security sector that has now expanded through a range of sectors, including law enforcement, journalism, corporate security, academic research, and the legal sector.
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Investigating Heirs
I remember watching the video a dozen or so times, frustrated by an old photo of an unidentified male appearing for only a fraction of a second. This would turn out to be the “unknown father” listed on both the deceased child’s birth and death certificate. The same father the mother had gone to great lengths in denying any knowledge of their identity…
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OSINT for Law Enforcement
Intelligence-led law enforcement investigations and operations rely on reliable, relevant, timely, and actionable intelligence. OSINT enables law enforcement agencies to collect and analyze information from the internet relating to their investigations, identifying criminals, criminality, and witnesses.
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Disrupting Crime with Vehicle Records
There are 287 million vehicles registered on the road in the U.S., equating to roughly 872 cars per 1000 people. Vehicles are intrinsically linked to our way of life and are rarely found far from their owners, with infrastructure designed around their heavy use. Therefore, identifying the vehicle that the subject of an investigation owns, has access…
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Event Security with OSINT
Event security is much more than security personnel walking around the site during the event. Security at events necessitates extensive planning, resources, and communication. Security teams routinely use equipment and technology to support the efforts of security personnel through measures such as CCTV, however, Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) is an…
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Stolen Identities: How Fraud is Affecting Pandemic Aid
Well-researched scams can appear so genuine that they fool the intended marks. As discussed in our recent article on hitman scams, scammers use real-world details and mimic official terminology to make their frauds appear authentic. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown this, with con artists utilizing several methods to exploit the pandemic for their…
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How the BBC unmasked a Scammer Social Media Influencer using OSINT
A recent BBC Panorama documentary unmasked the world of social media influencer scammers, individuals who boast about the scams that they are allegedly conducting online, as well as the wealth that it generates them, encouraging their followers to also engage in the same crimes and lifestyle. In the documentary, the BBC revealed that these scammers…
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