OSINT Blog
Detecting and Disrupting Human Trafficking Operations with OSINT
Human trafficking remains one of the most elusive and devastating crimes impacting vulnerable populations worldwide. Victims around the world are forced into servitude, debt, or slavery through the use of force, fraud, or coercion. Traffickers exploit individuals for various purposes, including sex work, forced labor under exploitative conditions such…
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How to Enhance Officer Safety with OSINT
Law enforcement officers have always faced a certain amount of danger, but today’s threats extend far beyond the streets. Officers are now being targeted not just by criminals in the physical world but also by those exploiting digital data to locate and put them in harm's way.
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Antiques and OSINT - Investigating the Trafficking of Valuables
Criminal trafficking can call to mind the widely recognized and destructive trade of narcotics or people, but there’s a different kind of illegal trade that’s less visible: the illicit trafficking of antiques and other cultural treasures. Protecting historical relics and art is a global issue that continues to gain attention, highlighted by the United…
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The Rising Threat of State-Sponsored Organized Crime
In a world where the lines between organized crime and state actions are increasingly blurred, the comments of Graeme Biggar, Director General of the UK's National Crime Agency, offer a stark illumination of the evolving threat landscape.
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Crime Scripts: Interpreting Criminal Decision-Making to Disrupt Crime
To prevent and disrupt crime and disorder at scale, investigators are increasingly utilizing scientific approaches. Problem-oriented policing (POP) is an approach that involves using analytics to identify and understand a specific problem and develop a tailored response.
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Digital Policing: Conducting Internet Investigations in an Increasingly Digitized World
Technology plays a significant and central part in almost everything humans do. By the end of 2021, the number of internet users worldwide stood at roughly 4.9 billion people, almost two-thirds of the global population. The majority of people using the internet have no links to criminality and the protection of their right to privacy has always been,…
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Proceeds of Crime: Repurposing Criminal Funds to Fight Crime
Almost all criminal activities yield profits. The profits of such criminal activity are referred to as the proceeds of crime. The term ‘proceeds of crime’ includes any property or assets derived from or obtained, directly or indirectly, through the commission of or in connection with a criminal offense. The proceeds of crime include property derived…
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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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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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The Evidence Challenge
During 2020, financial and white-collar crime have reached record highs, while public prosecution has reached record lows. If the low prosecution rates of high-level executives after the last financial crisis are anything to go by, these statistics are unlikely to improve in the near future. With the right open source intelligence (OSINT) capabilities,…
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