OSINT Training Log: Backing the Fight Against Cyber-Enabled Organized Crime

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Modern policing for modern crimes. Our OSINT training backs elite officers’ fight against cyber-enabled organized criminals.

Athens, Greece – April 2026.

OSINT Industries delivered a specialized OSINT training programme to officers from Greece’s Directorate Against Organized Crime (DAOC / Δ.Α.Ο.Ε.), at the headquarters of the Hellenic Police in Athens - the famous GADA.

The 15 officers are part of Greece’s elite organized crime directorate, known as the “Greek FBI”. Tasked daily with investigating serious transnational criminal threats; their work ranges from fighting cross-border trafficking and cyber-enabled crime, to crushing complex criminal networks. 

Delivered with support from our partners Our Rescue, the programme specialized in strengthening the officers’ frontline investigative capabilities with modern OSINT methodologies. Training them with tools and techniques designed to work effectively in real operational environments. 

As with all OSINT Industries training, our objective was clear: provide investigators with the practical intelligence skills they need to succeed. Skills they can apply immediately in active investigations - and see real world results. 

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Mission Objective: Strengthening Organized Crime Investigations Through OSINT

The objectives of this training were to:

• Strengthen digital investigative skills within the DAOC
• Establish OSINT methodologies tailored for transnational crime
• Introduce techniques to track suspects through digital footprints
• Educate officers on digital evidence development and secure handling
• Reinforce international cooperation against cross-border criminal threats

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Challenge: Cyber-Enabled Organized Crime 

“The traditional boundaries between cybercrime and conventional criminal activity continue to disappear... Even crimes once considered purely physical now incorporate cyber elements.” [Source: Interpol Cybercrime Unit]

Organized crime is changing.

Even traditionally offline operations - from slave trafficking to elephant poaching - are migrating to the internet. Operations are organized on online platforms, allowing criminal groups to expand across borders, move money, and conceal their activities under a cloak of anonymity. 

Whilst the crimes are digital, the impacts are brutally physical. The 2023 Global Study on Homicide (conducted by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNDOC)) found that an estimated 22% of all global intentional homicides were related to organized crime. That’s over 100,000 lives lost per year, every year. 

The crimes have changed, but the victims and perpetrators stay the same. Yet cyber-enabled crimes have another key difference. They’re traceable. Serious criminal operations now leave digital footprints at every stage. Thus, officers can follow the flow of money, data, and more; with advanced OSINT capabilities that trace right back to the offline source. 

“The very DNA of organized crime is changing. Criminal networks have evolved into global, technology-driven criminal enterprises, exploiting digital platforms [and] illicit financial flows.” - Catherine De Bolle, EU Serious and Organized Crime Threat Assessment (SOCTA) [SOURCE: Reuters]

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OSINT Training: Directorate Against Organized Crime (DAOC / Δ.Α.Ο.Ε.) Workshop

Location: Athens, Greece

Host Institution: Hellenic Police Headquarters (GADA)

Supported by: Our Rescue

Trainers: Yoni (@OSINT_Tactical)

Participants: 15 officers from the Directorate Against Organized Crime (DAOC / Δ.Α.Ο.Ε.)

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Skills and Methodologies Developed

OSINT Fundamentals

The course covered core OSINT skills including deep searching, source evaluation, online evidence gathering, ethical compliance and operational security (OpSec).

Advanced Social Media Intelligence (SOCMINT)

Skills to unmask online criminal operators. Officers analysed social media activity to identify behavioural indicators, map associations, and trace the footprints of crime cross-platform. 

Digital Footprint Development

Following the money, and more. Trainees practised identifying and correlating fragmented evidence linked to suspects, facilitators, and organized networks operating across jurisdictions.

Intelligence and Evidence Handling

Turning intelligence into evidence. Officers were trained in handling digital evidence, and presenting their findings coherently. Producing actionable intelligence that can support an investigation.

Investigative Workflow Optimisation

Training on integrating OSINT into operational workflows. Officers covered case development, and how to apply OSINT in intelligence-led policing strategies.

Practical Operational Exercises 

Learn the skills, then apply them. Participants worked through hands-on exercises - designed to simulate real organized crime investigations in high-pressure operational environments.

Operational Impact: A Modern Approach

“Tracing illicit flows connected to organized crime can reveal the networks behind it, enabling law enforcement to disrupt criminal operations … Only by working together across sectors and borders can we break the backbone of organized crime.” – [SOURCE: UNDOC]

The training in Athens showed the importance of an intelligence-based, cyber-literate strategy in modern policing. By combining traditional police techniques with international and cross-sector co-operation, officers can meet very modern threats on their own terms: online, offline, and eventually in custody. 

At the conclusion of the programme, Major General Photis Ntouitsis presented our trainer, Yoni, with a commemorative plaque on behalf of the Directorate Against Organized Crime. This was a moment of great pride, and a powerful statement of our shared commitment to fighting serious organized crime. 

‍Trainer Evaluation:

“From the outset, this training wasn’t theoretical. These are elite officers, and OSINT skills are practical, powerful tools they need in their arsenal to face a changing criminal landscape… When it came to the simulations, the DAOC officers demonstrated an exceptional ability to translate these new OSINT techniques into operational thinking.” — Training Team, OSINT Industries

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Mission Accomplished.

“We want to ensure investigators have every intelligence advantage possible when confronting serious criminal threats.”  – Nathaniel Fried, CEO & Founder of OSINT Industries. [Source: OSINT Industries]

A sincere thank you to the Hellenic Police and the Directorate Against Organized Crime for their trust, professionalism and hospitality throughout the training. 

Together, we can crack criminal networks, and catch those responsible before they do more damage. OSINT Industries training has already led to arrests in anti-trafficking investigations - the impact is clear.

Ready to join the fight? Get OSINT Training here.