October 2024, Kyiv, Ukraine – In cooperation with the State Financial Monitoring Service of Ukraine and the Academy of Financial Monitoring, UNODC in Ukraine and UNODC Border Management Branch in the framework of the Global Programme on Criminal Network Disruption (GPCD), organized a two-day specialized capacity-building event on Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) for Ukrainian law enforcement agencies on 15 and 16 October 2024 in Kyiv.
The capacity-building event brought together ten representatives from the key national institutions involved in the fight against illicit trafficking: the Office of the Prosecutor General, the National Police of Ukraine, the Security Service of Ukraine, the State Border Guard Service, and the State Bureau of Investigation. Following a comprehensive needs assessment, the training methodology enabled participants to develop expertise in ethics, legal regulations, human rights, information gathering, data analysis, as well as reporting, and stressed the importance of historical context in OSINT analysis through practical exercises involving real-life cases.
In the context of the current conflict, criminal groups are taking advantage of the situation to smuggle valuable works of art out of the country, leaving Ukraine's cultural heritage facing unprecedented threats. According to UNESCO, 457 cultural sites have been damaged or destroyed since 24 February 2022.
UNODC's OSINT training provided essential tools to track illicit trafficking routes and strengthen criminal justice responses, focusing on the practical implementation of OSINT tools such as Maltego, Foca and Hunchly, combined with advanced techniques for social media monitoring, website research and network analysis.
Given the changing nature of drug trafficking operations, which increasingly use encrypted communication platforms, social media and the Dark Web, OSINT is essential to enable investigators to trace supply chains, identify key players and monitor drug trafficking activities in real time. Designed to enhance participants' skills in monitoring online markets and digital currencies, in compliance with legal and ethical standards, the OSINT training also strengthened the capacity of national agencies to uncover new trafficking routes and detect hidden networks in order to disrupt the operations of criminal organizations.
