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About Neil Smith

(This page was last updated on the 03/01/2023)

Neil Smith's Linkedin Profile.

During the 1980's and 90's Neil served for over 10 years as a police officer in a UK police force in a number of different roles including spending time in uniform, as an authorised firearms officer, on the force drug squad and on a divisional burglary squad, before spending the last two years of his service investigating vehicle related crimes in Bristol, before being pensioned out early from the police as a result of suffering a number of injuries whilst on duty.

Weston Daily Press Photo From The 1990's

After a short break Neil then spent the next few years working as fraud investigator for insurance companies, working around the UK and into Europe and then as counter-fraud specialist in a UK government department.

Neil had already been using the internet as an investigative tool in his fraud investigations since the late 1990's and then in around 2004 he was introduced to the term Open Source Intelligence and was asked to start training people, mostly involved in law enforcement and investigations, in the techniques that he had been using in his own investigations over the last few years.

Neil Smith presenting on OSINT at conferences

Neil's OSINT training has taken him all around the world, including many places in Europe, as well as to Australia and Japan, Mexico and the Middle East. Below is a map showing the countries that Neil has run training courses and has presented at conferences. Most of these were in-person but during the pandemic some were held online.

Countries Neil has presented in

In 2016 Neil helped form Qwarie with a business partner to build on what he was doing previously with his own small company but in a larger more international company, offering OSINT research and training to more clients around the world, with a team of in-house researchers and trainers, however he left Qwarie after a few years to help create Locate, with the aim of training volunteers to use OSINT skills to assist the police and families in helping trace missing people.

If you are interested in getting Neil to speak on Open Source Intelligence and in Using The Internet As An Investigative Tool at a conference or an event that you are arranging, then just Email.