Our Work

Through our Prime Contract with the Department of State, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) awarded in 2023, Hive currently supports the Regional Security System (RSS) Task Force (RSSTF) and the eight Eastern Caribbean Island nations that make up the RSS. Our support has helped improve the capacity and effectiveness of investigations and prosecutions of transnational organized crime throughout the region.

Hive’s Strategic Investigative Advisors support the RSSTF with hands-on mentoring and advising to execute RSS leadership and Member State requests for assistance on high-level, complex organized crime cases. The mentorship, training, facilitation, and guidance of our advisors have resulted in increased cooperation between U.S. and Caribbean states on several cases with multiple notable successes. These include assisting the Royal Saint Lucia Police Force (RSLPF) to solve high-profile murder cases, helping the RSLPF to successfully coordinate with the U.S. on an international firearms trafficking case, promoting the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between Saint Lucia and the U.S. to provide forensics assistance for firearms trafficking cases, and assisting Guyanese police in solving a multiple murder case that garnered national attention. Hive’s Advisors also secured assistance from the FBI’s Cellular Analysis Survey Team (CAST) to map out the cell tower network of key crime regions to assist in the investigations of multiple cases. This assistance has led to successful conclusions of multiple high-profile cases, including murder, arms and drug trafficking, and passport fraud, which led to numerous convictions in several jurisdictions.  

Hive provides expert Digital Forensics support services under this contract, continuing the successful efforts of our previous contracts dating back to 2019. Current efforts aim to continue supporting the professionalism and maturity of the RSS Digital Forensics Lab (RSSDFL) into a state-of-the-art digital forensics laboratory and regional center of excellence serving all RSS Member States and a growing number of Caribbean countries including The Bahamas and Turks and Caicos. Hive continues implementing the Indexed Data Repository, which facilitates rapid and exigent data correlation to support casework and strengthen regional investigations, including RSS Task Force investigations, and developed and delivered a specialized training course on Digital Forensics for regional Police Prosecutors. Hive is also working with the RSSDFL to prepare for eventual international ISO accreditation.

Under this contract, Hive’s Customs Enforcement Advisors support the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Implementation Agency for Crime & Security (IMPACS) Joint Regional Communications Centre (JRCC) with strategic planning and analysis to monitor passengers entering and travelling in the region. Hive's Advisors assisted in creating and implementing an Interoperability Statement between the JRCC and the CARICOM-IMPACS Regional Intelligence Fusion Centre and developed policy guidance and standard operating procedures to support effective intelligence sharing and analysis between the two bodies. Hive's Advisors provided guidance to improve data processing, workflow, and the analysis and development of targeting data, resulting in multiple successful detections of illegal migration and human, narcotics, and arms trafficking in the region. Hive also supports these and other regional law enforcement organizations through development and delivery of customized training courses and exercises. These efforts have resulted in greater self-sufficiency within the region. After Hive delivered an Interdicting Cargo Shipments in a Seaport Environment course to officials in both Grenada and Antigua and Barbuda, Antigua Customs officials successfully delivered the same course independently to other national officials the following year. 

Hive's Strategic Advisors bring decades of specialized experience in counternarcotics, border security, customs enforcement, digital forensics, task force operations, and complex cross-border criminal investigations. We apply our combined skillsets and decades of experience to help regional counterparts combat the most serious organized crime threats in the region that comprises the United States "Third Border."

Through a Prime Contract with the Department of State, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), Hive supported the Regional Security System (RSS) Digital Forensic Laboratory (RSSDFL) and the eight Eastern Caribbean Island nations that make up the RSS. Hive provided full-time expert advisory support to the lab’s digital forensics exploitation and investigative teams to develop the RSSDFL as a regional forensic center of excellence for the Caribbean region. 

Hive assisted the RSSDFL in drafting its Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) for Digital Evidence Analysis to govern the intake, handling, exploitation, and analysis of digital evidence. Hive also developed training materials, other operating procedures, and digital forensics capabilities for collecting, processing, preserving, analyzing, and presenting computer-related evidence in a court of law to further the ability of RSS Member States to combat and prosecute organized crime. Hive also guided the lab in updating and expanding RSSDFL processes and technical documentation to address changing digital evidence requirements, including moving the lab's evidence intake process from paper to a secure electronic platform. Additionally, Hive assisted the RSSDFL in developing a customized database repository and indexing system to support centralized storage and rapid indexing of 100% of the RSSDFL's archive of digital forensic case data, comprising millions of individual case-related files stored on different types of digital storage media. The indexed repository now enables the RSSDFL and authorized regional investigative agents or police to query their case data using free-form keywords or phrases to determine correlations between disparate cases, returning results in seconds. Our leadership and mentoring to the lab has increased lab competency and productivity significantly, leading to more than a 600% increase in caseload from a growing number of greater Caribbean nations.  

Hive International, LLC (Hive) in partnership with The Pan American Development Foundation (PADF) are working to transform the INACIF CFL into a Digital Forensics Regional Center of Excellence. Hive will work with the lab’s staff to evaluate all existing manuals and SOPs, benchmarking these against international best practices for forensically sound digital forensics laboratory procedures to determine which practices may be appropriate for adoption within the CFL, and which additional SOPs or procedural documentation may be missing. Hive will then assist the staff with updating the lab’s operating procedures and provide mentorship on implementing them. Hive is also providing updated digital forensic equipment, software, and necessary mentorship to prepare lab personnel to obtain Digital Forensics Certifications and the lab to obtain internationally recognized accreditations, such as ISO/IEC 10725 or 10720. Hive will work with the lab to update networks and systems to increase the CFL’s ability to extract and return digital information in a timely manner to reduce the current backlog in cases. Concurrently, Hive and PADF will improve judicial capacity to utilize forensic evidence by training justice sector actors, including investigators, prosecutors, and judges on how to leverage digital forensics evidence in criminal cases.  

A U.S. Department of State, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) initiative, the Eastern Caribbean Organized Crime Investigations Program aims to strengthen regional maritime law enforcement capacity, cooperation, and coordination among Eastern Caribbean Member States of the Regional Security System (RSS). Team Hive and our partners supported the RSS to build capacity to effectively conduct operations in the maritime jurisdiction, dismantle complex criminal enterprises through task force investigations, and bolster integrity in the criminal justice process by establishing a specialized unit to investigate interference in criminal proceedings and official corruption. To this end, our team provided project management, subject matter expertise, and instructional systems design (ISD) services to develop a Concept of Operations (CONOPS), Operational Guides, Standing Operating Procedures (SOPs), and provide related training and advisory support.  

Hive International teamed with SGI Global, LLC  on two prime contracts awarded to SGI by the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Diplomatic Security, Office of Antiterrorism Assistance (ATA) to provide training curriculum rewrite/update and instructional system design services to develop two new training courses. The ATA Program has served as the primary provider of U.S. Government antiterrorism training to law enforcement agencies of partner nations throughout the world and has delivered counterterrorism training to more than 150,000 law enforcement personnel from 154 countries. 

To develop ATA’s new, comprehensive eight-week Explosive Incident Countermeasures (EIC) course, Hive’s Instructional Systems Designer (ISD) worked with SGI’s expert team of highly-experienced law enforcement Bomb Squad Subject Matter Experts (SMEs). Together they combined elements of ATA’s former seven-week EIC course and Advanced Explosive Incident Countermeasures (AEIC) three-week course to develop a comprehensive eight-week EIC Course Update. The rewritten course focuses upon practical exercises to reinforce the learning objectives, providing participants with state-of-the art skills and techniques necessary for safe identification, handling, and disposition of explosive materials. 

Hive’s Instructional Systems Designer (ISD) worked with another SGI expert team of highly-experienced law enforcement Bomb Squad Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to update ATA’s eight-week Post Blast Investigation (PBI) Course. The rewritten course combines lecture, group discussions, and case studies, extensively complemented by practical exercises, to train foreign partner bomb investigators, bomb squad personnel, and other specialists directly involved in investigating explosions, providing them with state-of-the-art skills and techniques. These include bomb scene investigative techniques, methods of material identification, and analysis of evidence required to identify perpetrators of a bombing or blast-related incident. 

Photo courtesy of the U.S. Army 20th CBRNE Command

The U.S. Department of State, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) in Roswell, New Mexico provides senior-level academic instruction on the latest law enforcement and criminal justice techniques, equipping foreign law enforcement officials, prosecutors, and judges with the skills and knowledge to effectively investigate and combat crime in their respective countries.

Hive International provided operations management, logistics, and strategic alumni engagement support for ILEA Roswell. Hive leveraged expertise in project management, technology, and public diplomacy to engage stakeholders from more than 100 countries. These efforts advanced the policy and mission objectives of ILEA and INL to create an invested group of criminal justice partners that share common interests in global security and progress. 

Team Hive supported the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs Office at U.S. Embassy Bridgetown (INL Bridgetown) with an initiative to enhance the accuracy and accountability of appropriated funds to INL project activities in the region. In collaboration with INL Bridgetown, our team developed the Eastern Caribbean Project Management Data Portal, which helps INL track, monitor, visualize, evaluate, and report on the impact of INL assistance to our partner nations across the Eastern Caribbean.