‘Russian data analytics firm used by European police forces, including those in Italia’
This is reported by Politico, based on documents seen by the publication
A US company specialising in data extraction, accused of being secretly run by Russia, is reported to have worked on EU-funded projects and sold its services to European law enforcement agencies. This is according to Politico, based on documents seen by the publication. Last week, the US Department of Justice accused Oxygen Forensics, officially based in Virginia, of concealing the fact that it is in fact owned and run by Russians. The company develops and sells powerful software capable of extracting and analysing information from smartphones and computers, a process known as ‘forensic computing’. According to public documents examined by Politico, Oxygen was used in at least two EU-funded projects aimed at improving the ways in which electronic evidence is collected, processed and shared in criminal investigations. These are Evidence, which received over €1.9 million in EU funding between 2014 and 2016, and Inspectr, funded under Horizon 2020, the EU’s research and innovation programme.
Although both EU-funded projects, as Politico reports, were launched well before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the subsequent European sanctions, Insepctr continued to operate until 2023. Oxygen is still listed on the websites of both projects. On its website, which is no longer active, Oxygen Forensics had listed the European Commission as a client. A Commission spokesperson emphasised that Oxygen Forensics was not part of either consortium and, therefore, did not receive funding from the Commission under these projects. The spokesperson stated that EU-funded projects are subject to strict eligibility and ethical criteria and that, ‘since the start of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, entities based in Russia have been barred from participating in any way in Horizon Europe projects’. According to the EU procurement database, more recently, following its involvement in EU-funded projects, Oxygen’s products have been accredited and purchased by numerous national police forces across Europe, including those in Germany, Spain, Italia and Poland.
According to the US Department of Justice, Oxygen Forensics’ software was developed and managed by a team in Russia under the direction of Russian national Oleg Sergeyevich Davydov. According to the indictment, following the imposition of sanctions by Washington on Russia in 2022, the Russian owners of Oxygen allegedly concealed both their ownership and the continued development of the company’s software in Russia. The five Russians at the helm of Oxygen Forensics also controlled a Russian sister company, MKO Systems, which sold the same core technology to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and the country’s Ministry of the Interior. The company listed major European police forces among its clients. As regards Italia, Politico cites a technical document dated April 2026 issued by the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Sassari, which explicitly lists Oxygen Forensics amongst the recognised systems that the judicial police may use to extract and analyse data from mobile devices.
