Confidential Informants, Source Development & Human Intelligence

Course Overview

Human intelligence serves as one of law enforcement's most valuable assets. Intelligence opportunities frequently emerge from routine police interactions, and individuals who may seem inconspicuous often possess critical access to people, locations, relationships, and criminal activity that investigators would be unable to reach otherwise. This single-day training program equips officers and investigators with the skills to identify individuals with intelligence potential, extract pertinent information through professional elicitation, recruit and build confidential informant relationships, evaluate source credibility, and convert human intelligence into actionable investigative leads. The curriculum prioritizes leveraging human intelligence to enhance information quality, strengthen officer safety, safeguard informants, and develop investigative pathways.

Key Topics Covered

• Recognizing High-Value Human Sources: Learn to identify intelligence opportunities during typical police encounters and determine when someone may possess access to valuable information.
• Placement, Access & Intelligence Value: Evaluate what a prospective source can realistically know, access, and offer beyond willingness to cooperate.
• Elicitation & Information Development: Apply strategic conversation techniques to extract useful intelligence and leverage everyday contacts for information gathering.
• Recruiting & Developing Confidential Informants: Identify recruitment possibilities, comprehend motivational factors, and establish sustained source partnerships.
• Assessing Source Reliability & Intelligence Value: Determine a source's credibility, motivation, discretion, judgment, and associated risk while verifying information to establish reliability and actionability.
• Source & Officer Safety: Maintain source confidentiality and minimize unnecessary operational exposure.
• Turning Intelligence Into Investigative Opportunities: Employ source information to discover individuals, locations, connections, threats, and criminal patterns that advance investigations.

Course Format & Duration

This training is available in two formats: a 1-day intensive (8 hours) or an advanced 5-day comprehensive program (40 hours). Instruction occurs in classroom settings and practical role-playing scenarios, with the 5-day option including field-based instruction components.

Instructor

Matthew Hedger, the course instructor, is a former U.S. intelligence professional with 17 years of experience serving with the CIA and NSA. He specializes in covert financial operations, anti-money laundering analysis, and transnational organized crime investigations. Throughout more than a decade of undercover work within international criminal networks, Hedger directed complex operations across Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, focusing on narcotics trafficking, weapons smuggling, and money laundering conspiracies. His operational background encompasses work against Mexican drug trafficking organizations, international money laundering networks, and deep-cover infiltration of 1%er outlaw motorcycle clubs. Currently, Hedger provides consultation to law enforcement agencies, governmental organizations, and worldwide financial entities regarding money laundering concerns, organized crime threats, undercover methodologies, and emerging financial crime.

Ideal Participants

This course serves law enforcement officers, investigators, intelligence analysts, and administrative supervisors engaged in source development, informant management, intelligence cultivation, and the conversion of human intelligence into criminal investigations. The training is particularly valuable for personnel in the following specializations:

• Street Crimes Units
• Gang Investigation Units
• Narcotics Investigators, Drug Task Force Officers, and Drug Conspiracy Units
• Criminal Interdiction Teams
• Plain Clothes Officers
• Undercover Officers and prospective undercover personnel
• Organized Crime Investigation Units
• Federal, State, and Local Task Forces
• Supervisors of Specialized Units or Investigative Teams

Scheduled Training

Location: Lafayette, Louisiana
Dates: January 11 - 12, 2027
Time: 8:00 AM - 4:00 PM

Host a Course

Interested in bringing this training to your organization? Complete our interest form and our team will reach out to discuss scheduling and logistics.