November 25, 2025

The eighth series of the popular, BAFTA-nominated TV show ‘Hunted’ came to a dramatic end this month.  

Hunted is a gripping reality series that pits volunteer civilian ‘fugitives’ against a professional team of ‘Hunters’ – comprising former intelligence officers, police detectives, and cyber analysts – who employ real-world investigative techniques to try track them down within 28 days. 

The TV show regularly attracts over 2 million viewers per episode. 

In this series, the Hunters were able to catch 13 out the 14 original fugitives within the time frame. This the most successful capture record in history of the show. 

Copyright Shine TV/ Channel 4 

In the programme, the ‘fugitives’ must try to evade simulated capture by Hunters who leverage an impressive arsenal of capabilities: CCTV networks, ANPR systems, mobile phone tracking, financial surveillance, OSINT and behavioural profiling.  

The Hunters establish pattern-of-life analysis, exploit OPSEC failures, conduct tactical ground operations, and demonstrate how modern surveillance infrastructure creates a near-inescapable digital dragnet.  

OSINT specialist and DarkOwl super-user Daisy Hickman appearing in Series 8 (copyright Shine TV/Channel 4) 

The show illustrates the investigative challenges of resource allocation, intelligence fusion, and the cat-and-mouse dynamics between human behaviour and technical collection, while exposing how difficult it truly is to disappear in a modern surveillance state. 

In this series, DarkOwl was selected as one of the handful of intelligence tools (and the sole Darknet technology) to assist the Hunters in their London HQ. 

Daisy Hickman – an OSINT specialist Hunter who holds a MSc in Forensic Investigation – commented on her experience with DarkOwl (in capacity as a DarkOwl super-user during the show): 

“DarkOwl proved critical to our time-sensitive fugitive operations, and the easy to use interface and comprehensive data was an invaluable part of our OSINT analysis.” 

By continuously indexing high-value darknet websites, fora, marketplaces, chans, leak databases, Telegram channels and beyond, DarkOwl reconciles underground activities and personas with real-world events and people for all levels of intelligence analyst. 

DarkOwl was pleased to support Hunted, not least as it provided a good opportunity to showcase the power of DARKINT techniques for fast paced criminal investigations. 

Watch the latest series of Shine TV/Channel 4’s Hunted, and find out more about DarkOwl Vision.