Polish police units have bought and renewed digital-forensics software from Oxygen Forensics, the Virginia-based company whose chief executive and an alleged Russian owner have now been charged in the United States over claims that the firm concealed Russian ownership and software development from US government customers.
Public procurement records show that Oxygen Forensic Detective — software designed to extract and analyse data from phones and other digital devices — has been acquired or maintained by several Polish police forces.
The Provincial Police Headquarters in Gdańsk included an upgrade to Oxygen Forensic Detective in a forensic-software contract for units including the Central Bureau for Combating Cybercrime and the provincial police forensic laboratory. That procurement concluded with a contract in November 2024.
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A separate 2025 procurement by the Gdańsk police for the Central Bureau for Combating Cybercrime specified one copy of Oxygen Forensic Detective for analysing data from digital sources.
Public tender records from the Provincial Police Headquarters in Katowice also show a five-year update for one Oxygen Forensic Detective licence among specialist software ordered for police and cybercrime units.
In western Poland, the Provincial Police Headquarters in Gorzów Wielkopolski procured Oxygen Forensic Detective with 60 months of support. Procurement records show that contract was awarded in January 2026.
The Polish purchases have gained new significance following a criminal case announced last week by the US Department of Justice.
US prosecutors have charged Oxygen Forensics chief executive Lee Reiber and Russian national Oleg Sergeyevich Davydov with conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
The allegations centre on representations made to American government customers about who owned and controlled the company and where its software was developed.
Prosecutors allege that five Russian nationals, including Davydov, secretly owned and controlled Oxygen Forensics through a Cyprus-based holding company while Russian personnel continued to exercise influence over company decisions.
The Justice Department also alleges that a development team in Russia wrote and managed the company’s software under Davydov’s direction.
Those are allegations contained in a criminal complaint. Neither Reiber nor Davydov has been convicted, and both are presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
The case does not allege that Oxygen Forensics software contained malicious code, backdoors or other deliberately compromising functions. Nor does the complaint allege that the company used its software to obtain unauthorised access to customer systems or data.
That distinction is particularly important in assessing the Polish use of the products.
The available evidence establishes that Polish police bought or renewed forensic tools bearing the Oxygen Forensic Detective name. It does not establish that Polish investigative data was accessed by Russian authorities, that evidence extracted using the software was compromised or that Polish police knew of the ownership allegations at the time of procurement.
According to the US complaint, the same five Russian nationals also controlled a Russian sister company now known as MKO Systems. Prosecutors say that business sold technology based on the same core software to customers including Russia’s Federal Security Service, the FSB, the Investigative Committee and the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
A POLITICO investigation published on 28 September reported that Oxygen products had also been accredited or purchased by law-enforcement authorities elsewhere in Europe, including Germany, Spain and Italy, as well as Poland.
European records show the company’s technology also appeared in work connected with EU-funded digital-evidence programmes.
The European Commission’s CORDIS record for the EVIDENCE project lists Oxygen Forensics among digital-forensics companies in a wider network of stakeholders that included Europol, Eurojust, Interpol and the European Anti-Fraud Office.
However, a European Commission spokesperson told POLITICO that Oxygen was not a member of the EVIDENCE consortium and received no direct EU funding.
The same distinction applies to INSPECTr, a later Horizon 2020 project aimed at improving the handling and correlation of digital evidence. Oxygen was not listed as a consortium member, although technical project documentation shows that Oxygen Forensic Detective was among the forensic tools used in testing and development work.
The emerging issue for Polish institutions is therefore not evidence of proven compromise, but the provenance of specialist forensic software used to process potentially sensitive investigative material.
Public procurement records show that the software was not confined to a single Polish police unit. It appeared in procurement or renewal procedures involving forces in Gdańsk, Katowice and Gorzów Wielkopolski, among others.
It is not yet clear whether any Polish police authority has suspended use of Oxygen products, begun a security review or sought assurances following the US criminal case.
Poland-24 has found no public statement from national police headquarters addressing the allegations or explaining whether software supplied by Oxygen Forensics remains in active use.
Any assessment of the implications for Polish investigations would therefore require further information from police authorities about where the software is deployed, what safeguards are applied and whether its provenance is now being reviewed.
