User blog comment:Rac Ward/Hunters: Who Are They? And What Is Their Goal?/@comment-29708091-20180717030322/@comment-1692787-20180812075339

That could be the case but I am pretty sure they are not First Wave agents. Most of the First Wave agents you encounter both in and outside of the Dark Zone all have codenames like Mars, Vanguard, and Apollo. If they were First Wave Division agents than ISAC would recognize them as such by stating so. But the Hunters only register as Hunters in-game. I have heard some speculation that they might in fact be the Third Wave of SHD agents entering NYC to hunt down Second Wave agents as a last ditch effort by the government to restore order by removing anyone who can go rogue. But given how many of the Hunters are armed with Russian made military gear it would make sense for them to be either foreign fighters hired by Russia to cripple the United States even further in the aftermath of the Dollar Flu or are other PMC's like the Last Man Battalion who have come to NYC to get their hands on Division tech.