News:
Identifying The Berlin Bicycle Assassin: Russia’s Murder Franchise (Part 2)
In the previous part of this investigation, we identified the assassin of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili as Vadim Nikolaevich Krasikov, a 54-year old Russian citizen traveling with state-issued false identity papers. Khankoshvilli, an ethnically Chechen Georgian citizen who had fought against Russia in the Second Chechen War and was linked to Georgian military intelligence, was shot and…
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Two Europol StopChildAbuse Images Geolocated: Part I — Madagascar
Europol is currently in possession of more than 40 million images of child sexual abuse from across the world. In June 2017, it launched a crowdsourcing campaign called Stop Child Abuse – Trace an Object. Through this campaign, censored extracts from explicit images are regularly published on their website and members of the public are…
The Dilan Cruz Shooting: Tracking Officer 003478
In collaboration with Colombia’s La Liga Contra el Silencio and Cerosetenta, Newsy and Bellingcat reconstructed the shooting of Dilan Cruz, an 18-year-old student who was hit in the head with a bean bag round at a protest in Bogota on November 23, 2019. Cruz died from his injuries in hospital two days later. Using a…
Identifying The Berlin Bicycle Assassin: From Moscow to Berlin (Part 1)
In its previous joint investigations with Spiegel, The Insider and Dossier Center, Bellingcat has reported that the person held by German authorities over the murder of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in Berlin traveled from Moscow to Germany under a fake identity. We established that the suspected assassin’s passport, issued under the name Vadim Sokolov, born 20 August…
Dangerous Goods: Tracing European Arms Used in Oppression and Human Rights Violations
European arms have played a significant role in almost every conflict across the globe. Since 2018, a Bellingcat collaboration has documented, using open source, how European countries and companies have breached their own, and international, laws dozens of times. Through the EU Arms Project, a Bellingcat and Lighthouse Reports collaborative initiative, we have documented where…
Debunking the Binance Police Raids with OSINT
This investigation is an excerpt from the weekly CryptOsint, Brenna Smith’s newsletter which digs into the intersection of open source research and cryptocurrency. You can subscribe to the newsletter here. Crypto-twitter was abuzz this weekend over a rumor of police raids at one of the world’s most popular and most influential exchanges, Binance. The twist:…
Emails And Reading Comprehension: OPCW Douma Coverage Misses Crucial Facts
Over the weekend, WikiLeaks released an email from an employee within the OPCW Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) indicating that the OPCW “misrepresents the facts he and his colleagues discovered on the ground”. This email has since been used to call into question the impartiality and effectiveness of the OPCW’s conclusion about the alleged chemical weapon attack…
The Dreadful Eight: GRU’s Unit 29155 and the 2015 Poisoning of Emilian Gebrev
In a previous investigation, Bellingcat and its investigative partner The Insider reported on the presence of a senior GRU officer, Denis Sergeev aka “Sergey Fedotov”, in Bulgaria at the time when a Bulgarian arms manufacturer collapsed into a coma following what was identified as poisoning by an unknown neuroparalytic substance. At that same time, the…
Assassination of Aierken Saimaiti in Istanbul Raises New Questions
This investigation was conducted jointly with Umut 2020, a new Kyrgyz popular movement focused on investigating corruption. You can watch their video of the report at the bottom of this post (Russian). On November 10th, the businessman Aierken Saimaiti, who had an arrest warrant international arrest warrant issued after fraud allegations, was shot dead in…
بيلينكات: نوع “أقلّ فتكاً” من قناني الغاز المسيل للدموع يقتل المتظاهرين في العراق
يحتوي هذا التقرير صوراً وبيانات تظهر بوضوح الإصابات والوفيات. “قُتل عددٌ من المتظاهرين في العراق بعد إصابتهم بطلقٍ من عيار 40 مليمتراً يعتبر “أقل فتكاً. يشهد العراق منذ أسابيع اضطرابات كبيرة بعد خروج المتظاهرين إلى الشوارع احتجاجاً على البطالة ونقص الخدمات العامة والفساد المنتشر على نطاقٍ واسع في البلاد. وقُتل العشرات من المتظاهرين أثر عمليات…
Resources:
Massive White Supremacist Message Board Leak: How to Access and Interpret the Data
Update: The Internet Archive has removed the SQL leak; however, the information is freely available via a torrent file (download here) or a Magnet link (click here, or copy/paste the link into a torrent client). Today, the entire SQL database from Iron March, a now-defunct neo-Nazi / white supremacist message board, was posted onto the…
New Bellingcat Workshop Announced for Washington D.C.
Bellingcat will hold a new workshop in Washington D.C. on December 9-13. Our planned workshops for the remainder of 2019 are as follows: London: December 9-13 (Full, with lengthy wait-list) Washington D.C.: December 9-13 (Full, with short wait-list) Please email us at workshops@bellingcat.com with the information requested below if you would like to attend. Name…
Sign Up For CryptOsint Today!
Issue #2: “What does Libra mean for open source investigators?” CryptOsint is a news round-up dedicated to covering who is using blockchain technology and how they’re doing it. Think of it as the intersection between open source investigations and the crypto world. Through CryptOsint, you will discover weekly content that will help you make sense…
A Beginner’s Guide To Flight Tracking
Flight tracking is an accessible and useful tool for open source investigators. Being able to track the movements of aircraft belonging to powerful individuals and armed forces can add important details to stories, or even uncover entire new narratives. There are several commercial and hobby websites that allow us to do just that. The purpose…
New Bellingcat Workshop Announced for London
Bellingcat will hold a series of workshops this autumn and winter, including a new workshop in London (December) and two open spaces at a workshop in Washington D.C. in two weeks. If you are interested in being added to the London (October) or Copenhagen waitlists, please let us know. Copenhagen: October 28 – November 1 (Full,…
New Bellingcat Workshop Announced for Washington D.C. and London
Bellingcat will hold a series of workshops this autumn and winter, including open spaces at a workshop in Washington D.C. If you are interested in being added to the London or Copenhagen waitlist, please let us know. Washington D.C.: September 16-20 London: October 7-11 (Full, with short wait-list) Copenhagen: October 28 – November 1 (Full, with…
Bellingcat Podcast: MH17, Episode 5 Guide: The Men on the Ground
You can listen to the fifth episode of the Bellingcat Podcast on the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 (MH17), “The Men on the Ground”, by subscribing on any major podcast application by searching “Bellingcat”, including at: iTunes Spotify Google Podcasts Stitcher TuneIn You can manually add the podcast RSS feed to your favorite podcast…
Bellingcat Podcast: MH17, Episode 4 Guide: Manhunt
You can listen to the fourth episode of the Bellingcat Podcast on the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 (MH17), “Manhunt”, by subscribing on any major podcast application by searching “Bellingcat”, including at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and TuneIn. You can manually add the podcast RSS feed to your favorite podcast app with the URL:…
Bellingcat Podcast: MH17, Episode 3 Guide: The Murder Weapon
You can listen to the third episode of the Bellingcat Podcast on the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 (MH17), “The Murder Weapon”, by subscribing on any major podcast application by searching “Bellingcat”, including at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and TuneIn. You can manually add the podcast RSS feed to your favorite podcast app with…
Bellingcat Podcast: MH17, Episode 2 Guide: A Pack of Lies
You can listen to the second episode of the Bellingcat Podcast on the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) by subscribing on any major podcast application by searching “Bellingcat”, including at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and TuneIn. You can manually add the podcast RSS feed to your favorite podcast app with the URL: bellingcat.libsyn.com/rss…