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This article is the result of a collaboration with The Sunday Times. You can find their corresponding piece here. A key leader of the Kinahan cartel who is wanted by authorities around the world and has been living in hiding in Dubai for a decade has just had his Emirates residence permit renewed. A Bellingcat […] The post Welcome to Dubai: Kinahan Cartel’s Visas Revealed appeared first on…
Football fans wagered more than US $14 billion on the FIFA World Cup through prediction markets Polymarket and Kalshi, a Bellingcat analysis has found. On the crypto-based Polymarket, which provides more information about individual trading accounts than its rival American site Kalshi, we also found that just 1% of users collected the vast majority of […] The post Will Ronaldo Cry? World Cup Fans…
Bellingcat has geolocated footage showing Shahed-136 type kamikaze drones in operation in Mali. Defence Blog and France 24 previously published reports that these drones were being deployed on the battlefield in northern Mali. But Bellingcat and Jeune Afrique subsequently verified two recent strikes using geolocation, satellite imagery and expert analysis to provide some of the […] The post…
This investigation is a collaboration between Bellingcat and New Zealand news site The Press. You can read The Press’ piece here. Content warning: This article discusses non-consensual sexually explicit content and child sexual abuse material. In 2024, a former track and field coach in Boston, Massachusetts, was sentenced to five years in jail for attempting […] The post Identifying the Crypto…
Bellingcat has geolocated footage circulating on social media that appears to show coffins placed in newly dug trenches following the recent deadly earthquakes in Venezuela. The site identified extends over two hectares beside an existing cemetery in La Esperanza, a town near La Guaira on the country’s northern coast. It was visited by a representative of […] The post Between Graves and…
If you’ve seen reports of a wildfire in your region and you’re looking for open source data, NASA’s fire-tracking tool is often the first place to start. It provides a heat signature and an approximate location. But detection is only the first step in understanding what’s happened. In this guide, we explore ways to analyse […] The post Burning Forests: Tools for Tracking and Reporting Wildfire…
At least 1,719 people are reported to have died after two devastating earthquakes struck northwestern Venezuela last week. The final casualty count is expected to rise significantly. Some media outlets report resident’s growing frustration with the Venezuelan government and its recovery efforts. Sky News on June 29 reported that the United Nations Coordinator for Humanitarian […] The post…
This article is the result of a collaboration with The Sunday Times. You can find their corresponding piece here. Every Friday evening, the brochure says, players can compete to win cash prizes in one of the world’s fastest-growing racquet sports. The padel club in Dubai’s west is the picture of modern wellness culture: climate-controlled courts, […] The post Poster Boy: Sanctioned Kinahan Cartel…
Between February 2022 and September 2025, Bellingcat staff and volunteers collected, geolocated, and shared more than 2,500 incidents of civilian harm following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. As part of this effort, Bellingcat tested a new machine learning model intended to rank Telegram social media posts on their likelihood of containing incidents of civilian harm. […] The post How to…
Warning: Includes graphic descriptions of animal harm and images of animal parts from the outset. A Bellingcat investigation has uncovered a Myanmar-based wildlife trafficker who has operated openly across social media for at least six years, claiming to have sold tiger bones, rhino horn, elephant skin and other products from protected and endangered species to […] The post Rhino Horn, Leopard…
