New Sentinel-2 satellite imagery reveals the extent of damage caused by large scale Israeli detonations overnight on July 30 into July 31st around UNESCO World Heritage site Beaufort Castle in Lebanon.

How did we find Ian Dixon, a wanted member of the Kinahan cartel, on a padel court in Dubai? Search Party recounts how Bellingcat and @thetimes.com traced the digital trail that led to the alleged money handler for one of the world's most dangerous crime cartels. www.youtube.com/watch?v=49NZ...

Cartel member found playing Padel

YouTube video by Search Party

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We wanted to have an honest conversation about our newly launched membership programme. Our latest Stage Talk explores this funding model, from sustainability to editorial independence, as we discuss both the promise and the pitfalls. Search 'Stage Talks with Bellingcat' rss.com/podcasts/bel...

"Inside The Membership Model" with Bellingcat's Development Team | Podcast Episode on RSS.com

This week, we explored how our work is funded - what keeps our open-source collective's lights on? Bellingcat's Sarah Bishop Woods and Mareike Vitt, both members of our Development Team, joined us to ...

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Last month we published the 100th Bellingcat Challenge. To celebrate this milestone, we're launching a brand-new website! Check it out and put your skills to the test with five new challenges... ➡️ challenge.bellingcat.com

With Daniel Kinahan set to face extradition back to Ireland, Bellingcat and @thetimes.com investigate the visa status of the leaders of the Kinahan cartel, who have been in hiding in Dubai. www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/08...

Welcome to Dubai: Kinahan Cartel's Visas Revealed - bellingcat

A key leader of the Kinahan drugs cartel who has been living in hiding in Dubai for a decade has just had his Emirates residence permit renewed.

bellingcat.com

Bellingcat's @godin.bsky.social spoke with NPR about Google's now paused new feature that allowed users to create AI-generated satellite images.

Geoff Brumfiel@gbrumfiel.bsky.social · 5d ago

UPDATED STORY! Google has paused a tool that allowed users to briefly create deepfake AI satellite images with the click of a button. www.npr.org/2026/07/31/n...

Join us live for a talk on newsroom funding in one hour's time here: discord.gg/bellingcat?e...

Join the Bellingcat Discord Server!

Come hang out with open source research enthusiasts, share knowledge and experiences, and learn lots! | 43641 members

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Bellingcat@bellingcat.com · last wk.

Why are so many newsrooms embracing membership? This week's Stage Talk explores one of journalism's biggest shifts: why membership is replacing traditional funding models for many publishers, what it means for audiences, and why we're adopting it too. discord.gg/a9TVpY8R6?ev...

The FIFA World Cup was predicted to be the biggest betting event in history. Bellingcat researcher @msramalho.bsky.social looked into the data on prediction markets Polymarket and Kalshi - and found that fans wagered more than US $14 billion through the two sites www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/07...

Will Ronaldo Cry​? World Cup Fans Bet Billions Through Prediction Markets - bellingcat

Users traded on almost 60,000 outcomes, betting on everything from the sponsor of the Golden Boot winner to whether Cristiano Ronaldo would shed a tear during a Portugal match.

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Wildfires have devastated parts of Europe this past week, particularly in France and Spain, where more than 330,000 people have been evacuated. With temperatures expected to rise again, the risk of further damage remains. Learn to track active fires with open sources: www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmnf...

Monitoring Wildfires Using Open Source Tools

YouTube video by Bellingcat

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Why are so many newsrooms embracing membership? This week's Stage Talk explores one of journalism's biggest shifts: why membership is replacing traditional funding models for many publishers, what it means for audiences, and why we're adopting it too. discord.gg/a9TVpY8R6?ev...

As fighting intensifies in Mali, Bellingcat has verified two recent strikes that used Shahed-136 type kamikaze drones. Video footage of the strikes provides the clearest open-source evidence to date of use of these drones in the conflict www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/07...

Shahed-Type Drones Filmed During Mali Village Attacks - bellingcat

Bellingcat has geolocated footage showing Shahed-136 type kamikaze drones in operation in Mali.

bellingcat.com

Suniel K. Sharma has been sanctioned in the 21st sanctions package. @tomi-mcc.bsky.social and my article with Bellingcat on his organisation: www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/02...

Open source tools can help track every stage of a wildfire, from the first reports through to assessing the damage once the flames are out. Throughout July, the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service helped researchers monitor how wildfire smoke spread across Canada and the US.

Bellingcat has been monitoring student protests in India. Police initially denied reports protesters were met with violence at a July 20 march, although later acknowledged injuries to protesters and officers. Social media videos showed tear gas deployed and batons used by police against protestors.

LeakedBB, an adult forum averaging two million monthly visits, rewarded members for posting intimate imagery they claimed was leaked, hacked or obtained through blackmail. Payment records, company filings and domain data appear to link the site to one man. youtube.com/shorts/rejPc...

The Crypto Entrepreneur Linked to a Forum Trading ‘Leaked’ Intimate Images

YouTube video by Bellingcat

youtube.com

Last week, UN forensic expert Morris Tidball-Binz spoke with journalists from our Latin American partner publications about lessons from Venezuela's earthquake, stressing that protocols already exist but must be implemented. www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Bi5...

¿Qué hacer para reducir el impacto de los terremotos? #ConversaARIConLaLuz

YouTube video by EfectoCocuyo

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How do investigations actually come together? Costanza Gambarini (@source-material.org) joined us on our last Stage Talk to discuss investigative methods, digital research, collaboration across newsrooms, and the lessons she's learned reporting on environmental wrongdoing. rss.com/podcasts/bel...

"Building Environmental Investigations" with Costanza Gambarini | Podcast Episode on RSS.com

This week, we spoke to SourceMaterial's Costanza Gambarini, fresh off her win at the Press Awards for Environmental Journalist of the Year. We spoke about what makes a good environmental journalist an...

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If you like this investigation, and you want to see me continue this type of work, please consider donating. We never put these up behind a paywall and I want to keep making a difference in stopping harm to women. We rely on your support to keep the lights on. www.bellingcat.com/donate/

New publication from me! 🎉 Please check out my latest investigation where we identify (no surprise) a crypto guy to a popular 'leaked' nudes website. Users could even get paid out for sharing leaked/hacked nudes from women. Within 48 hrs of reaching out to him, the site went offline. Impact! 🙌

Bellingcat@bellingcat.com · 3w ago

Bellingcat and @thepress.co.nz have uncovered a series of links between a New Zealand-based man and the adult forum LeakedBB – a site with over 2.3 million registered users, including some who distributed leaked nude photos and videos. www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/07...

Bellingcat and @thepress.co.nz have uncovered a series of links between a New Zealand-based man and the adult forum LeakedBB – a site with over 2.3 million registered users, including some who distributed leaked nude photos and videos. www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/07...

The Crypto Entrepreneur Linked to a Forum Trading in ‘Leaked’ Nudes

Two days after we reached out to crypto start-up founder Jitendra Maharaj about his apparent connections to LeakedBB, the site went offline.

bellingcat.com

We're live in 30 minutes time! Join us here: discord.com/invite/belli...

Join the Bellingcat Discord Server!

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Bellingcat@bellingcat.com · 3w ago

How do you apply investigative skills to environmental stories? Join us tomorrow for a live talk with Press Awards Environmental Journalist of the Year Costanza Gambarini (@source-material.org). She'll explain how she combines digital research with rigorous reporting. discord.gg/bellingcat?e...

Trump's assertion is false. As @bellingcat.com reported earlier this year, authenticated videos from the strike on the Minab's girl school clearly show that the munitions that impacted the site were Tomahawk missiles. www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/03...

Video Shows US Tomahawk Missile Strike Next to Girls’ School in Iran - bellingcat

New video footage shows a US Tomahawk missile hitting an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) facility in Minab, Iran, on Feb 28, showing for the first time that the US struck the area. The footag...

bellingcat.com

Matthew Gertz@mattgertz.bsky.social · 3w ago

I would loooove to know what happened during this interview cut immediately after Trump tells a Fox News interviewer that photos of "fragments that appear to be from Tomahawk missiles" at a destroyed Iranian girls school may have been "AI-generated."

Our partner, Cerosetenta, was ordered by a judge to remove a joint investigation we published with them about a political candidate and his alleged links to members of an international neo-Nazi group in Bogota. Cerosetenta will now challenge that decision. cerosetenta.uniandes.edu.co/cerosetenta-...

Cerosetenta acudirá a la Corte Constitucional tras fallo de juez que le ordena eliminar investigación sobre presuntos vínculos de candidato con una red neonazi - Cerosetenta

Organizaciones que defienden la libertad de prensa reaccionaron a la decisión de un juez que restringe el derecho de los ciudadanos a conocer información sobre un aspirante a un cargo público.

cerosetenta.uniandes.edu.co

Ukraine’s military said it struck 116 Russian vessels over the past nine days. The drone attacks have reportedly forced Russia to suspend shipping operations in the Sea of Azov. Satellite imagery shows ship traffic near the Kerch Strait has ceased since the attacks began.

How do you apply investigative skills to environmental stories? Join us tomorrow for a live talk with Press Awards Environmental Journalist of the Year Costanza Gambarini (@source-material.org). She'll explain how she combines digital research with rigorous reporting. discord.gg/bellingcat?e...

Our Colombian partner publication, Cerosetenta, has released the following statement after a court ruling on our story about alleged links between a political candidate and an international Neo-nazi group in Bogota cerosetenta.uniandes.edu.co/cumplimiento...

Firefighters announced on Tuesday that over 1900 hectares of forest had gone up in flames during the wildfires near Fontainebleau forest, South-East of Paris. This Sentinel-2 satellite image captured the extent of the fires on July 13.

We’re back with a brand-new Bellingcat Open Source Challenge! This month they were created by a guest contributor who has manipulated a series of images. Can you spot what has been edited? Try them here: Challenge.bellingcat.com

Working with Bellingcat researcher @sebkilli.bsky.social Vandermeersch, @dailymail.co.uk recently covered our analysis of several high-profile drone strikes that the United Arab Emirates government appeared to downplay, mischaracterise or simply did not acknowledge. www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4II...

The Iranian Strikes the UAE Didn’t Want You To See | Photo Evidence

YouTube video by Daily Mail World

youtube.com

More than 3,500 deaths are confirmed since the earthquakes in Venezuela, the UN reports that the death toll could reach 10,000. Bellingcat has geolocated footage that appears to show several coffins placed in newly dug trenches. www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/07...

Between Graves and Uncertainty: The Management of the Dead After Venezuela's Earthquake - bellingcat

Videos, pictures and satellite imagery show the challenges facing Venezuela as it tries to get to grips with huge fatality numbers in the wake of last month's earthquakes.

bellingcat.com