Aircraft tracking has become a powerful tool for journalism. In our Stage Talks podcast, @gillianbrockell.com demonstrates how flight data and open tools can be used to trace government flights, identify ICE aircraft, and verify aviation activity. Listen: rss.com/podcasts/bellingcatstagetalk/2829188

Deep in the Amazon, along Peru-Brazil border, lies proposed Yavarí-Tapiche Corridor: 16 million hectares of intact forest sheltering world's highest concentration of Indigenous peoples living in isolation. But threats (oil/gas, mining/logging, highways, narcos) are closing in, new report shows.

On Earth Day: environmental investigations can be tough and take time, skills and persistence —but they are possible, and they matter. Here are some tools and resources our team has used in investigations to track wildlife trade, wildfires, and oil spills… 🧵

Breaking: Kinahan cartel leader Daniel Kinahan has been arrested in Dubai. It follows a Bellingcat investigation last month that traced him to an MMA event in Dubai - providing the first proof that the cartel's leadership was still in hiding in the UAE. www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/03...

a significant amount of destruction in Meiss el Jabal in South Lebanon between Feb 28 and Apr 14

it is not inevitable or even likely that social media, as we know it, will exist for the rest of our lives. future generations will look much more harshly on this stuff than we do smoking.

How did Magyar win? A long running grassroots campaign in rural and small town Hungary; a refusal to be distracted by government propaganda; a focus on economic issues and corruption; a central promise to bring back democracy and the rule of law

Looking to develop your investigative skills? Our latest challenges focus exclusively on audio analysis, without visual cues—an increasingly relevant skill in the context of AI-generated audio. Explore the exercises here: challenge.bellingcat.com

With widespread internet blackouts in Iran and new restrictions on certain satellite imagery of the region at the request of the US government, Bellingcat is launching a tool to help estimate the damage in Iran and the wider Gulf region. www.bellingcat.com/resources/20...

These are the Twitter/X accounts with the most engagement so far in 2026. I suppose I had some intuition for how bad it was, but jeez, this is what you get when the ecosystem is broken. Original post

Not great the amount of news organizations that appear to do basically no confirmation on their own before sharing out a story based on a tweet from the Nazi site!

What work goes into tracking the traffickers? Join us live on Thursday at 11am EDT/5pm CEST as we speak to @foeke.bsky.social , the Bellingcat researcher behind this investigation into the illegal wildlife trade on Facebook. Ask your questions by joining the event here: discord.gg/VjQq4VhH?eve...

The US appears to have deployed the Gator Scatterable Mine system over Kafari, a village near Shiraz, in southern Iran overnight. At least two people were killed according to local reports. www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/03...

Munition remnants from a strike that killed 17 people in Tiné, Chad, on Wednesday, appear to match a model previously used by Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the war with Sudanese government forces – despite RSF denials of involvement in the incident.

classic

Eerste en belangrijke take away van de verkiezingsuitslagen, door oa @sldelange.bsky.social en @mrooduijn.bsky.social stukroodvlees.nl/de-groei-van...

Wildlife traffickers selling protected animals on Facebook use coded language to evade moderation. Research by Bellingcat and @mongabay.com has identified nine groups, with more than 70,000 members combined, leading back to six profiles and one broker in Indonesia. www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/03...

Since Feb. 28, at least 16 merchant vessels have been attacked in the Strait of Hormuz and its adjoining waters (Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman), killing 8 seafarers, with one still missing. w/ @BlackiLi and Lazaro Gamio. nytimes.com/interactive/...

During the covid-crisis, that same 'long used' source told De Telegraaf he sold millions of masks to companies. All anonymous companies, though. 🤷‍♂️ www.telegraaf.nl/nieuws/aan-c...

Ironically, the article is written by a guy with the most Frisian name since Rintje Ritsma.

New, from me:

De Telegraaf, the Netherlands’ largest newspaper, recently published an interview with a woman promoting €1,600 seats on private evacuation flights from Dubai. Bellingcat found that her image was likely AI-generated, and flight data suggests no such plane took off. www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/03...

New article - Iran's explosive uncrewed surface vessels (USVs) which are hitting tankers in the Persian Gulf -> www.hisutton.com/IRGC-USV.html

New video footage shows a US Tomahawk missile hitting an IRGC facility in Minab, Iran, on Feb 28, showing for the first time that the US struck the area. The footage also shows smoke already rising from the vicinity of the girls’ school, where 175 people were reportedly killed, including children.

Two of the world's most wanted men, Daniel and Christy Kinahan, were photographed at an MMA event, Bellingcat and @thetimes.com found — their most recent sighting since the US issued multi-million dollar bounties. www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/03...

A satellite imagery analysis conducted by Bellingcat shows that at least 15 police stations or police-related buildings were targeted in strikes conducted in Tehran between March 1 and March 3. www.bellingcat.com/news/middle-...

Israel used 2,000+ bombs in the first 30 hours of the Iran war; the US struck 1,000+ targets in the first 24 hours. Iran responded with at least 390 missiles and 830 drones in the first two days. Bellingcat has tracked the munitions used by all sides so far: www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/03...

Trying to make sense of an aircraft’s movements during a conflict? Context is everything. That’s why we built Turnstone, an open source tool that searches historical flight data to allow researchers to explore flight patterns over time and in specific locations. www.bellingcat.com/resources/20...

An older trailer model of the Belgian transport company Van de Poel was used to hide Iranian missile launchers in Iraq.

Latest photos of the sanctioned Russian LNG tanker Arctic Metagaz in Mediterranean, after being hit by USVs (surface drones). Still floating but a complete loss for Russia.

I've never seen anything like this before. There are currently at least 14 (fourteen!) KC-135R Stratotankers on their way to the Middle East. Inbound from bases across the United States. They're used to refuel other aircraft in the air.

This tweet preceeds and anticipates deaths in Operation Epic Fury by almost 15 years

scrawny 18-year-old about to fall out of an army helicopter over tehran: this is so epic. this is totally sigma, right babe? AI e-girl operated by a balding intelligence officer in virginia: that's right baby, Iran is totally cringe

Why do I have to pretend that I'm going to print something in order to save it as a PDF. Why do I have to engage in a little ruse.

An underground site is using facial recognition to unmask camgirls. Claims to have a database of more than 2 billion faces from 7 million people. Verified it works. Upload photo, shows other sites they stream on. Could be used with social media photos to find them www.404media.co/underground-...

Tonight at 7:00 PM EST I'll be playing DOOM 3 for charity on my Twitch channel! All proceeds go to @sickkidsvs.bsky.social to fund operations at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children. Drop by, hang out in the chat, and please consider donating to this great cause! www.twitch.tv/gianfiorel

Since we reached out to X about Grok attempting to unredact photos of Epstein victims upon X users’ requests, we’ve noticed Grok now refusing to unredact new requests. Bellingcat researcher @koltai.bsky.social reports: www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/02...

This AJ article is wrong about explosions and explosives in several fundamental ways. This "phenomenon" the article mentions is due to the shock wave caused by the explosions, not due to the heat generated. www.aljazeera.com/features/202...

*need*

I find it somewhat crazy that humanity's ability to create good RTS games peaked between 1998-2004 and since then has become a lost technology we cannot hope as a culture to recover. I'm not sure what that says about our civilisation, but I doubt it's good.

Wowsers look at what happened to posts on Twitter/X about London crime after monetisation of posts was introduced… economist.com/britain/2026...

Bellingcat has further analysed videos of the shooting of Alex Pretti by federal agents. The footage shows an agent wearing a black beanie step behind Pretti. His right arm then appears to recoil at the same time the first shot is heard.

Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse was shot and killed by federal agents in Minneapolis, on January 24. DHS claims he died after an armed struggle, but videos of the incident appears to contradict that claim. Read our analysis here: www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/01...

Moments before the first shot is fired, this federal agent can be seen retreating with a gun. It appears to match the general appearance of the firearm posted by DHS, including the red dot sight. This agent’s back is turned when the first shot occurs. x.com/BillMelugin_...

Footage taken moments before a struggle shows that the man was filming, holding a phone in his right hand, backing up. His left hand is up, visible, palm facing out, as he backs away from the area. An agent uses his right hand, on the torso of the victim, pushing him back, while the man complies.

That's just a bug in Google reverse image search. bsky.app/profile/elio...

One of the Bellingcat Discord members has made Wordle, but for identifying warships keel-fawn.vercel.app

Thousands of Chinese Fishing Boats Quietly Form Vast Sea Barriers www.nytimes.com/interactive/...