Bellingcat

Bellingcat has identified several high-profile incidents where authorities in the United Arab Emirates have downplayed damage, mischaracterised interceptions and in some instances not acknowledged successful Iranian drone strikes on the country. A review of official statements shows that the public account does not always align with what can be observed through open sources. This comes as the UAE faces sustained aerial attacks on civilian and economic infrastructure, challenging its image as

This article is the result of a collaboration with Josimar. You can find Josimar’s corresponding piece here. Dragon Z6 said it became the Croatian national team’s “official sponsor” in May 2024. A European academic used a false name to represent an opaque Asian-facing bookmaker that is sponsoring Croatia’s national football team in the run up to the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Croatia’s national governing body of football, the Croatian Football Federation (HNS), struck the deal to make ga

This article is the result of a collaboration with Josimar. You can find Josimar’s corresponding piece here. Dragon Z6 said it became the Croatian national team’s “official sponsor” in May 2024. A European academic used a false name to represent an opaque Asian-facing bookmaker that is sponsoring Croatia’s national football team in the run up to the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Croatia’s national governing body of football, the Croatian Football Federation (HNS), struck the deal to make ga

The video posted by a state branch of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) showed Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma shooting an image of two men in Muslim skull caps. “Foreigner-free Assam”, read one caption across the video. “Why did you not go to Pakistan?” said another.  Screenshots of the now-deleted video shared by BJP on Feb. 7 showing Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma shooting an AI-generated version of INC leader Gaurav Gogoi (in a white skull cap) and anothe

Since launching the military campaign against Iran on Feb. 28, the US and Israel have dropped thousands of bombs on the country. Videos of explosions have become a source of misinformation and misunderstanding, with many of the strikes incorrectly attributed to a particular munition and many explosive effects – seen in footage and images falsely attributed to “mystery” or illegal weapons. https://www.bellingcat.com/app/uploads/2026/03/hIGA1hZhYxqJIIOG.mp4 The archived video from the p

Bellingcat has geolocated and verified two new videos showing the deadly strikes that hit an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) compound, as well as an adjacent school, in the city of Minab in late February. The new videos were released by Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and show multiple missiles hitting the complex.  One of the new videos shows the area around the school being struck, while the other shows a nearby IRGC clinic and two buildings within the IRGC facility bein

The US appears to have deployed the Gator Scatterable Mine system over Kafari, a village near Shiraz, in southern Iran overnight. Several people were killed according to Iranian media.  Three experts told Bellingcat the munitions appeared to be air-delivered US-made Gator anti-tank mines.  The US is the only participant in the Iran war known to possess Gator Scatterable Mines.  Bellingcat asked the US Department of Defense whether it had dropped the mines overnight, but d

Munition remnants pictured at the site of a strike that killed at least 17 people in the town of Tiné, Chad, last week appear to match a weapon previously used by Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the war with Sudanese government forces – despite RSF denials of involvement in the incident. Photographs showed what appeared to be a match for the rear control section of a Chinese-made GB25A or GB50A bomb, which can be dropped by Chinese-made drones. Amnesty International previously identifie

A Bellingcat investigation has identified nine Facebook groups with a combined membership of more than 70,000 people, in which coded language has helped illegal wildlife dealers evade bans on the platform for years. Facebook says it prohibits any form of animal trading on its platform. Investigating the operators behind all nine groups, Bellingcat identified six Facebook profiles that led back to a single broker in Jakarta, Indonesia. This investigation was carried out in partnership with Mon

This investigation is part of a collaboration between Bellingcat, Evident Media and CalMatters. You can watch Evident’s investigative video here, and read CalMatters’ report here. In early January 2025, a gardener named Ernesto Campos was pulled over by Border Patrol agents in the city of Bakersfield, California.  The agents were a long way from home: Bakersfield is over 240 miles (386km) from the US border with Mexico. They were there as part of Operation Return to Sen

This article is the result of a collaboration with The Sunday Times. You can find their corresponding piece here. Mounir Lazzez, a former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) athlete, sitting with Daniel Kinahan (left) and pictured in front of Christy Kinahan (right). Exposure and brightness have been increased in the second screenshot. Source: WeCaptureYou Bellingcat and The Sunday Times last week published photographs showing ex-UFC fighter Mounir “The Sniper” Lazzez with

The Netherlands’ largest newspaper, De Telegraaf, recently published an interview with a woman claiming to organise her own evacuation flights from Dubai, selling seats at €1,600 (US$ 1850) each. Four days later, her photo was removed from the article, though the interview remained. Bellingcat has found that the original image not only includes artefacts commonly associated with generative AI, but that the flights referenced in the article do not appear to exist. Subscribe to the Bellingc

To stay up to date on our latest investigations, join Bellingcat’s WhatsApp channel here. Bellingcat has geolocated footage of multiple Tomahawk cruise missiles travelling through Iraqi airspace towards Iran, either in violation of its airspace or with Iraq’s consent. Bellingcat identified at least 20 individual cruise missiles and geolocated them over Iraqi Kurdistan including alongside Mount Piramagrun, in the Zagros Mountain range, and approximately 50 km southeast of the city of Kirkuk

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 footage, released by Mehr News and geolocated by Bellingcat, also shows smoke already rising from the vicinity of the girls’ school where 175 people were reportedly killed, including children. New video footage shows a US Tomahawk missile hitting an IRGC facility in Minab, Iran, on Feb 28, showing

This article is the result of a collaboration with The Sunday Times. You can find their corresponding piece here. Daniel and Christy Kinahan at a Dubai sports arena last June. Source: WeCaptureYou, TrillerTV Kinahan cartel leaders Daniel and Christy Kinahan have been photographed in Dubai, marking the most recent sighting of the wanted crime bosses since the US government put multi-million dollar bounties on their heads. The footage was captured just weeks after Kinahan cartel lieutenan

The Israeli Air Force (IAF) has dropped 5,000 bombs on Iran since the United States and Israel launched an attack last week, according to a statement by the IAF on March 4. Bellingcat has monitored weapons used in the first few days of the war, and strikes across the region, including those that caused civilian harm. Some weapons, such as the US Precision Strike Missile, have seen their first use in combat. A variant of the Tomahawk missile, previously unknown to the public, was also used.

Flight tracking data is an important tool in open source research, but with 100,000 daily flights, it can be difficult to contextualise what a particular aircraft’s movements indicate.  Bellingcat has developed a tool called Turnstone to make it easier to visualise historical trends in flight data and spot unusual patterns. It also allows users to filter by parameters such as aircraft type or a geographic region of interest.  Source: ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect; ove

US President Donald Trump said on January 2 that the US was “locked and loaded and ready to go”. Trump was talking aloud about intervening in Iran if it continued a violent crackdown on demonstrators who had taken to the streets over spiralling inflation and ongoing repression.  Thousands of Iranian’s were reported to have been killed by state security forces in just under a month. According to Amnesty International, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Basij plainclothes mi