Floodwaters continue to rise in Russia’s Orenburg Region after dams burst along the River Ural earlier this week. According to the region’s governor, the water levels in its capital city Orenburg have risen to more than ten metres. The region’s second largest city of Orsk has been particularly badly struck by the floods. A small number of residents took to the streets on Monday in a rare protest against the government. They demanded compensation, accusing authorities of mishandling the evacuation of residents and disputing officials’ claims that residents were notified of the situation before ..read more

On Monday, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a date had been set for a large-scale Israeli military offensive in Rafah, a city in the far south of the Gaza Strip.  This is despite the fact that approximately 1.5 million people are now sheltering in Rafah, having relocated there following previous orders to evacuate the North of Gaza.   Israel’s top military spokesman Daniel Hagari has said Israel has plans to evacuate Rafah, of which US officials have said they are sceptical. US President Joe Biden has urged Israel against the offensive. This comes two and a ..read more

Last week, Bellingcat and the Sunday Times reported that wanted cartel boss Christopher Kinahan Sr. had exposed his movements and whereabouts by posting Google reviews for a variety of restaurants, hotels and other expensive establishments using his alias “Christopher Vincent”. The “Dapper Don” detailed trips to Zimbabwe, South Africa, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, the Netherlands and Egypt. However, there appeared to be no reviews for trips outside of his base in the United Arab Emirates since the US Treasury announced a collective $15 million bounty for information leading to the financial disrup ..read more

Seven aid workers were killed when their convoy was hit by an Israeli airstrike overnight, as it was leaving their Deir al-Balah warehouse, amid ongoing operations delivering aid supplies inside Gaza. The food charity World Central Kitchen (WCK) said they had coordinated the convoy’s movements with the Israel Defense Forces. In response to the strike, the IDF stated that it “is conducting a thorough review at the highest levels to understand the circumstances of this tragic incident.”  Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday the aid workers were killed in an “unintended ..read more

One of the world’s most wanted men, a notorious narco kingpin whose gang is implicated in multiple murders, has left a trail of Google reviews providing valuable new insights into his movements and whereabouts over the past five years. Christopher Kinahan Sr is the head of the notorious Kinahan Organised Crime Group, which originated in Ireland and is otherwise known as the Kinahan Cartel. Irish police believe the gang has amassed profits of over $1 billion through the trade of illegal narcotics, arms trafficking and money laundering over the years. The US Government is currently offering a co ..read more

In February 2024, American anti-government agitator Ammon Bundy posted a video with a provocative title to his YouTube channel: ‘Want to know where Ammon Bundy is?’  Earlier in 2023, Bundy was ordered by an Idaho court to pay more than US$50 million in damages after accusing the state’s largest hospital of child trafficking and leading a campaign of harassment against its staff. A few months later, in November 2023, a warrant was issued for Bundy’s arrest by an Idaho judge.  He promptly went into hiding with his whereabouts not publicly known — until now.  Whether he meant to o ..read more

When investigating a website, app, or online shop, one of the key questions you may need to answer is ‘How are they making money?’  Investigating the financial transactions of an organisation can reveal details about its connections and funding. Furthermore, if the website or app is engaged in illicit transactions, tracing the payment gateway can help achieve accountability by identifying what sites they are using to earn money.   Bellingcat has looked into the payment processors in previous investigations on far-right merchandise, Britain’s far-right influencers, and non-consensual ..read more

When white nationalists met up in a small town in north Texas to take part in yet another fight night event, we set about locating where it took place. Billed as the third in a series dating back to 2022, the event was hosted by white nationalist group Patriot Front. Last year, Bellingcat geolocated an event to a gym space in the Los Angeles metropolitan area.  On March 8, 2024, a Telegram channel associated with US far-right extremist Robert Rundo posted eight photos of the combat sports event (Bellingcat is not naming the outlet to avoid amplification). The outlet promised that a promot ..read more

Bellingcat has also published a repository of open source notebooks which you can find on our GitHub here The number of open source tools out there is growing rapidly, but technical bars to entry mean they remain inaccessible to many researchers. GitHub, a platform where developers share and discuss their code, is home to many of these tools. Searching the website for open source investigation tools can appear daunting to the uninitiated — there are more than six thousand results. Beyond this, many more of the platform’s over 300 million other projects, from social media scrapers to AI models ..read more

Bellingcat has uncovered images and videos showing men blindfolded and bound, draped in the Israeli flag and in one case the flag bearing the logo of Hasidic Jewish movement Chabad-Lubavitch. In another case, a soldier appears to throw US money at a detainee. The images uncovered violate the obligations of detaining powers to ensure those detained are treated humanely and are likely unlawful under international humanitarian law, Queen’s University Belfast Law Professor Luke Moffett told Bellingcat. The Israeli military says several cases involving soldiers’ treatment of detainees have been pl ..read more