Imagine a gang of mice joining together and putting a bell around the neck of a harmless cat for the common good: I am “Bellingcat”, an investigative media like no other.
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I claim to be “like Vladimir Putin’s worst nightmare”, leader of a new journalism based on data analysis. Founded in 2014 by Eliot Higgins, a British citizen from the English countryside, with his university professor look, velvet jackets and small rectangular glasses. Today he must be very careful. When he travels, he locks his underpants in a trunk so as not to be poisoned by his underwear like Alexei Navalny.
And for good reason: I am at the origin of the revelations on the role of Russian intelligence in the poisoning of this opponent of the regime. A few years ago the mainstream media didn’t take me too seriously, I became the bogeyman of authoritarian regimes, and I trained thousands of people and hundreds of journalists around the world at Osint, l ‘Open source intelligence, digital resources accessible to everyone on the Internet, such as unprotected personal data, geolocations… Or how to trap Russian spies thanks to their pizza orders.
Interested in building digital investigation tools? Join us for Bellingcat’s 2nd Hackathon between Sep 23 and 25 for a chance to network, learn, build and showcase your ideas. More information https://t.co/unU8v8O3aC
— Bellingcat (@bellingcat) September 9, 2022
My art is to find the right information to analyze it correctly. For example on the responsibility of Russia in the crash of MH17…in the middle of a conflict zone between Ukrainians and pro-Russian separatists. In 2014, I dissected a video posted on social networks: a static shot, a tree-lined road and a missile-launching tank. With all this data checked, analyzed, cross-referenced, I managed to demonstrate that it was indeed the pro-Russian separatists who were behind the shooting. This is my first scoop, the first of a long series
With my thirty employees and about fifty collaborators around the world, I index evidence of war crimes. The date, time, location of the abuses… My hope is that one day this data will be used in the context of a trial for war crimes or crimes against humanity, to put technology and its indisputable digital evidence at the service of the common good.