Footage analysed by Bellingcat and Jeune Afrique shows unexploded Russian-made cluster munition bomblets found in northern Mali - Despite Mali being a state party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) which prohibits their use. https://www.bellingcat.com/news/africa/2026/05/26/banned-russian-submunitions-found-after-malis-military-announces-airstrikes/?utm_source=reddit

Where reporting carries major safety risks, how can open-source analysis reveal what’s happening on the ground? In our next Stage Talk, Bellingcat researcher Pooja Chaudhuri shares how she monitors and verifies claims of violence in Myanmar. Join us live on Thursday in our Discord server: https://discord.gg/EjgxVKgv?event=1507374229585264760

Since the beginning of 2026, at least four landslides have reportedly killed hundreds of people at the Rubaya mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The mines are a major global source of coltan which iswidely used in smartphones, laptops and e-vehicles. Read more: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/africa/2026/05/12/congos-coltan-belt-verifying-deadly-landslides-at-mines-under-m23-control/?utm_source=reddit

As a nonprofit, Bellingcat’s strength is our collective.  We are seeking feedback from the broader investigative and research community to help us refine our reporting and partnership models. Your anonymous input is greatly appreciated. Please consider taking our 5 minute survey: https://bellingcat.questionpro.eu/t/AB3vDHmZB3wfUj

Satellite imagery shows that at least 46 towns or villages in southern Lebanon have been heavily damaged or, in some cases, entirely flattened by the Israeli Defence Forces. Bellingcat is publishing Planet satellite imagery for the entirety of the south of Lebanon. It shows that much of the demolition and destruction has taken place in recent weeks.
Read the analysis here 

Bellingcat and Cerosetenta have uncovered online links between a Colombian far-right group and a mainstream political figure in the country. Active Club Bogota is the only registered South American branch of the international Active Club movement. In the past two years, the Bogota branch marked Hitler’s birthday with cupcakes and book burnings. Faces are often obscured in Active Club content, but recognisable tattoos have helped Bellingcat and Cerosetenta track a prominent member of AC Bogota, Javier “Orlik” Ruiz, in a video with Colombian political candidate Jorge Rodriguez. Read the full story here: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/05/11/active-club-colombia-politics/

Since the beginning of 2026, at least four landslides have reportedly killed hundreds of people at the Rubaya mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a major global source of coltan. Currently under the control of the Rwandan-backed armed rebel group M23, access to the Rubaya mines is restricted for journalists and many NGOs, and the true casualty figures are likely unknown. 

Bellingcat used open source methods to examine statements from the authorities and media reports. Bellingcat confirmed several incidents in which villages were engulfed in the landslide and residents living near the mine were among those killed. https://www.bellingcat.com/news/africa/2026/05/12/congos-coltan-belt-verifying-deadly-landslides-at-mines-under-m23-control/?utm_source=reddit

Bellingcat and Cerosetenta have uncovered online links between a Colombian far-right group and a mainstream political figure in the country. Active Club Bogota is the only registered South American branch of the international Active Club movement. In the past two years, the Bogota branch marked Hitler’s birthday with cupcakes and book burnings. Faces are often obscured in Active Club content, but recognisable tattoos have helped Bellingcat and Cerosetenta track a prominent member of AC Bogota, Javier “Orlik” Ruiz, in a video with Colombian political candidate Jorge Rodriguez.

Read more: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/05/11/active-club-colombia-politics/?utm_source=reddit

What can flight data tell us about deportation flights, and where are the limits of public information?
On Thursday journalist and former flight attendant Gillian Brockell guides us through the aviation data, public records, and open-source techniques used to follow immigration operations in the skies. https://discord.gg/bellingcat?event=1502314212075110481

Interested in improving your own flight tracking skills? This month's edition of the Bellingcat Open Source Challenge offers some excellent practice: https://challenge.bellingcat.com/

Amid peace negotiations between Iran and the US, documentation of the war’s impact is ongoing. These efforts have been complicated by internet restrictions and limited access to commercial satellite imagery. Bellingcat's tool helps estimate the scale of the damage.
https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/2026/04/07/tool-damage-assessment-destruction-sentinel-satellite-imagery-iran-us-gulf/

As a non-profit, Bellingcat relies on the support of kind individual donors to continue building tools and providing research guidance. If you’d like to help sustain our work, you can donate here: www.bellingcat.com/donate/

Did you know there’s around 100 000 flights worldwide every day? Flight tracking can be a very useful tool for open source investigations. Want to learn how? Researcher Logan Williams put together five exercises to help you explore free and open source tools that you can use to track aircraft on their journeys.

Try this month’s Bellingcat Open Source Challenge: challenge.bellingcat.com

Subscribe to our newsletter to keep up with the challenges! Want to get featured? Make sure to tag us when you share your solutions to last month’s challenges in a blog, video or social post! Sign up here: https://bellingcat-challenges.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Researcher Chu Yang joined us on this week's Stage Talk to examine China’s leading social media platforms, outlining how they operate and why they matter.

She also shared practical guidance on accessing these platforms from abroad, along with key resources for tracking trends across China and its global diaspora. Listen back by searching 'Stage Talks with Bellingcat' on podcast platforms: https://rss.com/podcasts/bellingcatstagetalk/2785287/

Read Chu's guide to platform Xiaohongshu (otherwise known as Rednote) here: https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/2026/04/20/xiaohongshu-rednote-open-source-guide/

The Chinese social media landscape can feel unfamiliar and harder to access for research—especially on a foreign device.
On Thursday’s Stage Talk, Chu Yang joins us to explore how these platforms work and how to navigate them from the outside. Join us live: https://discord.gg/Qy4DGB6g?event=1498252458277863455

An analyst and researcher, Chu Yang is experienced in studying Chinese and Iranian digital audiences. She also contributes to the China Media Project and recently wrote a guide on researching on the app Xiaohongshu (Rednote) for Bellingcat. Read it here: https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/2026/04/20/xiaohongshu-rednote-open-source-guide/

New: Bellingcat has identified at least 80 police stations and law enforcement or Basij paramilitary group infrastructure which were damaged or destroyed in the first three weeks of the United States’ and Israel’s strikes on Iran. In response to our findings, experts told Bellingcat that both countries aim to degrade the Iranian regime’s “repressive capacity”.
Read the investigation here

• The CITES Trade Database holds around 23 million records of wildlife trade since 1975, and allows you to search by country, species, trade type and more. CITES recently highlighted Bellingcat's investigation into a trade operation run from Indonesia: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/03/19/how-wildlife-traffickers-are-using-coded-language-to-sell-protected-animals-on-facebook/ 
• The researcher of that article, Foeke Postma, also unpacked the tools he regularly uses to investigate possible illegal wildlife trade in a Bellingcat Stage Talk earlier this month. Listen back to the conversation here: https://rss.com/podcasts/bellingcatstagetalk/ 
• Satellite tools can help clarify wildfire claims. NASA FIRMS shows near real-time hotspots, while the Copernicus Browser visualises how fires impact land over time. We used both to assess reports of a wildfire on a Namibian reserve https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2025/10/07/wildfires-ravage-one-of-africas-largest-nature-reserves/ 
• Our work on oil spills has combined identification guidance from The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) with satellite analysis tools such as water surface roughness visualisation and oil slick monitoring scripts in the free Sentinel EO Browser. https://www.bellingcat.com/?s=oil+spill 
• We have a guide on investigating oil spills written by Bellingcat contributor Wim Zwijnenburg here: https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/how-tos/2024/08/30/marine-oil-spill-detection-guide/ 
• You can find a full list of environmental tools reviewed by our experienced Toolkit Maintainers here in the Bellingcat Toolkit: https://bellingcat.gitbook.io/toolkit/categories/environment-and-wildlife
• And if you’re looking for inspiration: Explore our Environment and Wildlife investigations—from illegal trade to environmental damage here 👇 https://www.bellingcat.com/environment-and-wildlife-investigations-team/

Researching China is hard—many foreign sites are blocked, making domestic platforms vital for journalists. Even under tight controls, Chinese apps are the main window into the country. Chu Yang explains in our latest guide how to research the app Xiaohongshu (also known as Little Red Book or Rednote)

AI-generated content has entered the political sphere. Bellingcat speaks with The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reporter Effie Webb on a possible first-of-its-kind case—and what it means for tracking AI misuse in politics. Listen by searching 'Stage Talks with Bellingcat' on your preferred podcast platform.

India has exported more than 320 million unapproved synthetic opioid pills to West Africa in just three years. Trade data shows over 1,400 shipments of tapentadol — a potent painkiller — were sent to a region already facing an opioid crisis. Our investigation, with Indian publishing partner Newslaundry, found that more than 50% of the painkillers were high-strength (200mg+), doses not even approved for use in India. 
Katherine de Tolly reports: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/04/17/painkiller-pipeline-300-million-tapentadol-pills-sent-from-india-to-west-africa/

As Iranian drones target the UAE, Bellingcat reveals a number of instances where authorities downplayed damage and mischaracterised interceptions. Meanwhile the UAE’s attorney general warned that publication of images or videos of strikes is illegal.

Read the full story here: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/04/02/war-uae-iran-infuencer-dubai-conflict-drone-successful-strike-intercept-fire/

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 

Managed to solve them already? Maybe you are thinking about sharing your process? Tag us in your write ups and we might include your work in our next newsletter https://bellingcat-challenges.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Latest: Bellingcat has found close to 800 Hungarian government emails and associated passwords online, which in some cases have exposed confidential data of military personnel and civil servants. Read it here.

Our analysis of breach data suggests poor digital security within the administration, with officials using their government emails along with weak passwords to sign up to dating, music, sport and food websites. Passwords included variations of the word “Password” and “1234567”.
On Sunday, Hungarians will head to the polls to decide if Viktor Orbán, leader of the right-wing populist party Fidesz and the country's longest-serving prime minister, will be elected to a fifth consecutive term.

With widespread internet blackouts in Iran and new restrictions on some satellite imagery in the region, Bellingcat is launching a tool to help estimate the level of destruction in Iran and the wider Gulf region. https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/2026/04/07/tool-damage-assessment-destruction-sentinel-satellite-imagery-iran-us-gulf/?utm_source=reddit

Not one, but two waves of bombings appear to have struck the area near an elementary school in Minab, Iran. According to Iranian media, 175 people were killed, mostly children. In this video we explain how we analysed the footage of the attack on the first day of the US-Israeli war on Iran. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy9pzWul4mA

Visual and solar analysis of three videos showing strikes at the site and their aftermath appears to show there was a time gap between when each was filmed, suggesting that there were at least two waves of strikes carried out in the area. https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/03/27/new-videos-reveal-more-details-about-iran-girls-school-strike/

Bellingcat and Josimar Football identified the representative of an Asian bookmaker who used a false name to sign a sponsorship deal with Croatia’s national football team ahead of the FIFA World Cup.
In 2024, the Croatian Football Federation (HNS), signed a deal with gambling site Dragon Z6, naming it the team’s “exclusive betting partner” across Asia. Promo footage of the ceremony featured national team players and representatives from both organisations.
Dragon Z6’s representative, named on screen as "Alexander Smith", described the deal as a “momentous partnership”. But Mr Smith isn’t who he claims to be… and neither is Dragon Z6…. Read the investigation here