Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins, shown in 2018, began Bellingcat as a blog before soliciting citizen journalists to help with investigations. (more) Bellingcat journalism organization Written by Nick Tabor Nick Tabor is a freelance journalist and the author of Africatown: America's Last Slave Ship and the Community It Created. Nick Tabor Fact-checked by Britannica Editors Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree.... Britannica Editors Last updated Mar. 13, 2026 •History Bellingcat is a Netherlands-based journalism organization that specializes in open-source investigations. Though it started as a mostly volunteer operation, by the mid-2020s it had more than 30 staffers and has contributors in more than 20 countries. Much of its published work focuses on war crimes and human rights abuses. Several of its biggest scoops have been stories that implicate the Russian government in wrongdoing, including the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight 17 over Ukraine in...

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