The vast majority of people who own properties are not engaged in any misconduct or possible criminal behavior. But land deals or real estate purchases made with inexplicable funding sources can be a telltale sign of corruption.
Bellingcat’s Foeke Postma offers tips and tools for using new technology and online resources to investigate old photographs.
In interviews over the past year, dozens of leading journalists have told me about the scores of tools and techniques that proved helpful in their investigations. But, again and again, these top muckrakers point to about a dozen tactics that they rely on all the time. We share those favorite techniques in this roundup.
When Washington, DC-based journalist Scilla Alecci began investigating a story that would later become part of the Implant Files, she hit a brick wall: Hospitals in India wouldn’t answer her phone calls. So she took the advice of an Indian colleague and booked a flight over. Together, they started knocking on doors all over the country, leading them to unexpected discoveries.
At First Draft, we frequently receive emails from a whole range of people asking how they can start doing the sort of online open-source investigation and verification that they’ve seen us doing. The skills and methodologies used are all something that can be learnt through a little persistence, but here are a few pieces of advice to get you started.
About a third of all countries in the world now require officials to publicly disclose their assets. Institutions like the World Bank and the OECD see this as a good thing. Asset declarations, they say, are crucial tools for fighting corruption and holding officials accountable. As an investigative journalist in the Philippines, I found asset statements vital to digging into conflicts of interest and the illegal accumulation of wealth by those in public office. But pushback on official disclosures is coming from an unlikely quarter.
