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Oct 1, 2020 6 tweets 1 min read Read on X
Quitobaquito Springs, a Sonoran desert oasis that supports several
endangered species, is dramatically losing water.

But who, or what, is to blame? bellingcat.com/resources/2020…
Environmental advocates and the Tohono O’odham Nation are sure that construction of
President Trump’s border wall, which is happening close to the springs, is strongly linked to the fall in water levels. Yet federal agencies say otherwise.
In this piece, Bellingcat's Tech Team was able to show that the loss of water is without recent precedent by analysing Sentinel-2 imagery and climatological data.
The analysis raises questions for those involved in border wall construction.

It is precisely because the changes at Quitobaquito are happening so rapidly that conservation advocates are so concerned.
The Quitobaquito Pupfish and Sonoyta mud turtle, which are protected under the US Endangered Species Act, depend on the springs. So too do desert mammals and millions of migratory birds that travel the North American Flyway.
Read the full piece here: bellingcat.com/resources/2020…

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More from @bellingcat

Jan 28
Patrizia Schlosser discovered more than 30 images of herself online, pictured naked and in chains. But the imagery was all faked. Bellingcat, with STRG_F, investigate the AI porn website disseminating this material, MrDeepfakes. bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…
Non-consensual deepfakes are when someone uses AI to create sexually explicit images and videos of someone else without their permission. Celebrities are often targeted, but the tech can be used on anyone, creating convincing pornographic content with a single photo.
The most notorious marketplace MrDeepFakes hosts tens of thousands of videos and images, has more than 640,000 members, and receives millions of visits a month. The explicit content on MrDeepFakes has been viewed almost 2 billion times according to STRG_F analysis. Total number of videos uploaded to MrDeepFakes between February 2018 and December 2024. Source: STRG_F. Graph created with flourish.studio.
Read 18 tweets
Jan 20
Adverts selling an opioid up to 500 times stronger than heroin are all over the internet, from social media platforms to trade sites. Bellingcat and partner @postimees investigate how this deadly drug is infiltrating Europe and beyond… bellingcat.com/news/2025/01/2…
Nitazenes were originally developed as a painkiller in the 1950s but never made it to market because even trace quantities can cause an overdose. The super-strength opioid has already caused hundreds of deaths in Europe, the UK and North America.
This powerful drug is now reemerging in underground drug markets, finding its way into counterfeit prescription medicines and famed street drugs like cocaine, heroin and ketamine.
Read 17 tweets
Jan 10
Satellite Imagery is used extensively in open-source investigative research, in this guide tech-fellow @agnesfcameron explains how some satellite images reveal more than the eye can see. bellingcat.com/resources/2025…
In satellite imaging, images that use types of light we cannot normally see are known as multispectral images. In the example below, a river that is barely visible with a regular camera due to hazy conditions (left) can be clearly seen when captured using infrared light (right). ALT:  The left image shows a true colour satellite image, the right image shows the same area in false colour imagery and shows the river in higher contrast. Volkan_Yuksel, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
An image that reflects how the human eye naturally sees things is known as a “true colour image”, consisting of three bands (or ranges) of visible light – red, green and blue – that can combine to make up any colour.
Read 16 tweets
Dec 18, 2024
Ukraine says it is outraged by the continued export of grain by a Russian-flagged vessel from a sanctioned port in occupied Crimea to Houthi-controlled Yemen. Bellingcat and @LloydsList investigate: bellingcat.com/news/2024/12/1…
What Ukraine describes as “grain theft” via occupied ports and territories has become a common occurrence since the onset of Russia’s full invasion, with dozens of ships ferrying grain from occupied ports to the likes of Syria, Iran and other destinations.
In this instance, the ship, Zafar, loaded grain at the Port of Sevastopol in early October and arrived in Yemen in mid-November. It masked its presence in Sevastopol by switching off its Automated Identification System (AIS), and was only known to have been there because it was spotted in satellite imagery.
Read 12 tweets
Dec 9, 2024
Former Syrian President Bashar Al Assad ruled ruthlessly for over two decades. With the help of Russian and Iranian forces, he also carried out some of the most vicious acts of the country’s 13-year civil war, from chemical attacks to the bombing of hospitals 🧵
In this collaboration with @ForensicArchi, we showed that the M2 Hospital in Aleppo was struck 14 times by the Syrian Army or its allies between June and September 2016 forensic-architecture.org/investigation/…
Bellingcat was also able to cast significant doubt on Russian claims that another hospital in Allepo, known as M10, was not attacked that same year: bellingcat.com/news/mena/2016…
Read 14 tweets
Dec 7, 2024
Last month a visit from Israeli football club Maccabi in Amsterdam resulted in violence erupting throughout the city. To gain a better understanding of the events, we worked with Dutch newspaper @trouw to analyse videos that circulated online. trouw.nl/binnenland/wat…
Early signs of clashes began prior to kick off with reports and videos emerging of Maccabi fans tearing a Palestinian flag off a building in Amsterdam and chanting anti-Arab slogans on their way to the stadium amongst other incidents.
Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema claimed there were 'hit-and-run actions' on a large scale, during and after the game, targeting Israelis in the city. In total, we were able to locate eighteen violent attacks on Maccabi supporters. We geolocated this video of men kicking what appears to be a Maccabi fan on the ground using lines and textures in the road and visible cars in the proximity.
We geolocated this video of men kicking what appears to be a Maccabi fan on the ground using lines and textures in the road and visible cars in the proximity.
Read 6 tweets

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