In April, CNN journalists were led to the 'home' of Haitian gang lord Vitel’homme Innocent and interviewed him. He is on @FBIMostWanted's Top 10, with a bounty of up to $2 million.
I mapped their drive and found his home here: 18.5278, -72.2314. Here's how👇🧵
First, I did this because knowing the location of where a gang lord responsible for horrible violence is helpful, even if he might not be there after CNN visited. Vitel is the leader of Kraze Barye and is on the @FBIMostWanted list for taking hostages, and sanctioned by UN.
This is the footage I used to geolocate Vitel'Homme Innocent's house, where the interview was conducted. I'll go through some of the scenes to provide proofs of how I made the geographical matches, using Google Earth.
Source:
The first geolocation, and the easiest one thanks to the majestic mountain range surrounding Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, was at 01:04 of the video. We see a big wall, large factory roof, turn in the road, and a lovely mountain range. Location: 18.5447, -72.2359
The second geolocation was this brilliant little architectural oddity of the little street wall, that served its geolocatable purpose well.
The third and last on the route was the drive past this factory area, again we could see the mountain range in the background. But to narrow it down was this line of buildings and a little sand pile that was consistently present, even in past satellite imagery.
From studying the video quite closely, it's fairly clear that the roof would have been orange, given the colour in the video, and a lot of mansions have orange roofs in this area. The final area was just over 1.6km from the route videos, so it took a bit of scrolling to find.
Once finding the 'home' the CNN team met Vitel'homme Innocent at, it was fairly clear that was the location. Main giveaways were significant features such as the double triangle roof seen from the side, the entrance was at the end of the street, and construction next door.
One of the things that made this geolocation easier was a reference image I made of what the area would look like on a map, from what I could see in the footage. The image below shows just how much can be gleaned from footage alone, in comparison to the satellite image.
Wow this thread on geolocating a Haitian gang lord got a lot of traction.
Final note, this took me a few hours, and can be done by anyone willing to put in the time. If you want to learn how to do this type of research, I make free YouTube tutorials 👇 youtube.com/@bendobrown?si…
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I was recently on a flight across Australia when I spotted this massive figure on the ground. It led me on a digital journey to find out what it was, how it got there and who made it.
I'm going to explain a bit more about what it is in this thread, and how I found out. 👇🧵
Without internet on the plane, I made a screenshot on my phone of the location (yes it was on flight mode) and later used flight tracking to pinpoint exactly where I saw it.
Using @flightradar24, I traced the path my plane took and found the spot!
Next stop: @googleearth 🗺️
I zoomed into the area and there it was — this huge humanoid figure etched in the Australian outback. Measuring 2.7km tall and covering an area of more than 1.7 square kilometres, it's a sight to behold.
Despite our reporting last week on the fake network of pro-Trump MAGA accounts, there appears to be many more accounts actively posting the exact same content. This one, @brenda_otto_ with 18k+ followers, is stealing photos from an Australian Instagram model in Queensland.
Here's another fake MAGA account, @Tracy_Miller044, stealing images from a fashion blogger (a popular one too).
@Tracy_Miller044 - if you want to reach out and talk about your work, why you're running these campaigns etc, I'm open.
Here is @Sarah_Hickey__
Sarah is stealing the photos of a Czech Instagram influencer to create a persona claiming to be a MAGA republican conservative with 40k+ followers and a blue tick (which means it's apparently not misleading).
A network of fake accounts are posing as young American women, posting pro-Trump content and disinformation, but they’re hiding behind, and manipulating, the images of European fashion influencers.
Our latest investigation at @Cen4infoRes. Details in this thread 🧵👇
Our full analysis can be seen at @Cen4infoRes here: . We also collaborated with @CNN to dig out the human stories behind those who had their photos stolen
One of the accounts is Eva. She lives in the US, and likes hanging out at the beach and posting to her 5000+ followers on X. Eva posts strong opinions against LGBTQ people and the US Democratic party and is a loyal supporter of former US president Donald Trump.
Today US DoJ announced seizure of two domains and the search of 968 accounts on X used in a "Russian-government backed campaign" to spread disinformation.
Affidavit includes all of the accounts requested from X 👇
The DoJ announcement said the campaign used elements of AI to create fictitious social media profiles purporting to belong to individuals in the United States, which the operators then used to promote messages in support of Russian government objectives. justice.gov/opa/pr/justice…
The affidavit for the accounts on X shows that all of the accounts were registered to email addresses that were either using the domain 'otanmail' or 'mlrtr' justice.gov/d9/2024-07/aff…
A new coordinated network of fake accounts pretending to be ‘Real Sikhs’ is targeting activists, stoking tensions and promoting Indian Govt narratives.
Who are they, what do they post, and how do they spread their campaign? Report:
Let's take a look 👇🧵 info-res.org/post/return-of…
Before we start, it's important to note that this is not the first time we have exposed a network like this at @Cen4infoRes. In Nov 2021 we identified a similar network. But in the months after the accounts were removed, new accounts popped up.
In this new network, what we do know is the network of fake accounts posts content to undermine Sikh activists, stoke cultural tensions and promote Indian government narratives. But who are the accounts, and how are they posting so that we can catch future attempts?
Google Earth has updated the whole of Sudan's El Geneina to reveal the disturbing scale of damage which happened during a reported ethnic cleansing campaign over the past year by the RSF and allied militias. Images shows #elgeneina from 2022 & 2024. More in the thread below 👇
Looking at the destruction visible on Google Earth, it's clear there were large areas targeted in El Geneina's west and east. It's worth noting that some of the shaded areas in the east had remainders of where there was previous destruction from clashes prior to 2023.
The destruction can be clearly seen in this area on Google Earth, just west of the centre of Darfur's El Geneina. The comparison is of Oct 2022 and April 2024. This satellite imagery is just a visualisation of the horrors that were committed by the RSF in its campaign.