You're listening to a stage talk titled Tracing
a Drug Cartel. This week we were joined by The
Sunday Times crime, terrorism and national security
reporter John Mooney and Bellingcat's financial
researcher Connor Plunkett. They spoke about
the considerations you need to make when reporting
on big -scale crime operations, and how they
found a hidden side to one of Ireland's most
notorious cartel bosses. This talk was hosted
by me, Charlotte Mar, on Thursday the 24th of
April, 2025, in the Bellingcat Discord server.
Thanks so much for coming. Thank you very much
for joining us. I'm going to turn on my camera
quickly. We're currently just waiting for John
to jump in. But in the meantime, I just wanted
to introduce Connor and the subject of our talk
today. So welcome to this week's stage talk.
When you think of crime reporting, you might
be picturing undercover reporters, dodgy former
criminals as sources and an unlucky journalist
doggedly following the death and destruction
that's often left behind in a major criminal's
wake. But can you report on criminal groups without
any of these old tropes? What does reporting
on cartels look like when you're only using what
you can find on the internet? What traces do
these groups leave? Well, today's speakers will
hopefully enlighten us a little on this subject.
We're joined by my colleague, Bellingcat's Conor
Plunkett, and hopefully, in a couple of minutes,
we'll also be joined by The Sundae Hounds' John
Mooney. Both have worked together following the
Kinahan Cartel and the suspected associates.
The Kinahan Cartel are a criminal gang that is
suspected to have amassed profits of over $1
billion through the trade of illegal narcotics,
arms trafficking, and money laundering over the
years. As I pass over to Connor and hopefully
later John to tell us more, a short reminder,
if you'd like to ask a question, please do so
in the chat as we talk. You can see it, the little
speech bubble in the corner of your screen. And
please note that this is being audio recorded.
So if you do not want me to read out your Discord
username, please note that within your question.
So I avoid doing that. Okay, Conor, I will pass
over to you in the meantime to tell us a little
bit more about the work that you've been up to.
Thanks very much, Charlie. Yeah, I just want
to say I'm delighted to be here. Before I was
working at Bellingcat, I was an occasional poster
on the Discord myself. I definitely learned a
lot from the Discord community. So it's a privilege
to be here talking to you all today. I'm a bit
nervous, but yeah, it's great to be here. So
anyway, I just thought I'd start by just giving
you a little bit of background on the Kinehan
Cartel and who Christie Kinehan is just for people
who maybe aren't as familiar. So yeah, the Kinehan
Cartel, they're a major Irish transnational organized
crime group. It was founded by Christie Kinehan
in the nineties. So he's in his mid sixties now,
I believe. And it's now run from Dubai by Christie
and his two sons, Daniel and Christopher Jr.
So in 2022, Christie and his two sons were sanctioned
by the US government and the government put a
combined $15 million price for information leading
to their arrest or financial disruption. So yeah,
ever since then, you know, they've kind of gone
to ground in a lot of ways. Because previously
to that, Christie's son Daniel was involved pretty
big time in the professional boxing world. So
anyone who's into boxing might have heard of
MTK Global. And I see John's here now. So I was
originally going to let John talk about the Kinnins
background because he's been covering this for
decades. So I might pass it over to him now,
John. John, can you hear me? I can hear you fine,
Connor. Okay, brilliant. Great to have you here.
Yeah. So I just was going to pass it over to
you just to explain a little bit on the background
of the Kinnins. So thanks very much to Bellingcat
for offering me the opportunity to speak about
this. I feel very old when Connor says that I've
been reporting on these for decades. Unfortunately,
it has been decades, but I'll give everyone a
quick synopsis of this particular organized crime
group. So Christopher Kinnahan is a very intelligent
and highly entrepreneurial drug dealer. who emerged
from the Irish underworld in the early 1980s.
He came from a middle -class background. He'd
be a relatively well -educated man and he would
be also highly intelligent. These are character
traits that became very obvious to anyone who
encountered him back then. So he started out
his criminal career involved in fraud and quickly
moved into drug trafficking. In the course of
the following decade, he became a very significant
drug dealer in the Dublin area and was imprisoned
on two separate occasions, one for a type of
very sophisticated fraud and the other one for
drug dealing. On his release from prison in the
early 90s, He was a man who had used his time
in prison well. He'd studied, he had obtained
a degree and actually declined to leave prison
early, although when he was nearing the completion
of his sentence, on the basis that he wanted
to finish his studies. He then became what could
be best described as a criminal drug trafficker
par excellence. insofar that he started making
connections with big drug trafficking syndicates
from around the world. He traveled extensively
across Europe. He traveled into Central Asia,
into the Americas as well, and forged connections
with cartels, criminals across Europe, and he
became a logistics expert. In the process of
all of this, he also became a multi multi -millionaire.
He became man that now has amassed a fortune
put in the region of 1 .5 billion. So he is the
figurehead of this criminal organization. Its
tentacles now stretch across the world. He is
very unusual in the criminal underworld in so
far that they're not just drug traffickers anymore.
They really are, they're experts at moving product
across the world. They also have forged connections
in with hostile states like Iran and Russia.
And indeed he is very much involved with intelligence
services. that would be involved in the various
activities across Europe. So the cartel is many
things to many men. It's a very organized kind
of structure, hierarchical structure. He's been
joined by his two sons, which is Christopher
Jr. and Daniel Kinnigan. They have many different
types of businesses. Some of these are legitimate
and some of these are criminal in nature. And
they are amongst now the top drug traffickers
in the world. If you speak to an academic, they
may describe them as a hybrid organization. They
have the character traits of a terrorist group,
but they have the outlook of criminals. They're
also involved in legitimate industry. So they're
fingers in many, many pies. They are wanted men
by various governments across the world, but
they live very openly in Dubai and so do their
families and their extended network of associates.
So these are not commoner garden criminals. They
are venture capitalists in the international
underworld. Thanks for that, John. So now I'm
just kind of going to go into the, uh, the collaboration
Bellingcat has done with, uh, John over at the
Sunday Times, um, starting last year. So I'll
just share my screen here. Just one second. Yeah.
So basically, um, it started last year with the,
uh, the joint investigation we did on Christie
Kinnon's Google reviews. Um, so basically how
this started was It had been reported that Kinnon
had been posting online for some reason under
an alias Christopher Vincent, which are his first
and middle names. So not the most genius alias
ever, but this had been reported by the Sunday
World that he had a LinkedIn profile and a couple
of Twitter profiles that he'd been posting under
and one of which had a picture of his face on
it. So they had come across this and this was
the first time in 2022 that it had come out there
that he'd been using this alias online. And then
from that, it was like, I was just thinking to
myself, maybe this has been used in other places.
You know, I, you know, as a member of the discord
server, I was into doing open source stuff. So
I used to just do this kind of stuff in my free
time. But I was just doing some Google searches
with that alias. I was trying different keywords
and one of them was Sharjah, which is a city
next to Dubai in the UAE. And my idea there was
that it could be a region they're also active
in, but less publicized. Like if you search Christopher
Vincent and Dubai in quotes, you're just going
to get loads of news articles about the Kinnons.
But if you search Sharji, you might find something
that's gone under the radar. And also it effectively
filters out all those news reports. So on the
first page of results here, I saw one snippet
of a Google review. which was on this third party
website with the name Christopher Vincent. You
can see it here. From those listening, it's just
a screenshot of this Google review of a steak
restaurant. And you could click through to the
Google profile from that review and you could
see that it had posted over a hundred reviews,
over a thousand photos. And you could see all
the places around the world that had that he
had left reviews. So in the South of Africa,
Europe, Asia, Middle East. And so at this point,
you know, it could easily be just a coincidence.
I mean, it's just the same name. You know, who
knows? That's what I was thinking at this point.
It's probably a coincidence. And then I was just
scrolling down through the reviews to see what
he was talking about. And there was one review
that jumped out at me because I remembered from
a report from the International Consortium of
Investigative Journalists. They had said that
Christie had gone to an aviation conference at
a hotel in Egypt in 2019. And in one of these
reviews is Christopher Vincent, Google reviewer,
and explicitly said, I was here at this same
hotel as reported by the ICIJ for the global
humanitarian aviation conference. So this is
the very same conference that Christie Kinnon
was pictured at. So that's when I sat up and
go, Oh God, this, this, you know, this has to
be him. So then, um, that's, that's essentially
when, when, when you got involved with Bancat
and we did, we started this collaboration with
John at the Sunday Times. We just dove into this
profile and we tried to, uh, you know, get every
detail we could out of it. So as I said, there
was over a thousand photos. So one of the first
things we wanted to do was go through all those
photos. and see what we could find in them. Because
in a lot of these reviews, he mentions a business
meetings and things like that. So we were curious
to see if we could spot any of the people he's
potentially with, or you can see a reflection
of the man himself. Just to further corroborate,
this is the actual same guy. So there were a
few reflections in the picture. because we're
watching the stream. There's one where he's in
a hotel in Spain and he's taken a picture of
the bathroom for some reason. And you could see
in the corner, there's a mirror and you could
see just half of his face there. And another
one at the end, at the end of a hall, there's
a mirror. You can see, you can see him in the
reflection again. And I think this one is the
key one really, where you can kind of see his
face. It's kind of faint on the picture, but
if you look closely, you can see it's really
him. So they were the first, uh, the first key
things that we found those reflections that were
corroborating. This was his accounts once it,
once again. So then, uh, another thing we wanted
to do was, uh, go through, we had the idea to
go through, uh, the social media of these places
he'd been visiting to see if anyone else had
taken pictures on the same day he was there to
maybe see again who he'd been meeting. And we
didn't really have much luck with that except
for this one restaurant in Dubai. This is one
of the last places he reviewed on his profile
in March, 2023. And yeah, so he said the food
was good. I'm definitely, definitely going to
come back. And then apparently he did because
a couple of months later, the restaurant itself
posted a picture onto its own social media. And
in the background, you could see Christie talking
to his son. Christopher Kinnon Jr. And I believe
this is the first picture of Christopher Jr.
that had come out since maybe 2016. So yeah,
he was meeting with him on that day for whatever
reason. And at this point, both of them were
sanctioned by the US government and they had
a $5 million reward on their heads. So yeah.
And then just to further verify as much as possible
that this account, this Google account was his.
We thought it was important to somehow connect
the email address behind that account to this
Google review profile. And there's no way you
can do that just from the profile itself. It's
not public information, but if you already have
the email address, there are ways to find the
Google review account connected to that address.
So what we, what we tried to do was find any
possible address that was connected to Christopher,
Christopher Kenyon, Christopher Vincent under
his alias and see if they were attached to any
review profiles. And the way we did this was
by going through social media and all these websites
he'd set up under his alias Christopher Vincent
and finding any email address we could that we
could then link to a potential Google review
account. And there was one email address hidden
in the source code of this particular website,
ChristopherVincent .com. And we could run that
through a tool called G Hunt, which is an open
source tool. to find if a specific Gmail address
is linked to a Google review account. There's
other tools you can use for this like Epios,
but this one I like to use it's open source.
So that's what we did here. This Gmail address
we found in the source code, put it through G
Hunt and we found that it was connected to the
Google review account. So then we had his Gmail
address. So then another thing we could do with
that was and search it through Whois records,
which are basically website ownership records.
And there are some tools you can use online to
search for email addresses or specific keywords
in Whois records to see if they've ever been
attached to a website that was registered. And
this Gmail address that we found was indeed attached
to one website that was registered in 2013. And
we found in the Whois details, the registrant
name was Christopher Vincent Kinehan. And the
address was an address in Spain, which was also
listed in the sanctions from the United States.
So that was kind of solidifying that link through
open sources to this Google account, just to
make sure that we had covered every avenue to
make sure that this was actually his account.
So yeah, that was basically it. Just the main
resources we used during this was Outscraper.
That's a service you can use to scrape Google
reviews and get them into spreadsheet form, which
was just incredibly useful for us. It's premium
usually, but there's a free tier that you can
use. Also some Python scripts that were used
for scraping too. I'm terrible at coding, but
I use Chat GPT for that. or the WhoisRecord searches,
I used WhoisXNLAPI and then Gnont, of course.
And so that was the first investigation we did
last year. And then just last month, we did another
collaboration with Bellingcat in the Sunday Times.
So this was on a German businessman called Oliver
Herrmann. So he had managed to get himself arrested
in Australia just at the end of last year. Him
and another guy were arrested in a hotel in Perth
and they found 200 kilograms of cocaine in their
hotel rooms, along with night vision goggles
and aviation equipment. And according to police,
what happened was this guy Oliver had gone to
a remote airstrip about seven hours drive from
Perth. The next day he came back and he was arrested
with his with his companion with all the cocaine.
So that was reported in the media in Australia.
And this guy, Oliver, he had kind of come on
our radar last year around the time of the Kenyan
investigation, but it never really went anywhere.
But then when the media reported about this in
January in Australia, we kind of took notice.
And then John over at the Times, he did an article
on this as well in January, talking about his
alleged links to the Kenyan cartel. And that
he had close financial ties to Christie Kinnon.
So after that, what we wanted to do in our companion
piece with the only times and delicate was just
map out his online footprint, the companies he's
involved with and see if there's anything open
source out there that lines up with anything
related to the Canadian cartel. So yeah, just
to So the key thing with that was his Strava
profile, Oliver Herman's Strava profile. So he's
an avid runner. He won the Munich marathon in
2016 and we were able to find his Strava profile.
This is my colleague Peter Barth found this actually.
And yeah, so, you know, he even logged his Munich
marathon winning run on Strava and we were able
to confirm it was his because there was pictures
of him on it. And so yeah, over a 10 year period,
he had logged like 5 ,000 runs all over the world.
Like in New York, in South of Africa, Asia, lots
of them in Dublin as well, because he was involved
in an Irish company called Levers. And yeah,
so what we did was we mapped out all these runs
on a custom Google map. And then we also put
Christy Kinnahan's Google review points on the
same map. So we could basically see at a glance
if any of these places lined up. So that's what
we probably did to start with. I'm trying a couple
of places that did. So this is one example. In
2019, Christy Kinnahan said in a Google review
that he went to a business conference in Harare.
on a specific date. And just the day before this
conference was happening, Herman was doing it.
He logged the Strava run just five kilometers
away. So like he's in the same vicinity as Kinnon
at this point. Another one was in Dubai. He logged
a run just that started and ended outside this
specific hotel. And just a few days later, Daniel
Kinnon was pictured in a tweet at the exact same
hotel. But we were able to relocate this picture
that was posted on social media. of Daniel Kenham
meeting someone else and ensure that it was the
same hotel where Herman's run started and ended.
So again, just two different things in different
countries lining up. We were also able to identify
his domestic partner through her Strava. We could
see that their bonds overlapped over multiple
years. And she herself was also involved in a
series of companies. One of these was 247 Capital
Group. This is a South African company. And,
um, and then we could check and yeah, so on,
on the website of this company, uh, one of the
addresses, the office addresses was for this
building in Johannesburg. Um, and, and bringing
back into Google, Google reviews, once again,
Christie Kinnon had reviewed this specific building
and he'd taken multiple pictures inside. And
the department also had logged a couple of runs
starting and ending at this building. And so
this is one of the pictures here. For those of
you who are in the audience right now, this is
one of the pictures that Kenan posted on this
specific Google review. You can see in the reflection,
he's in a floor of the building that's still
in construction. And it looks like he's a reflection.
You can see, it looks like a couple of other
people. So yeah. And then apart from that, just
to, I won't cut too much into the weeds, but.
We did some IP address tracking between this
South African company, 247 Capital, and two other
companies, one of them based in the United States,
another one based in Indonesia. And yeah, it
turned out this company, Ryba LLC, that was on
the same IP address, John Looney over at the
Times, they reported that this was actually the
same company that received a payment for a connect
and linked transaction. So again, we're just
finding open source things that are lining up
with other reports. And then this is just a diagram
showing the links between the websites and how
we are kind of wrong rated. There wasn't some
kind of coincidence because if you find websites
on the same IP address, it doesn't necessarily
mean they're linked, but what we thought was
important that you just need to find that other
data point that links them together. So we were
able to do that through addresses on the websites
and that were linked with other addresses on
the different websites. Again, I won't get into
the weeds with that. And then, yeah, so then
the last thing was this third company that was
on the same IP address. We found it listed on
FAA records for an aircraft that was exported
from the United States to Karari just last year.
And it's been pretty active in the region since
then, flying to a lot of minor airports in South
Africa. I think it's been Completely complete
radio silence since our articles come out, but
yeah. Um, yeah, that's basically it. Uh, just
to end on like with an investigation like this,
there's a lot of, it's kind of hard to describe,
uh, coherent thing because, um, there's a lot
of levels to it. You know, there's kind of a
middle man, there's, um, you know, addresses
and IP addresses and it's probably by design.
But so to keep track of this in investigation,
I think it's good to use visualizations. And
that's what we did with this. So the whole time
we were doing this, we were using OCCRP's Aleph.
It's a tool that allows you to make network visualizations.
Unfortunately, it's only available for journalists,
but there are other tools you can use like draw
.io or Obsidian. But yeah, it's just good to
do that, to just keep track of everything, because
it's like when you see it written down, it's
just like a wall of text. So yeah, that's it.
So yeah, unless John has anything else to add,
take some questions. Yeah, I think it's really
important like that. But certainly my experience
of the collaboration with Bellingcat is that
I'm involved in a certain type of work. So I
deal with a lot of people passing me information
that are not permitted to do so. We deal with
a lot of people with information who pass it
on. And with Oliver Herman's story, it was really
interesting. He was identified to me a number
of years ago as someone who was potentially linked
in to this type of activity with Kinnahan. And
in our job, we have to be extraordinarily careful
because people involved in crime meet people.
that aren't involved in crime. And you have to
be very careful to assess what you're being told
to consider it and be very contemplative about
it. Because sometimes people don't know who they're
dealing with. They might know who they're dealing
with, but they're not necessarily involved themselves.
And there can be a multitude of reasons why people
don't distance themselves from people like Christopher
Kinnon. So we began After Oliver Herman was identified,
we took the best approach, which is to do nothing,
to examine him, look at him and take deep dives
into this guy to see who he was. And the real
point in doing an investigation is not just to
prove someone's involvement in something, but
it can also be to disprove their involvement
or knowledge of certain events. So we looked
at this guy, there's a team of us, it's about
four people, three of those people are a Bellingcat
and then there's me. And we just sat it out.
And I think it was about Christmas time last
year that the name Oliver Herman pinged from
Australia. And the Australian federal police
were describing this individual as a South African
national. And I remember hearing this and the
details matched the guy that we were interested
in and there was a bit of discussion amongst
ourselves, but we eventually had to get someone
to walk into an arraignment hearing to make sure
it was our guy. And I think at that stage, when
we started making more inquiries, the Australian
federal police discovered that this man that
they had in custody who is, it should be stated,
only facing charges, he hasn't been found guilty
of anything, was actually a Swiss -German national
and he wasn't South African. And we took it from
there. But the real reason why I tell that story
is that the real beauty of the collaboration
is using every conceivable type of investigative
method, such as old -fashioned intelligence collection
by investigative journalists with open source
investigation and analysis with the guys from
Bellingcat. And certainly it's been my experience
that that system and that way of going about
things, it's a pretty lethal and effective technique
when it gets going. I always kind of think of
some of the guys from Bellingcat as being a bit
like piranhas. that when they sent blood, it's
like they'll really get down to the bones of
everything and they do a really, really fine
job. And if we could take this opportunity to
yet again, thank the team from Bellingcat for
this collaboration, but it really has been phenomenal
from my point of view and the way we collaborate
and the way we work against each other. and help
each other and that kind of thing. It really
is fantastic, but it is really also effective
and it can really produce startling results.
But I mean, I can't really overstate the security
precautions that the Kinnon Cartel use. And yet
Connor, with his pesky mind, was able to uncover
this treasure trove of information about Christie
Kinnon. which completely startled everyone, including,
should I say, various elements of international
policing who hadn't noticed this or they hadn't
found this and whatever. So it's been really,
really effective and it's made the cartel itself
pause for thought in terms of the way they behave
in their own infosec security and that kind of
thing. And also the trail of evidence they've
led behind, because all sorts of people have
popped up in this. And I'm sure Connor won't
mind me saying that that project is still running
and we have meetings every so often about this
and we chase down different leads and run down
clues, et cetera. And that is continuing to produce
quite startling results, which I hope that someday
we'll be able to publish more about. Amazing.
Thank you so much, both of you, for talking about
the investigations. John, you actually touched
on something I wanted to ask you about before
we go to questions from the audience. I wanted
to ask, because a lot of our community here are
also interested in doing investigations themselves,
how do you prepare to report on such a prolific
criminal group like this? What precautions have
you both taken? And what needs to be put into
place when you start looking into criminal groups
like this? So I think digitally it's not so much
a problem unless they detect that someone's looking
at them. So obviously if you're onto a social
media account and you're looking at it continuously,
algorithms can kind of disclose your interest
in them if your own profile starts popping up.
And it's my experience. is that when people see
things like that, they become a little bit more
wary. Dealing with people involved in this in,
I suppose, real life and going out and meeting
them. I personally, I've had problems in the
past. I haven't had problems with this particular
investigation, but I always kind of tell people
when they're dealing with this, with these kinds
of matters. to kind of act professionally, never
get personal, never ever get personal, always
greet people with respect. I think if, you know,
I don't believe in, for example, you know, just
kind of confronting people or something like
that, that never type kinds of works. So I've
always kind of taken a very pragmatic and just
really open and transparent approach when we're
looking at someone. It should be stated by the
time it gets to the stage where we're approaching
someone for comment. And indeed on these stories,
we already know the answers to everything we're
asking. I think there's a lot of misconceptions
about investigative journalism and that kind
of thing. I think that really when you're getting
into the stage where you're seeking comment,
You know, I'm always delighted to be able to
approach solicitors. I'm always very polite.
I always give people a lot of time to respond
and engage with them. And, you know, like my
own work is focused on organized crime, terrorism
and national security threat actors. And, you
know, you certainly will draw attention on yourself
in so far as particularly if it's a a state actor,
they have the ability to look at what you're
doing in a way that other people can't. Some
criminal groups can do, but I always think the
best way of handling these things is really in
an open and transparent way. And it should be
stated that the team that looked at the Kinnon
cartel for these investigations, we always operated
in a way that would plaster if anyone lodged
a legal complaint or complained about anything
we wrote. And so far as that, even the Kinnon
who are some of the most wanted people on the
face of the planet, we went through enormous
lengths to try to communicate with them, to give
them an opportunity to respond to what we were
saying. and went to great lengths to do that.
And just in case there was something wrong or
we had made an error or something like that.
And that's a principle that if you stick to it,
regardless of deadlines and everything else,
it will serve you well in the long run. Absolutely.
Right of replies are more important than just
giving the person opportunity to respond. It's
also saving your own back as well, a little bit.
I wanted to ask some of the audience questions,
and I'm going to combine the two of them because
one's quite short. Primal Collective asks, how
long did all of this research take? And then
Connor, maybe you could answer. Pika Boodle's
101's question, which is how do you both go about
linking up together to work on this? Is it a
case of reaching out to see if the times are
interested in joining or what kind of steps are
involved in the collaboration? So first, how
long did all the research take and two, how did
you end up collaborating? Yeah, so it took months.
If we're talking about, yeah, each of the investigations
took months, especially the Canon reviews. Initially,
when I found the the review profile, I spent
a good bit of time trying to verify it myself.
And then when I approached Bellingcat at that
point, I think it was about maybe six months
or five or six months from that point until it
was eventually published. So, yeah, it was it
was months, months and months of work into this.
And same with the The more recent one, it was
also months. Yeah. So we put a lot of effort
into just trying to make sure there was no stone
unturned. And yeah, was there another question?
I've forgotten. How do we meet up and how do
we arrange this? Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So
like, originally our work was I kind of pitched
this to like, I was just like freelance at the
time. I just pitched this to Bellingcat and then
they, They reached out to John over the times
because just to have someone with the incredible
experience John does to work with this on us,
because yeah, I think Benneke hadn't really done
that much recent stuff on cartels in general.
So they just wanted to have like a veteran in
with us to work on the project together. So yeah,
I believe that's how it started. There's Connor
calling me a veteran again. I feel very uneasy
with this. You're an expert. That's what you
are. You're an expert. Don't worry. We've got
another few questions coming through. Scoot asked,
what first led you to the LinkedIn profile for
Christopher Vincent? Did you have some hunch
he was going by that name and thought you'd poke
around? What kind of gave you that? Sorry. Yeah,
that was, um, yeah, that was a report that was
in the news. So that had already been found.
That was out there and just, you know, I'm Irish
myself. So I know of the Guinness sometimes I
just read about this stuff and I just came across
it one day and I just started Googling. And so,
yeah, that was, that was originally reported
that was out there. Like I didn't, I didn't find
that particular thing myself. Um, that was kind
of the starting point. The starting point to
it all. Sarah asked, one of our lovely mods,
she actually asked, what was the most entertaining,
interesting review from the Kinahams? I'm sure
John has his own as well, but the one that comes
to mind for me is he went to, I think it was
a cafe or something in Dubai and he starts getting
annoyed because one of the waitress keeps calling
him balds. But I actually have it open here and
saying, um, yeah, uh, I did explain, I did not
like to be called boss. He to please call me
Chris, Mr. Vincent or sir. And then he says the
wave, the waitress tattered. I thought nothing
more of it until we were paying the bill. And
she goes, thanks boss. So like just, yeah, it's
just crazy to think like, um, someone in his
position is talking to that way. And yeah, I
don't know if you have any John's. Well, I was
actually about to cite that one as well. And
the reason why I would cite that one as well
is that Christie Kinnon has spent his entire
life trying to become the boss. He is the boss
now. And secondly is that if you have dealt with
the Kinnons and covered them and researched their
activities, at the time that all of this was
going on, the cartel was being held responsible.
for a few murders on the streets of Ireland that
resulted in 18 deaths. And to think that this
individual was getting upset over some woman
calling him boss while someone was paying for
his food, comparing that to the kind of bloodshed
that I was seeing on the streets of Dublin and
elsewhere as a result of cartel violence was
really, really... an outer body experience for
me because it really, although these are kind
of, you could turn around and sort of describe
them as kind of comical interactions, they also
provided a bit of an insight into the sky and
into a psychology in so far that, you know, one
moment they're involved in the most serious type
of offending imaginable that is resulting in
people's deaths, never mind the destruction they're
wreaking on society through the provision of
drugs across Europe and their smuggling network.
And then you have them sort of given out about
this. And it also was the ultimate paradox because
Kinnigan has spent so much time trying to conceal
everything about his own life and his personal
life, his character traits, everything else.
He's just a very secretive individual. And then
yet, He goes on Google review and posts all of
these reviews, which give away his locations
at various times and all of that. And if I can
maybe name -check Beau Donnelly and Peter Bart,
who are also part of the four -man team that
we kind of assembled. Like myself and Beau, who
used to work with the Sunday Times, were defected
to Bellingcat after all of this. We used to wonder
was this actually Kinnunen at one stage or was
this some sort of code that they were uploading
on Google reviews that people were reading and
there was some hidden meaning behind it or something
like that because it was so utterly bizarre that
someone involved in this type of activity would
be doing this. It was a really strange experience,
all of this, and to kind of look at it and to
get a sense of what this guy was like. And indeed,
I know a lot of police officers who had spent
their careers, or spent most of their careers,
hunting the Kennetons, were completely astonished
by all of this. They just found it almost impossible
to believe that their target number one, was
so casual about info security. Yeah, casual is
really the word. And I think it's really important
that you outlined that, you know, this person
is a violent individual and somebody who has
wreaked havoc across the globe, really. But some
of the reviews, I mean, I think he reviewed some
petrol stations, right? It wasn't just high -end
restaurants either. He was reviewing everything
and anything that came across in his path, which
is bizarre and very, very interesting. We've
had a question on doing these kinds of investigations
and some of the people in the chat have responded.
But Daniela Castro said, do you recommend creating
false Facebook or Instagram profiles when looking
into people of interest on social media? What
kind of protections do you put in place when
you're actually looking into these individuals?
Yeah, I definitely recommend that. Yeah. And
on LinkedIn as well, it's important to adjust
your privacy settings to make your account private.
So you're not giving away your identity when
you visit someone's profile and definitely have
it under the pseudonym. Although that's harder
to do nowadays with their verification. Same
with Facebook. But yeah, I would definitely,
you try to be invisible, as invisible as possible
when you're doing research because you don't
want to tip people off. Like so generally, like
if I'm Looking at a specific website, I tried
my best not to actually go onto the live website.
I will try and find an archive on the Wayback
Machine first. So they're not seeing all these
IP addresses. Yeah. So just like try to be as
invisible as possible. Create sock puppet accounts.
And these are just for research, not for like
contacting people around like that. But you just
want to be kind of invisible when you're doing
your research. That's the main thing. Yeah. Speaking
about privacy, has these two investigations,
particularly the one on straw, that made you
think a little bit more about what kind of data
your apps are sharing? Has it made you a little
bit safer when it comes to infosec? Well, if
I could answer that question, I met Connor the
other day for a cup of coffee. And after that
meeting, I spent about four hours changing passwords
and everything else. And every time I interact
with Bellingcat, I leave feeling a little bit
more vulnerable because of some of the techniques
and you know, it's been a kind of a baptism of
fire in terms of open source intelligence and
how effective it can be. So I won't speak for
Connor, but certainly for myself. It's taught
me so much. And indeed I've learned so much from
the team at Bellingcat about info security and
trade craft in terms of conducting online investigations.
I was always very good at dealing with people
secretly who may be involved in all sorts of
activities that they shouldn't be. And I've never,
you know, had, you know, governments and stuff
have spent a lot of money trying to identify
sources of information. But I have been astonished
by how much people leak about themselves through
the use of social media accounts and phones and
emails. And I've learned all of that from Bellingcat
and the spirit of Bellingcat, which is to share
this type of information and make people aware
of it. Um, and, uh, but, but it certainly has,
um, focused me to an extent that, uh, you know,
I regularly now would do, um, digital, uh, cleansing
operations to make sure that I, I, I'm just checking
myself and, you know, I've done a couple of the
courses with Bellingcat, which I'd recommend
to anyone. And, but one of the most scariest
things they ever did was actually investigate
myself. You know, that was a sobering experience
because I would have considered myself secretive
and very careful. And I discovered that I'd left
gaping, you know, bits of information on the
internet about myself, which I had to deal with
and that kind of stuff, you know? So, yeah, so
certainly I'll let maybe that Conor explain a
bit more because he's far more qualified than
me. Thanks, Ron. Yeah. Um, yeah. So like, I would
just say, like, um, I've always been kind of
cautious with what I put online for a number
of years. Um, I just think a good attitude to
have is with technology nowadays, um, they try
and make it as convenient as possible, but with
that convenience, you're paying, often paying
a price with privacy. So when you're connecting
all your accounts or whatever it is, um, So what
I try, what I try and do is I use different email
addresses, never reuse the same password. Um,
and I only use like email addresses for, for
communication. And then I would use a different
email address to register for things just so
you're not leaving that, uh, digital breadcrumb
trail. And also obviously like with things like
Strava, I mean, you know, people know that they're
posting things, but sometimes I wonder just do
they realize how public those things are? And
so it's always good to just, just sit back and
think about your social media and how publicly,
because sometimes you just kind of fall into
the idea that it's just your friends and family
or something that has seen this stuff, but often
it's not the case. So it's good to have, you
know, spend a day or two maybe like having an
audit of your social media and seeing what, not
just social media, but any kind of online account,
seeing what information you're, you're leaving
out there. What kind of breadcrumbs you might
be leaving, but someday it might come back to
haunt you. Absolutely great advice. And if you
want some more tuition or you have been convinced
by John that Bellingcat is the place to learn
more about Infosec, you can actually look at
our website right now because we actually have
some workshops coming up. I linked it in the
chat. And Merle has very helpfully linked an
overview video as well that's on our YouTube
about things to consider to improve your digital
safety. That's filmed by our very talented investigator,
Eganush. And you can watch that now as well.
And I'll link then the description of the podcast.
And we've had so many questions coming in about
what the Kinnerhans response has been to the
two articles. Have they gone to ground? Is he
still posting Google reviews? Have we seen any
movement since these two articles have come out?
Maybe if I can answer that. They were delighted
with the coverage they got. That's a joke. They
haven't gone to ground. I think what those investigations
have done is that they've become a little bit
more conscious about what they've been doing.
They probably are, with my understanding, possibly
looking at what they've done in the past and
trying to figure out can they cover and conceal
some of their online activities, but they are
a massive criminal organization. And you must
remember while they look, they kind of look at
Bellingcat and the Sunday Times and the sort
of reports we publish about them. as very much
a nuisance, their biggest problems are police
agencies that are trying to extradite them, trying
to arrest them, trying to seize their drugs,
freeze their money, identify their assets, et
cetera. And that's their real problem at the
moment. But they don't like, and I know this
for a fact, they don't like this sort of attention.
But in the overall scale of things, it's just
another headache to a very complex series of
headaches they're dealing with at one time. The
only thing though that I'll say this is that,
and I think it's important to remember is that
when investigations like this come out and when
they log on to Sunday Times or they log on Bellingcat
and they see all of this storted stuff about
themselves and they see, you know, pictures taken
in the cycle beast row that, you know, has been
uploaded on an Instagram account and Connor just
happened to find it. And when they see other
information about the reviews and how we've managed
to analyze that and look at what's happened,
that does weaken them a little bit in the eyes
of their associates. Because in that criminal
world, in that world of extremists, terrorists,
organized crime gangs and spies and intelligence
officers and undercover agents. Anything that
signifies or suggests weakness is a vulnerability
and that can manifest itself in lots of different
ways. So it may have some of their associates
might be a little bit wary of them, certainly
wary of him being around a phone with them or
something like that. They may be looking at this
and I understand that they were kind of very
concerned about what else. is known that just
hasn't entered the public domain yet. So in that
respect, an investigation like this has, apart
from the public interest in getting this information
out, it does have a kind of practical knock -on
effect on their criminal activities and their
money laundering activity. Because it should
also be stated that police forces and intelligence
services are reading all of these reports. and
they're taking information and it opens up avenues
of investigation for them. For example, Oliver
Herman, his identity wasn't known to many police
forces in Europe and he wasn't associated with
the Kinnon cartel or having any sort of links
to Christie Kinnon until we published it. So
that opens up all sorts of issues for them as
well. Thanks for that. Connor has actually commented
as well, his Google review profile is still live
but no activity since our reporting. Just on
Herman, was it more difficult to report on Herman's
case because there's an ongoing court case, as
mentioned, he's been charged but not found guilty
as of yet? How do you balance the need to reveal
information about an individual and potential
court proceedings that they might be going through,
for example? I don't know whether you want me
to answer that, but we took a lot of advice on
that and we would have engaged in what I would
consider balanced and fair reporting that did
not seek to influence any case, that is before
any court. And we were quite careful about that.
just for the listeners out there, contempt of
court and court proceedings, the reporting on
that is quite restricted. You can say certain
things and you can't say others. So what we did
was we reported as much as we could, we documented
as much as we could and we've done that within
the confines of sort of what is permissible when
an accused person is before a court. So that's
what we did. It's really important that newspapers
and websites, they would know this, but it's
not a free for all. We have to be almost more
careful to protect someone's rights. that if
they're an accused person, then otherwise would
be maybe normal. So we're just very, very careful
about all of that. And I can say with a degree
of confidence that every word that we published
about this was scrutinised by ourselves. And
we also sought external advice on this. So we
did it in a way that was legally permissible
as King's stand. Oh yeah, I was just going to
say, yeah, I hope you haven't undid that. Fair
enough. Okay, so we've got about five minutes
left. I wanted to ask, and maybe this will be
our last question, depends on how quick you answer.
What would be your top tips for someone who is
embarking on their first investigation into a
criminal group? And bearing in mind that, Connie,
you shared some amazing tools earlier. What would
be your top tips for someone who, perhaps like
yourself, is interested, has found something
and is interested in pursuing it? Yeah, I would
just say like first and foremost to do it responsibly.
You know, when you're when you're researching
things like this, you quickly start coming across
individuals, you know, like companies and you
don't want to be just throwing names out there.
So you have to be very careful about that. But
yeah, apart from that, like you just what I did
was just follow my curiosity. I just. Like I
don't think you need to know all these tools.
You don't need to be a huge expert. It definitely
helps if you're tech savvy, but I think that
if you're able to sign up for an email account,
then you have enough technical ability to do
a few Google searches. And ultimately it's just
a matter of having the creativity to think of
things to search. And then like you don't need
to like use fancy Google docs, although I think
if you learn one thing to do, just use quotes
a lot, use quotation marks around your terms.
I basically all of my searches, I do a quotation
marks. It's a simple thing, but it just gives
you that exact term that you're looking for.
So if you're searching for like a house on this
street, you have to put that term in quotes to
get the result you're looking for. Otherwise
you're just going to get a lot of nonsense. So
yeah, that's what that's the main thing I would
say is just like all of your curiosity. like
try and think of creative ways. Like don't just
sometimes it's better not to just dive into searching
straight away. You might just want to sit back
for a while and think about ways to approach
it before you start searching because you can
kind of end up going down rabbit holes. But yeah,
I think that's the main thing. Just keep it simple
and follow your curiosity. Well, I wouldn't even
attempt to advise someone on open source research,
whilst on the same chat room as Connor, because
he really is exceptionally skilled in all of
this. So I would take Connor's advice on that.
I mean, the one thing that I've really learned
in all of this, and it has been like a stratospheric
learning experience for me, who does a kind of
different type of work is that some of this stuff
is so simple, it's scary. What Connor is describing
is it's not usually, and I mean this in the best
possible way, it's not usually sophisticated,
but what it is is a process of searching for
information in a very methodical and thorough
way. And that really does work. It really, really
does work. It takes time and it takes patience
and it takes a certain kind of mind to look for
this information and know about how to go about
it. But it really does work. It's kind of like
being a deep dive into this sort of stuff. open
source intelligence and how collection and how
it's going. Like it's it to me as someone who
has, you know, both studied and spent a lot of
time with intelligence officers dealing with
intelligence services for a long time and know
about the way to collect information. And I often
hear people to me say to me that open source
is now becoming this huge, huge thing for them.
And I think a number of years ago people used
to dismiss this, but I don't think they dismiss
it anymore. I think they kind of know that this
is a really, really significant arm now of law
enforcement, of defense, of intelligence collection
by governments around the world who are targeting
malign actors. But if you can get into it and
if you can kind of develop a taste for it or
an interest in it, it is phenomenal and what
can be achieved. And as Conor very eloquently
said there, it can be done if you have the ability
to open up an email address and go searching
for information, just picking up some of those
techniques. turn up all sorts of things. Because
I think what I've really as well learned from
all of this is that people overlook things. They
would find it difficult to believe that someone
like Christie Kenan, for example, would have
a Google review account be posting information
about themselves because they've spent so long
trying to investigate them. And he's never made
a mistake that would lead to him being sufficiently
damaged. And yet. Conor comes along with his
laptop and manages to do what a lot of police
forces would have liked to have done, or maybe
just didn't do because they never thought about
it. So that really is the beauty of Bellingcat
and it's the beauty of open source intelligence.
And I think in many years to come that news organizations
like the Sunday Times or the BBC already have
it. But I think open source intelligence and
its collection will be a normal part of any investigation
going forward. That's just the way it's going.
John, you've just given us the new Bellingcat
advert just there. Thank you very much. Thanks
everybody for coming to the stage talk. It's
been amazing to hear about your incredible investigative.
the collaboration and can't wait to see what
you come up with next. We'll all be keeping our
eyes out on the Bell and Cat on Sunday Times
websites. Please check out the links that I've
put in the chat for the various tools that Connor
mentioned and this recording will hopefully be
up on our podcast platforms by tomorrow or at
least by the end of the weekend. Thank you everybody
for coming and come back in two weeks time when
we're back with our next stage talk. Thank you
John, thank you Connor. Thank you very much.
Thanks, John. Thank you for listening to the
Stage Talk. If you'd like to catch a Stage Talk
live where you can ask the guest questions, join
the Bellingcat Discord server by visiting www
.discord .gg slash Bellingcat. The music you've
heard is titled Dawn by Newer Self and is courtesy
of Artlist.