Investigations are the reason this website exists. They are long articles built from real documents: court papers, technical manuals, saved web pages and public data. We put the pieces together and explain what actually happened, and what nobody knows yet.
They take a long time, so there are not many of them. That is the trade we have chosen.
What counts as an investigation here
A long article is not automatically an investigation. To be published here it has to pass all four of these:
- It uses original documents. Things we read ourselves, not a summary of other news stories.
- It finds something out. There is a real answer at the end, even if the answer is that a popular claim has nothing behind it.
- You can see how we did it. The method is explained, so you could follow the same steps.
- It admits what it cannot prove. We are as clear about the gaps as about the findings.
How we work
Every investigation follows the same six steps. It is slow on purpose.
1. Start with a real question
The question has to be something you could actually answer. “Is the dark web dangerous?” is not an investigation. “What do the court documents actually say about how the police found this person?” is.
2. Collect the documents
Court papers. Police statements. Technical manuals. Saved copies of websites that no longer exist. Public data.
We gather everything before we decide what we think. Doing it the other way round is how people end up only finding what they went looking for.
3. Check every fact
Every claim goes through our Fact-Checking Policy. Numbers get traced back to where they started. Quotes get checked against the original. Technical claims get checked against the manual. Accusations are reported as accusations, with the evidence shown.
4. Try to break it
Before publishing, we go back and attack our own article. Is there another explanation? Is there a document we did not find? Is one small piece of evidence being asked to prove too much? Anything that does not survive gets cut or softened.
5. Check for harm
Then we ask a completely different question: if a bad person read this, what could they do with it? Anything that would help someone copy a crime gets removed. If that leaves a gap in the story, we tell you there is a gap. The full rules are in section 4 of our Editorial Policy.
6. Publish, then keep looking after it
Every investigation shows its sources, when it was published, and when it was last checked. Court cases move, verdicts arrive, appeals succeed. We update articles as that happens, with a dated note. Mistakes get fixed openly under our Corrections Policy.
How to read one
We choose our words carefully, and each of these means something different:
- Proven — we have read an official document that shows this.
- Accused or charged — someone has been blamed, but no court has decided yet.
- Reported — a trusted source we can name published it.
- Our view — this is our own conclusion from the evidence, and we say so clearly.
- Unknown — the evidence does not answer this, and we are not going to pretend it does.
If an article here ever sounds more certain than the evidence allows, that is our mistake and we would like to hear about it.
Published investigations
Our investigations appear below as they are published.
While this section fills up
Investigations take months, not days, and we would rather publish a few good ones than pad this page out. In the meantime, our reference pages are finished and kept up to date:
- Dark Web Timeline — the whole history in order.
- Dark Web Glossary — around a hundred words explained simply.
- Conspiracy Files — the same method applied to popular online claims.
- Sources & Research — so you can research things yourself.
Related topics
- OSINT & Digital Investigations — the methods themselves.
- Cybercrime — how online crime is organised.
- Dark Web History — markets and shutdowns.
- Scams & Data Breaches — what happened and what to do.
- Cryptocurrency & Cybercrime — following the money.
Got something we should look at?
If you have documents or records that deserve a proper look, email ehtijadalee@gmail.com. Please read the safety advice on our Contact page first if sending it could put you at any risk.