Elise Thomas

On the surface The OneGate looks like a normal fintech startup: payment cards, multicurrency accounts, international payments. Using #OSINT, we've found evidence linking them to a massive transnational crime group which launders money for drug cartels and Russian oligarchs @cen4infores.bsky.social

“Non-government schools receive billions of dollars in public funding every year. Australians are entitled to expect that public money doesn’t pay for discrimination that would be illegal anywhere else.” | Allegra Spender trib.al/AqphoMO

cool, cool

EXCLUSIVE: Worldwide the Trumps are making money. In Serbia, efforts by Aleksander Vučić's regime to help them build a hotel and tower have culminated in a landmark criminal trial. Now we can reveal the role played by the Serbian strongman himself www.theguardian.com/world/2026/o... @theguardian.com

This is incredibly disturbing @citizenlab.ca citizenlab.ca/research/how...

NEW: Ukrainian troops were caught off guard by restrictions on Starlink satellite internet systems that disrupted frontline operations, as Kyiv received no advance warning from its partners of a Russian missile attack on its energy facilities for the second day running, Ukrainian officials tell me.

This narrative was disappointingly picked up without any verification by so many journalists who should know better

🔵 NEW INVESTIGATION: A trove of emails shows that Deloitte Cyprus helped firms beneficially owned by Roman Abramovich attempt to skirt tax and disclosure obligations by retroactively transferring assets to British Virgin Islands companies using backdated paperwork. www.occrp.org/en/project/c...

The tweet that immediately came to mind:

I was chatting to a friend who is 23 and doing her undergrad degree. She was saying that she and all her peers are using AI for assignments, but they also all believe their tutors are using AI to mark them. AI is assessing AI. What even is the point at that stage? www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

it is 2026 and "woman wears pants" is a headline www.nytimes.com/2026/09/25/s...

If an individual did this, we'd treat it as a crime. We should treat this as a crime too, and hold OpenAI liable for what its models, under its supervision, did. www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09...

Donald Trump pressed his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a call on Sunday to halt Kyiv’s strikes on Russian refineries over concerns the attacks are exacerbating a global diesel shortage and pushing up prices. @financialtimes.com www.ft.com/content/adb8...

Friend shared this video of a man unveiling the library he hid when he fled Damascus in 2011. It’s incredible

Our new @cen4infores.bsky.social investigation into A7, the massive Russian government-backed sanctions evasion network, is out now! This one identifies enablers supporting A7A5, A7's cryptocurrency in Kyrgyzstan, and tracks links to shady crypto exchanges and, curiously, the Kyrgyzstan government

This kind of thing is why, as an OSINT investigator, working with journalists like @ericszeto.bsky.social and @ivanangelovski.bsky.social is so valuable. Here they are following the leads from our OneGate investigation all the way to a director's front door. www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEmz...

I think there's actually quite an easy and obvious way to solve the collective action problem of how to make the AI companies stop conducting risky research, and it's to make it very clear that they're legally liable for anything their models do. www.politico.com/news/2026/09...

This but for any research, any investigation, any anything. Most of my best finds in OSINT investigations were things I didn't know I should be looking for, which I found while looking for something else. Just do the work.

www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08...

NEW: The Trump administration is looking to set up a consortium for anti-immigrant "independent journalism" in Europe, with the State Department envisioning "substantial involvement" in the project. www.theredoubt.net/trump-admini...

Rethinking this

I asked why the NACC has apparently never looked into billions in sketchy secret Nauru contracts, the answer was simple: nobody could explain it.

Andrei Klepach, who served as VEB.RF’s chief economist for 12 years, was reportedly fired after the bank’s leadership received a phone call “from above.”

www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/defence...

Treasury Rolls Back Ownership Reporting Obligations for U.S. Companies www.occrp.org/en/news/trea...

He does understand they're walking out for a day or even just a few hours, right, not dropping out of school

When Elon took over Twitter he told investors he'd triple ad revenue within 5 years. It's now been almost four years... and he's wiped out 2/3rds of the ad revenue (basically revealed in footnotes to SpaceX's earnings).

www.theguardian.com/media/2026/a...

‘In July alone, more than 150 towns and counties passed temporary or permanent bans on data centers, many adopted in emergency meetings. That brings the nationwide total to more than 500.’ www.theinformation.com/articles/dat...