In this episode of the Science Focus Podcast, we speak to Elliot Higgins, the founder of Bellingcat. If you haven’t heard that name before, then you might be surprised to know that Bellingcat is behind some of the biggest news revelations of the decade.

They use social media and information freely available online to carry out what they call open source investigation.

Their work has uncovered the use of chemical weapons in Syria, identified suspects in the Skripal poisoning in Salisbury and identified the people responsible for downing flight MH17 over Ukraine.

Eliot speaks to editor Dan Bennett about his new book, We Are Bellingcat (£20, Bloomsbury), which tells the story of how a group of amateur hobbyists ended up taking on Russian spies.

• Read an edited excerpt of this interview

Let us know what you think of the episode with a review or a comment wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Listen to more episodes of the Science Focus Podcast:

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices