*The former child porn researcher had subjected his daughter to years of sexual abuse *
A child rapist who worked for five years with the Western OSINT agency Bellingcat killed himself shortly before he was due to be imprisoned, recently published Dutch court documents reveal.
The operative, known under the alias Daniel Romein, took his life in 2022 after being sentenced to prison for sexually abusing his own daughter.
Romein had been involved in the investigation of the MH17 crash by the Western-funded “open-source intelligence” group, as well as in the Stop Child Abuse initiative, dedicated to geolocating explicit materials involving minors.
The news was first made public by independent Dutch journalist Eric Van De Beek last month, and the surrounding events were further explored in a piece released by The Grayzone last Friday.
Van De Beek said that Romein hadn’t died from “cardiac arrest” in December 2022 as previously reported, stating a close friend had confirmed that the ex-Bellingcat operative had taken his own life.
The researcher, who worked for Bellingcat between 2014 and late 2019, was sentenced to 36 months in prison earlier that year for prolonged sexual abuse of his daughter, the journalist claimed, citing an anonymized court case on the matter. The case was released by Dutch authorities only in March of this year after repeated inquiries by independent media, Van De Beek noted.
[…]
The court materials quote a lackluster letter of apology sent by the defendant to his daughter when the scandal became public, in which he appeared to blame her.
The case also revealed that the defendant had been convicted of possession of child pornography “over 15 years” prior.
Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins, when questioned by The Grayzone, denied that Romein’s firing in December 2019 had been related to his criminal past.
In August 2021, Romein was stripped of his European Press Prize, which had been awarded for his work on the Stop Child Abuse project. At the time, the Netherlands-based non-profit cited “unidentified substantiated complaints” from different individuals as the reason for its decision. (RT)
[Bellingcat founder Eliot] Higgins did not respond to requests for clarity on why Romein was suddenly terminated after five years of work with his organization.
[…]
The shocking revelation that Bellingcat relied on a convicted pedophile to handle its investigations into child sexuality exploitation has effectively been buried by legacy media outlets, which frequently cited the organization to accuse designated enemy states of everything from chemical attacks to assassinations. (Grayzone)
Grayzone piece: https://thegrayzone.com/2025/05/02/bellingcat-operative-dies-conviction/
Not surprising they’d use pedophiles for their intelligence gathering projects which are sold to the public as being needed to catch pedophiles (‘open source intelligence’ project encouraging the public to submit photos of motel and hotel rooms and their furniture arrangements under the notion that it’ll lead to finding which hotel rooms abuse took place in which seems a bit fanciful, on the other hand I’m sure intelligence services see it as useful in some way or they wouldn’t be pushing it).
It strikes me as a bit odd because it’s so publicized, I’d assume pedophiles aware of it would simply move pieces of furniture from one side of a bed to another before filming their crimes wheres your average traveler or even high ranking diplomatic delegation or spies or left activists probably wouldn’t think to do that and the intelligence services having caught wind of people on 4chan identifying someone’s location and having the availability of Google streetview and others decided to light up another place their targets are commonly found which is travel lodging to allow them visibility and insights. While the cause is definitely a sympathetic one and under a socialist state I would be for incredibly reaching levels of background surveillance to catch and stop these monsters the fact is I just can’t take seriously the agencies behind MK Ultra and industrial scale child abuse and trafficking for blackmail. Especially when they seem to knowingly use offending pedophiles and look the other way as long as they’re useful.
Fun fact there’s a major Hollywood actor who boosts this project as well, big proponent of it. I have to wonder if they have some dirt of an obvious type on him, a conviction they’ve swept under the rug perhaps or if he’s just a innocently unaware of the nature of the people he’s helping enable.
Knowing a regime-change, color-revolution boosting western intelligence boot-slobbering outlet like Bellingcat was involved with this certainly creates a taste that there’s something foul afoot with this whole thing.