Case Study: Danish Broadcast Organization exposes human trafficking networks with WhoisXML API

The Danish Broadcast Organization Exposes the WHO Behind Human Trafficking

The Danish Broadcast Organization partnered with WhoisXML API to support an investigative journalism project on human trafficking and prostitution across Europe. The team needed a way to identify the people and websites behind suspicious recruitment ads while overcoming the anonymity of the web, and they used WhoisXML API’s Historical Reverse WHOIS capabilities through Maltego to trace hidden connections.

Using WhoisXML API’s WHOIS History and Reverse Historical WHOIS data, the investigation linked phone numbers and email addresses from ads to domain records, revealing connections to 34 brothels and more than 2,000 registrants possibly tied to illegal recruitment sites. WhoisXML API helped the Danish Broadcast Organization quickly map these digital footprints with structured data, making the research more efficient and uncovering evidence that would have been difficult to find manually.

Danish Broadcast Organization