The 404 Media Podcast The Journalist Who Tracked Epstein Island Visitors’ Phones
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Mar 30, 2026 
Dhruv Mehrotra, journalist and technologist who builds tools for investigative reporting, discusses using location data, IMSI catcher detection, and AI-assisted workflows. He recounts building community GSM networks abroad. The conversation highlights computational reporting methods and high-profile investigations like tracking visitors to Epstein’s island.
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Tracking Surveillance Planes At Standing Rock
- Dhruv began journalism by collecting ADS-B flight data at Standing Rock to document surveillance aircraft overhead.
- He logged tail numbers, shared the dataset with reporters, and that data turned into his first act of published journalism.
Built A VPN To Block The Big Five
- Dhruv's first paid piece at Gizmodo involved building a VPN to block Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Apple for Kashmir Hill.
- The experiment showed how deeply platform monopolies are embedded when her life 'fell apart' without those services.
Technique First Then Story Versus Story First Then Technique
- Early in his career Dhruv let technical curiosity drive stories, but over time newsroom survival pushed him to start with story ideas first.
- That shift moved him from building tech-first experiments to pitching journalistically framed investigations.