Source & Verification Policy

For each source we weigh its authority, its origin, its independence and how close it is to the events. The three broad families appear near the top of this page.

Which family a source belongs to never settles how reliable it is. Each is judged in its own context.

When a story turns on a lawsuit, a regulator’s action, a company filing or a government decision, we normally go to that record rather than rely on someone’s summary of it.

If a report says a case was filed, we try to see the court file. If a regulator is said to have found something, we look for the decision, order or notice itself. That stops us inheriting another publisher’s error or slant.

Court documents do different jobs, and we read each one for the job it does:

An allegation in an official filing does not become a decided fact because it sits in a court record.

We keep these stages separate:

If a settlement says a party neither admits nor denies the allegations, we do not describe it as an admission unless something else reliable shows one.

Company registries — mainland, free-zone and overseas — and statutory filings can help establish:

What a filing legally means depends on the jurisdiction and the kind of filing.

• A registered office is not necessarily where anyone lives or works.
• Being named as a manager or director does not make someone answerable for everything a company does.
• Holding shares is not necessarily the same as running the business.

Every material item goes through the eight checks shown near the top of this page — authenticity, provenance, authority, date, context, completeness, current status and relevance.

Looking official, or being widely shared, is not verification.

When a serious allegation rests on a single source, we look for independent support wherever we reasonably can.

Ten websites copying one article are one source, not ten. Real corroboration can come from:

The more serious the allegation, the more checking it needs before publication.

Documents arrive from victims, subjects, lawyers, whistleblowers, current and former staff, investors and the public. Before relying on one, we may ask:

• Who sent it
• How they obtained it
• Whether an original exists
• Whether its metadata or origin can be confirmed
• Whether it has been altered
• Whether signatures or stamps can be authenticated
• Whether independent records support it

A member’s documents receive no extra weight.

Send us evidence to review

Screenshots, chats, emails, posts, websites and other digital material are checked carefully before we rely on them. Where it matters, we may look for:

A cropped screenshot without context is not normally enough to prove a serious allegation.

Recordings and images may need checking for:

Generative AI makes authentication more important than ever. If we cannot reasonably establish that something is genuine, we say so or do not rely on it for a material conclusion.

Technology may help us search, sort documents, translate, match names to entities and compare material.

An answer, summary or inference from an AI system is not evidence because a system produced it. Any material claim found that way is traced to reliable sources before publication.

We never knowingly present AI-generated quotes, documents, images, sources or evidence as genuine.

We may use lawful open-source methods to find and analyse public or lawfully available information, including:

Everything found this way still has to be verified. A connection drawn by software is not automatically real.

Where appropriate, investigators may lawfully visit addresses, offices or premises relevant to an investigation. They keep three things apart:

We never authorise trespass, unlawful surveillance, bribery, theft or any other unlawful way of obtaining evidence.

When information comes from an interview, researchers consider:

• Whether the person knows it first-hand
• Their relationship to the subject
• Whether the account was given at the time or recalled later
• Any financial, professional or personal conflict
• Whether documents support it
• Whether other witnesses confirm the key points

There can be good reasons to protect a source’s identity.

When we rely on one, the people responsible should, where practical, know who the source is, how they know what they say, what might motivate them, and how they connect to the matter. Material allegations from confidential sources are independently corroborated wherever reasonably possible.

Source protection depends on the law. We cannot promise it will be absolute in every country or situation.

A source might be:

A conflict does not make information false, but it can mean the claim needs extra scrutiny and independent support. A source’s private dispute is never a substitute for evidence.

Material that contradicts an allegation gets the same serious attention as material that supports it.

Reliable evidence of mistaken identity, dismissal, acquittal, reversal, factual error or another clearing development must be weighed when deciding what a record can fairly say. We do not verify only the evidence that suits an adverse story.

Material Dubai Scammers records can carry a numbered source list. Where appropriate, each entry can show:

That lets a reader follow any material claim back to what supports it.

Where appropriate and lawful, we may retain the material behind significant reporting so we can:

• support what we published;
• assess later challenges;
• maintain a version history;
• review corrections;
• deal with legitimate legal issues; and
• understand later developments.

Retention follows privacy, data-protection, security, confidentiality and other legal duties.

Some material reaching us is confidential, restricted, privileged, covered by a court order or otherwise legally sensitive. It receives legal and editorial review before any use.

We do not assume the public interest automatically overrides confidentiality, privilege, privacy, reporting restrictions or other legal duties.

If material appears altered, forged, selectively edited or otherwise unreliable, publication is paused until the concern is resolved.

Knowingly sending us fabricated evidence can lead to the submission being rejected, access being restricted or other action, and where warranted we may take legal advice.

Where reasonable, we may ask a subject to confirm or comment on documents about them before publication.

A denial does not automatically cancel independently verified evidence — and a document is not assumed genuine just because the subject did not reply.

Courts, registries, agencies and regulators sometimes correct their own records.

If credible evidence suggests an official source is wrong, we investigate rather than repeat it mechanically, and where it matters we describe the dispute accurately.

Records about the same person or company can differ from one country to the next. Arabic names are transliterated in many ways, company identifiers vary between mainland and free-zone registers, courts use different terms, and access to official information differs widely.

So cross-border links are confirmed with identifiers and context — never by name similarity alone. We do not treat the Gulf, Asia, Europe or any other region as a single legal or evidential system.