https://www.quora.com/Are-there-any-examples-of-successful-crowdsourced-investigations-into-some-kind-of-crime/answer/Kim-Holleman

John Podesta Email Leaks

Wikileaks has also been credited with the leak of a cache of emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta, which supposedly uncovered evidence of pedophiles operating in elite circles. This has its analogue in the recent pedophile scandal(s), involving the British elite, which included more than one Knighted politician and a former Prime Minister, as well as Jeff Epstein friend, Prince Andrew. The British media historically silenced and attempted to cover up and obfuscate facts, before finally admitting it was true.

New investigations have revealed pedophile rings operating out of multiple UK children’s care homes with half-hearted investigations and thwarted prosecutions spanning the last 30 years. The UK has been plagued with child care home abuse scandals with multiple coverup accusations made against Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, lost evidence, even suspicions that peodphile ring whistleblowers had been murdered.

Similarly, some US mainstream media began misreporting and then “debunking” misrepresentations of the allegations uncovered in Wikileaks. Some mainstream responses to the information were focussed on how the leaks occurred, rather than dealing with the content inside the materials.

Rise of the Citizen-Researcher

This left a gap in investigative journalism, prompting the rise of “Citizen-Journalists” and “Citizen-Researchers”. This independant, crowd-led investigation caught fire after it was revealed by researchers and other sites that Mark Thompson, Chief Executive Officer of the NY Times -which was denying the evidence of an American pedophile scandal- was the same Mark Thompson, Former Director-General of the BBC, accused of lying to cover up the British Pedophile scandal.