Report: An Israeli company tried to manipulate elections in 30 countries
An undercover media investigation said on Wednesday that an Israeli company has tried to influence more than 30 elections in the world in favor of customers through sabotage, hacking and dissemination of disinformation.
It adds to a growing body of evidence that shadowy private companies around the world are leveraging invasive hacking tools and the power of social media platforms to manipulate public opinion.
He dubbed the company “Team Jorge” by investigating journalists who posed as potential agents in order to gather information about its methods and capabilities.
Reports say its boss, Tel Hanan, is a former Israeli special forces agent, who boasted of his ability to control supposedly secure Telegram accounts and thousands of fake social media profiles, as well as the dissemination of news stories.
The investigation was conducted by a group of journalists from 30 outlets, including Britain’s Guardian, France’s Le Monde, Germany’s Der Spiegel and Spain’s El Pais, under the direction of the France-based non-profit Forbidden Stories.
The Guardian writes that “the methods and techniques described by Jorge’s team raise new challenges for big tech platforms”.
“Evidence of a global private market in disinformation targeting elections will also ring alarm bells for democracies around the world.”
Hanan did not respond to the detailed questions, saying only, “I deny any wrongdoing.”
Fake profiles
The 50-year-old told three undercover reporters that his services, which are often called “black ops” in the industry, were available to intelligence agencies, political campaigns, and private companies.
“Now we are engaged in one election in Africa…we have one team in Greece and another team [the] Fly Emirates … [We have completed] The Guardian quoted him as saying, “33 presidential campaigns succeeded, 27 of them.”
He claimed that most of the expeditions—two-thirds of them—were in Africa.
While demonstrating his technology to reporters, he appeared to have hacked into the Gmail inbox and Telegram account of political activists in Kenya days before the presidential election there.
The Taboo Stories named the targets as assistants to William Ruto, who ended up winning the August 2022 ballot.
Online public impact campaigns were carried out via a software platform, known as Advanced Impact Media Solutions, which allegedly controlled nearly 40,000 social media profiles via Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, according to reports.
Hanan also alleged that his company published a report in France’s largest news TV channel BFM about the impact of sanctions imposed on Russia on Monaco’s yacht industry.
The prominent broadcaster on the channel, Rashid Mubaraki, 54, has been suspended and is being investigated.
public influence
Other similar companies have been mentioned in media reports or sanctioned by Western governments in recent years for their role in trying to influence elections and public opinion.
The notorious British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica – which has since shut down – was used to develop software to steer voters towards Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential election.
The group harvested and exploited the personal data of 87 million Facebook users that the platform gave them access to, resulting in large fines and lawsuits.
On Tuesday, the head of the Russian mercenary group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, admitted to setting up a notorious troll company that is also suspected of meddling in Western elections.
Endorsed by Washington and Brussels, the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency has been linked for years to Prigozhin, an ally of 61-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin.
After the latest revelations, Israel may also face increasing pressure to rein in its evolving software and electronic technology sector, which was highlighted in another media investigation led by Forbidden Stories in 2021.
It highlighted how the powerful Israeli spyware Pegasus was sold by the cyber intelligence company NSO Group Technologies to governments and used against at least 50,000 people around the world.
Some of the alleged targets have included human rights defenders and religious leaders, as well as politicians such as French President Emmanuel Macron.
Forbidden Stories is a collaborative platform created in 2017 at the initiative of French documentary filmmaker Laurent Richard, with the support of Reporters Without Borders, and includes more than 30 different media outlets from around the world.
Germany is assessing the manipulation of an Israeli company in elections around the world
A German government spokesman said on Wednesday that Germany is looking into media reports of an Israeli company manipulating elections in more than 30 countries.
“First of all, I think I would say that we first evaluate reports like this to see exactly what it’s about. All other questions will be answered after that. We’ll first do an internal clarification on how we’ll react next, and we might then be the first to respond,” Stephen Hebbestreet told reporters. In Berlin:
He stressed that Germany does not tolerate the interference of a foreign country in the electoral process of another country.
“We do not tolerate disinformation in the context of elections, because elections are one of the central decision-making processes in our democracy, especially disinformation from a foreign country, that is, the illegal influence of another country on Germany,” Hepstreet said.
According to an international investigation team, the Israeli company using the codename “Team Jorge” has rigged elections around the world for money.
Former military and intelligence agents reportedly used fake news and hacking methods to achieve their goals.
The reports are based on six hours of secretly recorded conversations in which company president Tel Hanan and his team explained their services.
Reports have suggested that the team has so far intervened in 33 election campaigns and votes, including in Kenya and Nigeria.
Tal Hanan can be heard saying in the recordings that 27 missions were successful.
For social media manipulation, the team has developed its own platform called “Aims”, which can be used to create verified user accounts.
However, not all claims can be independently verified, the reports said.
According to the report, the company’s headquarters is located in the Israeli city of Modi’in, which is located halfway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
British daily The Guardian reported on Wednesday that the team was controlling an “army” of more than 30,000 bots, a social media profile not supported by real people.
It is very cleverly designed and simultaneously represented on various platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
According to the team, they also managed to hack Telegram and Gmail.
With the help of smear campaigns and stolen information, public opinion was specifically affected, the report said.
Hanan charges between $400,000 and $600,000 a month for his services. The report added that the Israeli businessman denied any wrongdoing.