EAccording to media reports, a covert Israeli company has carried out disinformation and spying campaigns worldwide and thus possibly influenced the outcome of elections. The company calls itself “Team Jorge”, reported on Wednesday the Israeli newspaper time, which had been investigating the clandestine activities together with media and research organizations in other countries.
Jorge is therefore the code name of the boss; according to the reports, it is Tal Hanan, a 50-year-old Israeli. The leadership also included his brother Zohar Hanan and Mashy Meidan, two former intelligence officials. Meidan’s lawyer rejected the time report, and the Hanan brothers did not comment.
Speaking to undercover journalists, Tal Hanan claimed that “Team Jorge” had interfered in 33 presidential election campaigns around the world, winning 27 of them. In Kenya, the e-mail and Telegram accounts of close advisers and supporters of William Rutos, who won the presidential election in August last year, were hacked. It is unclear whether the activities influenced the election result. In any case, they could not prevent Ruto’s victory.
Campaigns also in Indonesia and Venezuela
The losing candidate, Raila Odinga, has also been making accusations of hacking since the elections, although in September the Supreme Court dismissed the evidence of vote-rigging as unconvincing. The opposition member is currently mobilizing thousands of supporters to protest against what he considers to be a “stolen” election.
In a television interview broadcast on Monday, Odinga said he himself hired “ethical hackers” to break into the Independent Electoral Commission’s system to confirm his suspicions. They had submitted a report, which he did not want to publish. In Kenya, the last three parliamentary elections were overshadowed by alleged hacker attacks, fake news campaigns and the use of paid “influencers”.
The now insolvent British data analysis institute Cambridge Analytica, which developed campaigns for the politician and later President Uhuru Kenyatta in 2013 and 2017, was also criticized. Critics have labeled the messages as “propaganda” fueling ethnic tensions and unrest. According to research published on Wednesday, “Team Jorge” also tried to do business with Cambridge Analytica ahead of the 2017 Kenyan election. However, this failed due to the required fee of 400,000 to 600,000 dollars per month, it said. However, documents are said to show that “Team Jorge” and Cambridge Analytica participated together in the 2015 presidential campaign in Nigeria.
trail to France
The Israeli company is also said to have interfered in elections and political developments in other countries through cyber attacks, disinformation campaigns and spying, for example in Indonesia and Venezuela. In Europe, the group claimed responsibility for a cyber attack on the 2014 referendum on independence in Catalonia.
Another track leads to France and there to the news channel BFM-TV. One of the senior presenters, Rachid M’Barka, aired a dozen suspicious shorts during his late night moderations. Among them was a post that was supposed to create a mood against the sanctions against Russia. On the Côte d’Azur, many feared for their jobs because the Russian oligarchs could not visit their summer residences, it said. The yacht industry in particular is affected.
M’Barka was confronted by the editorial director and suspended in early February. The labor law process is still ongoing. He has admitted receiving the shorts through a French middleman, Jean-Pierre Duthion. Unlike usual, there was no editorial approval. M’Barka claimed not to have received any money, only to have rendered a service to a “friend”. Duthion is said to be working directly with “Team Jorge”. Due to the late broadcast time, the short contributions only reached a small audience, but were shared millions of times with the BFM-TV seal of approval in targeted Twitter campaigns via troll factories.
In addition to hacking e-mail and social media accounts and spying on bank accounts, spreading false information is said to be one of “Team Jorge’s” means. According to their own statements, the group created 39,000 false digital profiles. These could be used for coordinated actions to influence opinions. time writes that the international research was able to find a total of 19 such campaigns in which “Team Jorge” was involved.