Israeli firm involved in 'destabilising democracies and disrupting elections' operates in India: Report
A new undercover investigation has exposed a team of Israeli contractors, code-named "Team Jorge," who claim to have manipulated more than 30 elections around the world using hacking, sabotage, and automated misinformation on social media.
"Team Jorge" is led by 50-year-old Tal Hanan, a former Israeli special forces operative.
The undercover footage-- filmed by three reporters, who approached "Team Jorge" posing as prospective clients--and documents have been leaked to The Guardian.
The consortium of journalists that investigated "Team Jorge" includes reporters from 30 outlets including Le Monde, Der Spiegel, and El País.
According to The Guardian, Tal Hanan now works privately using the pseudonym “Jorge”, and appears to have been working under the radar in elections in various countries for more than two decades.
The methods and techniques described by "Team Jorge" raise new challenges for big tech platforms, which have for years struggled to prevent nefarious actors spreading falsehoods or breaching the security on their platforms. Evidence of a global private market in disinformation aimed at elections will also ring alarm bells for democracies around the world, The Guardian report said.
The Guardian and its reporting partners tracked Aims-linked bot activity across the internet. It was behind fake social media campaigns, mostly involving commercial disputes, in about 20 countries including the UK, US, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Mexico, Senegal, India, and the United Arab Emirates, the report said.
Haaretz.com in a story headlined, "The Israeli Hackers Who Tried to Steal Kenya's Election," described Tal Hanan as a "terrific salesperson."
"He knows what impresses clients of the factory he established for worldwide hacking, forgery and fraud operations. To boast of email or Telegram hacking capabilities is one thing – but to take clients on a real-time tour of hacked Telegram accounts is another league entirely," the report said.
Meanwhile, Middle East Eye, recalled how the Pegasus, military-grade spyware made by the Israel-based NSO Group, faced legal action after allegations its tools were misused by governments and other agencies to hack the mobile phones of activists and senior politicians in several countries.
It may be recalled that The New York Times had reported that India acquired Pegasus from Israel as part of a defence deal in 2017. Pegasus, which secretly infects mobile phones with surveillance software, has been reportedly deployed in a wide variety of countries, in many cases to spy on journalists, activists, opposition politicians, and dissidents.