Liberal democracy is moving back into the past, as is clear from events in Georgia, Moldova or late in Romania. In this context, it is worth recalling information from the beginning of the year, which in the Polish-language infosphere remained virtually unnoticed.
"A hacker group commanded by a erstwhile Israeli peculiar forces officer claims to have manipulated 33 presidential elections worldwide," reported the diary “The Guardian” in its readers.
The group is led by Tal Hanan, a 50-year-old erstwhile Israeli peculiar Forces worker who presently operates privately, utilizing the nickname “Jorge”, and likely worked “under cover” at elections in various countries for over 2 decades.
Tanan and his squad “Team Jorge” were exposed by secret recordings and papers in a journalistic investigation conducted by an global group of journalists, including “Le Monde”, “Der Spiegel” and “El País”. The materials leaked to “Guardiana”. To the questions of the paper Hanan replied that he “did not admit to any crime.”
“Team Jorge” provides, according to the investigation, services consisting in manipulating elections without leaving traces. The group besides works for corporate customers – says “Guardian”.
Hanan told reporters that services that any call “secret operations”, provided intelligence agencies, politicians and private companies who wanted to secretly manipulate the public. He worked throughout Africa, South and Central America, the USA and Europe.
One of squad Jorge's key services is simply a sophisticated software package (Advanced Impact Media Solutions, AIMS). He controls an army of thousands of fake social media profiles – on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Telegram, Gmail, Instagram and YouTube. any avatars even have Amazon accounts with credit cards, bitcoin wallets and Airbnb account – writes the journal.
A group of journalists documented over six hours of secret meetings during which Hanan and his squad talked about how they could collect intelligence on rivals, including utilizing hacking techniques to access Gmail and Telegram accounts. They boasted of dumping material to legal news services, which are then reinforced by AIMS bot management software. They besides applied to specified activities as sending an erotic toy home to a politician so that his wife would fishy that he was having an affair.
The “Team Jorge” revelations can origin problems for Israel, which in fresh years has been under expanding diplomatic force in connection with the export of alleged cyber weapons. Hanan appears to have conducted at least part of his disinformation operations through Israeli company Demoman International, which is registered on a website operated by the Israeli Ministry of Defence. The hotel did not respond to the request of “Guardian” for comment.
Hanan described his squad as “government alumni” with experience in finance, social media and social campaigns, as well as in “the intellectual war”; they operate with six locations worldwide.
In his speech to possible Hanan clients, he said: “We are now engaged in certain elections in Africa. We have a squad in Greece and a squad in the Emirates (...) [We finished] 33 campaigns at presidential level, 27 of which were successful.” He added that he was active in 2 “large projects” in the US, but besides stated that he was not active in the country’s policy – he described “Guardian”.
Verifying all Hanan's claims was not possible, and he himself could colorize to guarantee well-paid contracts with possible customers. “Team Jorge” told reporters that he accepted payments in different currencies and cryptocurrency. The cost of interference in elections is EUR 6-15 million – the paper concludes."
Michał Igniatowski
Development based on press and agency information
