Undercover reporters recorded a group of covert cyber influence specialists as they pitched their services, which involve using disinformation campaigns, false intelligence, hacks and blackmail to promote their clients’ interests. The group, which calls itself Team Jorge, claims to have worked on dozens of presidential elections around the world and charges multimillion dollar fees.
Key Findings
- Reporters were able to verify Team Jorge’s claims to access messaging accounts of important political targets and deploy social media campaigns orchestrated via fake accounts.
- Team Jorge appears to have meddled in last year’s Kenyan presidential election, which was plagued by disinformation.
- The secretive group includes people with experience in Israeli security services.
Across the globe, shadowy groups of cyber mercenaries have been harnessing digital technology to hack elections, employing their dark arts for anyone willing to pay a hefty fee to subvert democracy.
Exposing its secret strategies to the world for the first time, one group of Israeli disinformation experts pitched its services to journalists posing as potential clients interested in disrupting an African election.
“This is our experience… to hurt the logistics of the opponents, to intimidate them, to create an atmosphere that nobody will go to the elections,” said a member of Team Jorge –– as the secretive group refers to itself –– during a July 2022 video call.
In several calls and one in-person meeting, members of the team –– led by a man calling himself “Jorge” –– described “intelligence and influence” services they said they deployed for their clients. They claimed to have worked on “33 presidential-level campaigns” – 27 of them “successful.”
Their tactics include hacking, forging blackmail material, spreading disinformation, planting false intelligence, physically disrupting elections, and deploying targeted social media campaigns.
Reporters were able to verify that some of those tactics were used. Team Jorge appears to have acquired unauthorized access to Telegram and Gmail accounts of highly-placed officials, and deployed botnet social media campaigns. The evidence viewed by reporters suggests that the group meddled in at least two presidential elections.
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Replies
Satan sure is busy in these last days, thankfully he will be defeated in the end but many are going to suffer
There is little doubt the corruption is worldwide and it's intent.