Israeli cyber mercenaries “Team Jorge” interfere in elections around the world, gaining access to the accounts of high-ranking officials, but refuse to campaign “against Mr. Putin”
OCCRP publishes a joint investigation by a team of journalists from several publications who posed as potential clients and contacted an Israeli group of online influencers who call themselves Team Jorge.
Israeli cyber mercenaries are able to hack into Telegram and Gmail accounts and send messages on behalf of the victim. The reporters were able to confirm that Team Jorge ran the accounts of at least two high-ranking officials from Africa.
Team leader Tal Hanan, aka Jorge, told undercover reporters that his specialists had run “33 presidential-level campaigns” – 27 of them “successful””, such a service costs about 15 million dollars.
However, his brother Zohar added, they do not take up the job only in three cases: in Israel (“We do not shit where we eat”), if the order is related to American party politics and if they are asked to organize “something against Mr. Putin “.
According to open data, Hanan, the head of Team Jorge, was an explosives specialist in the Israeli special forces, and his brother Zohar worked as a polygraph examiner.
Hanan said that the impact campaigning software developed by Team Jorge – Advanced Impact Media Solutions (AIMS) – was bought by the intelligence services of more than 10 countries.
AIMS creates bots that use photos of real people and can run disinformation campaigns on any social media. The journalists identified more than 1,700 Twitter accounts involved in 21 AIMS campaigns.
Read the full version of the investigation on our website about how the “Team Jorge” influenced the elections in Kenya and could get access to the accounts of high-ranking officials in Telegram and Gmail.
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