When a second operative calling himself Michel Lambert approached Scott-Railton to arrange a similar meeting at the Peninsula Hotel in New York, Scott-Railton devised a sting operation, inviting AP journalists to interrupt the lunch and videotape the encounter.
In December, one of the researchers, John Scott-Railton, realized that a colleague had been tricked into meeting an operative at a Toronto hotel, then questioned about his work on NSO. The undercover operatives’ activities might never have been made public had it not been for two researchers who work at Citizen Lab, an internet watchdog group that is based out of the University of Toronto’s Munk School. American private equity firm Francisco Partners, which owns NSO, did not return a message from the AP seeking comment. NSO has previously said it has nothing to do with the undercover efforts “either directly or indirectly.” It did not return repeated messages asking about the new targets identified by the AP. The targets told the AP that the covert agents tried to goad them into making racist and anti-Israel remarks or revealing sensitive information about their work in connection with the lawsuits. The details of these covert efforts offer a glimpse into the sometimes shadowy world of private investigators, which includes some operatives who go beyond gathering information and instead act as provocateurs. Masri said the operatives were “looking for dirt and irrelevant information about people involved.” Two of them - the journalist and a Cyprus-based lawyer - were secretly recorded meeting the undercover operatives footage of them was broadcast on Israeli television just as the AP was preparing to publish this story.Īll six of the people who were targeted said they believe the operatives were part of a coordinated effort to discredit them. The fourth is a London-based journalist who has covered the litigation. The four others targeted by operatives include three lawyers involved in related lawsuits in Israel and Cyprus alleging that the company, the NSO Group, sold its spyware to governments with questionable human rights records. The Associated Press has now learned of similar undercover efforts targeting at least four other individuals who have raised questions about the use of the Israeli firm’s spyware.
LONDON (AP) - When mysterious operatives lured two cybersecurity researchers to meetings at luxury hotels over the past two months, it was an apparent bid to discredit their research about an Israeli company that makes smartphone hacking technology used by some governments to spy on their citizens. The boarded-up building was supposedly the home of Mertens-Giraud Partners Management, but an Associated Press investigation has found that the firm is little more than a front for an elaborate undercover operation targeting security researchers, lawyers and a journalist. 5, 2019 photo shows the exterior of the address Rue des Poissonniers 13 in Brussels. Executive Produced by Robert Downey Jr., Susan Downey, and Emily Barclay Ford for Team Downey and C13Originals, together with Josh McLaughlin for Wink Pictures and written, produced, and directed by Peabody-nominated C13Originals, a Cadence13 Studio.This Tuesday, Feb. The Sunshine Place tells the mind-blowing, true-story of Synanon - one of America’s most cutting edge social experiments, turned into one of its most dangerous and violent cults - as it’s never been told before: by the people who lived it. Dederich, aka “Chuck,” would be the one to destroy it all, along with the lives of many of his followers and millions of dollars in assets. The man who made the miracle happen, Charles E. What started in a house on the beach, soon spread to compounds across the country. Before long, it would make an even bolder claim: It could cure any of your problems. Once called “the miracle on the beach,” Synanon began in the 1960s as an experimental rehab facility in Santa Monica, California with a radical claim: It could cure heroin addiction.
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