How an Israeli disinformation octopus infiltrated French TV channels has discovered dangerous cracks in the “doomsday glacier”.

Team George. Behind this name is an Israeli disinformation company. And “Team Jorge” is said to have supplied “biased and tendentious” information to the well-known French moderator Rachid M’Barki of the broadcaster BFMTV – without being validated by the broadcaster.

The case caused a stir in the French media world, which suddenly became concerned: what if the disinformation octopus had laid its eggs in other newsrooms?

The incriminating statements

M’Barki is a BFMTV veteran: the journalist has been on the air since the channel was founded in 2005. The statements now accusing him are about Russian oligarchs, Qatar, Sudan, Cameroon and Western Sahara.

He tells the story of a man who is near Cameroon. He speaks in this context of the “Moroccan Sahara” instead of Western Sahara. The annexation of Western Sahara by Morocco is not recognized internationally.

On the contrary: the approximately 600,000 inhabitants of Western Sahara are fighting for an independent state – the Democratic Arab Republic of Sahara. However, Morocco claims Western Sahara for itself, as the region was loosely dependent on Morocco in the pre-colonial period. The United Nations is calling for a referendum on the final status of Western Sahara under international law.

Rachid M’Barki admits interference

Rachid M’Barki has since been suspended. He admitted the “interference operations” and a “possible journalistic misjudgment”. He was “doing a favor to a friend,” according to a message from the public radio chain France Bleue.

A consortium of international researchers has been researching “Team Jorge” for several months now. They were also the ones who informed the management of BFMTV about the suspicions against the journalist. One of many cases.

“Team Jorge” is the name detectives gave to the company, because Jorge is the pseudonym of the person posing as the manager. One of «Team Jorge»’s specialties is influencing elections. Investigators posed as advisors to a fictional African client and Jorge boasted:

A “Team Jorge” contributor added, “Two-thirds of them in English and French-speaking Africa. Twenty-seven of them were successful.”

Former Israeli army officers and 40,000 avatars

According to the researchers, “Team Jorge” is primarily intended to employ “former Israeli army or secret service officers, experts in financial information, military issues, psychological warfare or social media”.

An armada of nearly 40,000 avatars would work for “Team Jorge”. Your task: Spread opinions on social networks to influence elections or referenda.

Given the profile of Team Jorge’s employees, it would be surprising if this company’s activities were not overseen or even authorized by the Israeli government. When the BFMTV journalist speaks of “Moroccan Sahara” instead of “Western Sahara”, he is addressing the interests of Morocco and Israel, whose diplomatic relations have normalized since the end of 2020.

So says the competitor

Lotfi Bel Hadj is no stranger to the name “Team Jorge”. “I’m a competitor,” he says when Watson reaches him.

The French-Tunisian is the founder of UReputation, a company with offices in Tunisia and Barcelona that has similar offers in its file as “Team Jorge”. Like “Team Jorge”, Lotfi Bel Hadj is mainly active in Africa. However, he ran into trouble there when Facebook removed hundreds of fake accounts attributed to the company.

The names of Lotfi Bel Hadj and his company also surfaced in the Paris-Saint-Germain fake Twitter account scandal. This was made by UReputation on behalf of the football club. The fake accounts were intended for smear campaigns and targeted players of the club who had run into problems with the club’s management, including Kylian Mbappé and Adrien Rabiot. Lotfi Bel Hajj says:

And he adds: “Many people express themselves under pseudonyms on social networks and appear there under different identities. Are they tracked? No they do not. Using fictitious profiles as part of an election campaign is a way to put a candidate in the spotlight.” But isn’t this a case of voter deception? The founder of UReputation denies this.

“Disinformation has to do with state reasons”

“This is a democratic challenge,” says Frédéric Esposito of the University of Geneva’s Observatoire universitaire de la sécurité with a certain seriousness.

«’Team Jorge’, brought to light by this research consortium, shows that the problem of disinformation is related to state reasons. We are dealing with a company that hires mercenaries to act as influencers. They construct and deconstruct information», says the political scientist. He adds:

And Switzerland is not immune to recruitment attempts by foreign powers.

CH Media reported how Russian and Chinese “correspondents” tried to influence Swiss students through social networks.

All this is reminiscent of the intrigue that took place in the French series Le bureau des legends is told – for whose American adaptation George Clooney will be responsible.