There was no official announcement but, among the two hundred and fifty journalists from BFM-TV, the information spread very quickly: Wednesday January 11, Rachid M’Barki, presenter of the “Journal de la nuit” of the first continuous news channel, was asked by its management not to go on the air. Mr. M’Barki, historical figure of BFM-TV, keeps his salary, pending the results of an internal investigation.
He is suspected of having broadcast, on several occasions during the past year, subjects which had not been validated by the editor-in-chief of the channel, possibly on behalf of foreign governments. The person concerned denies having been paid, and claims to have “passed” these subjects only to render service to an acquaintance, Jean-Pierre Duthion, a French intermediary specializing in influence campaigns.
Several of these broadcast sequences, however, seem to be linked to a completely different actor, who does not operate in France but in Israel, and more precisely in Tel Aviv. It is from the big city of “Israeli Silicon Valley” that “Team Jorge” operates, a pharmacy specializing in disinformation, which offers its clients all the services of a private intelligence agency: hacking, creation of fake documents, gigantic network of false accounts on social networks… and “placement” of articles or sequences in the media. Among its clients: billionaires, electoral candidates, companies, authoritarian governments or even crime suspects.
For several months, the consortium of investigative journalists of the “Story Killers” project, coordinated by Forbidden Stories and of which The world and Radio France, investigate this mysterious company, which seems to have no legal existence and was created by former Mossad and Israeli army. The consortium has identified around twenty disinformation operations for the benefit of States, companies or wealthy individuals.
Among them, two series of videos broadcast on a large scale by fake Twitter and Facebook accounts controlled by Team Jorge particularly intrigue French journalists. Presented as excerpts from a BFM-TV newspaper, they repeat exactly the same arguments as two Team Jorge campaigns: one criticizing the seizures of Russian yachts, the other attacking the former Qatari attorney general Ali Bin Fetais Al-Marri.
“Story Killers”, investigation into disinformation mercenaries
For several months, some twenty newsrooms, including that of the Worldinvestigated, within the Forbidden Stories consortium, on companies specializing in the manipulation of public opinion and the dissemination of false information. As part of this project called “Story Killers”, three journalists from the consortium were able to participate, posing as intermediaries for a potential French client, in several meetings with pharmacies selling tools of influence ” keys in hand “.
This investigation notably made it possible to reveal the existence of “Team Jorge”, a very discreet Israeli company which claims its interference in several dozen elections throughout the world. It offers its customers an arsenal of illegal services, from the hacking of e-mail boxes and private messaging from adversaries to the massive dissemination of influence campaigns thanks to a gigantic network of fake accounts on social networks.
“Editorial Free Will”
Assemblies? “Deepfakes”, these faked images where a face has been changed? Or sequences actually aired? In early January, the consortium contacted BFM-TV to get to the bottom of it. The channel immediately understands that these sequences have indeed been broadcast and that they pose major problems; she quickly identifies other dubious briefs, glorifying in particular the Sudanese general Mohammed Hamdan Daglo or extolling the merits of the “Moroccan Sahara”, a name connoted used by Rabat to claim much-contested sovereignty over Western Sahara.
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