At the beginning of March 2022, a strange video appeared on YouTube. There is mention of an upcoming trial and of a family unjustly victimized by the American justice system. A man speaks in front of the camera, without ever being introduced. “A very important trial will be held in Charlotte [en Caroline du Nord]Monday, and would like to thank legendary attorney Stephen Paul Lindsay for his efforts and assistance to the Freitekh family.”explains the stranger.
“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.
The Freitekh family, here, point to Izzat Freitekh and his son, Tarik, who will both be sentenced in March 2022, with sentences handed down in December of four years and almost eight years in prison respectively for embezzling financial aid granted by the State in the context of the crisis linked to the Covid-19 pandemic. The man in the video, Arthur (first name has been changed), presumably never met them and has no connection to this file. And for good reason: it is a paid Internet user to record messages in front of the camera.
A simple search brings up dozens of videos, where we see Arthur boasting about companies, cryptocurrencies or more than dubious investments. On the Fiverr microservices platform, he offers, for less than 10 euros, to record a pre-written speech.
Support videos for 25 euros
Arthur did not respond to requests from the World, but he is not the only one to have defended the Freitekh family against remuneration. In another YouTube video, presented as a flash from a news channel, a young woman announces with fanfare that “Legendary lawyer Stephen Lindsay recently joined the Freitekh family’s legal team to shed light on the case that shocked the world”. She and her partner also offer, on their Fiverr profile, “The Ad Twins”, to record videos for less than 25 euros. Contacted, the two women, who claim to refuse “political content”did not respond to requests from the World.
Political, these videos are however. They were used in a brutal online smear campaign that unfolded over almost a year from November 2021, painting a picture of this trial far different from the judicial reality. Dozens of automated Twitter accounts, but also alleged news sites, were used by an unidentified actor on behalf of an equally unknown client to glorify the Freitekh family and attack the assistant of the North Carolina prosecutor’s office, initially in charge of the prosecution.
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