Exposing Team Jorge's Disinformation Tactics

This is Tal Hanan, the mastermind behind Team Jorge,

a covert unit that specializes in hacking and disinformation.

For two decades, Hanan's real identity has remained secret.

He operates in the shadows using an alias, Jorge.

Now, a joint investigation by the Guardian

and Forbidden Stories can reveal who he is,

where he's worked, and how he manipulates elections for money.

So the disinformation industry is a relatively new phenomenon

which effectively distorts reality and spreads online propaganda.

It is usually done by states themselves or by mercenaries for hire

who work for private clients or for governments themselves.

Almost always, this is done covertly.

To expose this disinformation unit,

reporters went undercover as prospective clients who wanted to delay an election in Africa.

In six hours of secretly recorded meetings,

Hanan and his Israel-based team were filmed demonstrating their services.

Hanan has corporate and political clients and boasts about past and present jobs.

One of Team Jorge's secret tools is a piece of software called AIMS

which weaponizes social media. I'll show you why our system is considered

by the type of client that buy it.

We have thousands of thousands of each and every one of them would be there.

It means we have Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and YouTube channel and Telegram and whatever you want.

Hanan's team control an army of more than 30,000 bots.

A bot is effectively a social media account that pretends to be human but isn't human.

It's being controlled through automation.

Team Jorge's bots or avatars are by far one of the most sophisticated that we've ever seen.

The bots are multi-layered and have corresponding accounts on several other platforms

much like a human being which is why when you look at it initially it does appear to be a real person.

Our investigation pointed to Team Jorge's work in countries all over the world.

Team Jorge also claim they can hack Telegram and Gmail.

This is live right? We're live with this target.

If I write him now he might answer.

We can see he finds he's keeping on his drive.

We don't know exactly how Hanan does the hack

but he claims to be exploiting vulnerabilities in the global signaling system SS7.

The Guardian has been leaked emails in which Hanan quotes fees of between 400,000 and 600,000 dollars.

They also confirm that Team Jorge worked covertly on the Nigerian presidential election in 2015.

Our investigation has exposed this hidden underworld of disinformation operations

so the next time you're scrolling through your phone or casting a ballot

ask yourself what information you're acting on and who's really behind it.

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