An Israeli unit of contractors, known as "Team Jorge," has been exposed for allegedly manipulating over 30 elections worldwide using hacking, sabotage, and automated disinformation on social media. The team is run by Tal Hanan, a 50-year-old former Israeli special forces operative who operates under the pseudonym "Jorge." The revelations come from an international consortium of journalists, including the Guardian, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, and El País, coordinated by the French nonprofit Forbidden Stories.
Undercover footage and leaked documents show that Team Jorge offers a private service to covertly meddle in elections without a trace. Hanan told undercover reporters posing as prospective clients that his services were available to intelligence agencies, political campaigns, and private companies. The team claims to have worked across Africa, South and Central America, the US, and Europe.
A key tool used by Team Jorge is a software package called Advanced Impact Media Solutions (Aims), which controls thousands of fake social media profiles on platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube. Some avatars even have Amazon accounts, credit cards, and bitcoin wallets. The team also uses hacking techniques to access Gmail and Telegram accounts and plants material in legitimate news outlets, amplified by the Aims software.
Hanan did not respond to detailed questions but said, "I deny any wrongdoing." The Israeli Ministry of Defense did not respond to requests for comment, though Hanan appears to have run some operations through an Israeli company, Demoman International, registered on a ministry website promoting defence exports.
The undercover meetings, filmed between July and December 2022, provide rare insight into the disinformation-for-hire industry. Three journalists from Radio France, Haaretz, and TheMarker posed as consultants for an African country seeking to delay an election. The encounters took place via video calls and in person at an unmarked office in Modi’in, Israel.
