Behind false info of Rachid M’Barki on BFM-TV, Israeli pharmacy “Team Jorge” and an intermediary

“Story Killers”. The survey carried out by “MO12345lemonde” and its partners of the Forbidden Stories Consortium allowed the discovery of several sequences not validated by the editorial staff, but broadcast on the antenna by the presenter.

By Damien Leloup and Florian Reynaud

There was no official announcement but, among the two hundred and fifty BFM-TV journalists, the information spreads very quickly: Wednesday January 11, Rachid M’Barki, presenter of the “Night Journal” From the first continuous information chain, was asked by its management not to go to the antenna. Mr. M’BARKI, historic figure of BFM-TV, retains 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 editorial team of the chain, possibly on behalf of foreign governments. The interested party defends himself from having been remunerated, and claims to have “passed” these subjects only to serve knowledge, Jean-Pierre Duthion, a French intermediary specializing in influence campaigns.

Several of these disseminated 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 the “Israeli Silicon Valley” that “Team Jorge”, a pharmacy specializing in disinformation, offers its customers all the services of a private intelligence agency: hacking, creation of false Documents, gigantic network of false accounts on social networks … and “placement” of articles or sequences in media. Among its customers: billionaires, candidates for elections, businesses, authoritarian governments or even suspects of crimes. 2> “editorial free will”

For several months, the consortium of investigative journalists of the “Story Killers” project, coordinated by Forbidden Stories and of which Mo12345lemonde and Radio France are part, survey on this mysterious business, which seems to have no legal existence and has been Created by former Mossad and the Israeli army. The consortium has identified around twenty disinformation operations in favor of states, companies or rich 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 extracts from a BFM-TV newspaper, they take up the same arguments as two Jorge team campaigns: one criticizing the seizures of Russian yachts, the other attacker the former attorney general of Qatar Ali Bin Fetais al-Marri.

Ratches? “Deepfakes”, these rigged images where we changed a face? Or sequences really passed on the antenna? In early January, the consortium contacts BFM-TV to be clear. The chain immediately understands that these sequences have been broadcast and that they pose major problems; It quickly identifies other dubious briefs, in the glory in particular of the Sudanese general Mohammed Hamdan Daglo or praising the merits of the “Moroccan Sahara”, connoted appellation used by Rabat to claim sovereignty, very contested, on Western Sahara.

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/Media reports cited above.