Category Archives: Whistleblower

Check the Corruption in the Paycheck Protection Program

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The federal government has not disclosed most of the forgivable coronavirus-stimulus loans issued to businesses under the $660 billion federal Paycheck Protection Program.

The Small Business Administration has publicly released lists of the forgivable loans under $150,000 issued in each state but it did not include the names of the recipients.

Loans under $150,000 make up the bulk of the loans issued. According to SBA data through June 30, 2020, loans under $50,000 represented 66.8% of all loans provided, $50,000 to $100,000 represented 13.8% and $100,000-$150,000 represented 6%.

The state-by-state lists the SBA released included only the names of the lenders, including banks and credit unions, that approved the loans as well as the estimated number of jobs the loan will help retain. To date, banks have earned billions in taxpayer-funded fees for issuing the loans as part of PPP, which was setup by the $2.2 trillion CARES Act. The SBA hasn’t said whether individual bank branches directly received forgivable PPP loans.

As Just the News previously reported, the federal government isn’t going to conduct a review of most taxpayer-funded forgivable loans issued under the program.

Pennsylvania Treasury, Joe Torsella - State Treasurer source

According to the SBA, the loan is forgivable if “at least 60 percent” of it is used toward payroll. The rest can be used for qualified expenses such as rent and utilities. More here.

***

So…let’s take a look at some details of corruption shall we? Then measure your outrage…if you can. It may also be a good time to call your representative and ask them if they took any PPP money of any kind or ask them if they are outraged and what are they gonna do about it.

  1. Movie star and Trump hater, Robert De Niro: He got $28 million.
  2. A law firm founded by VP Joe Biden Monzack Mersky McLaughlin and Browder, of which Biden no longer has an interest but he maintained close ties. Monzack, who has donated thousands to Biden’s presidential campaign, attended a state dinner at the White House for Chinese President Hu Jintao in 2011. The law firm is also a registered agent for companies tied to Biden.
  3. EDI Associates in San Rafael, California, has 52 employees and says it’s in the “full-service restaurant business,” government documents show. The company received between $350,000 and $1 million in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) money. EDI is partially owned by Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband.
  4. A progressive political consulting firm that receives large payments from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D., N.Y.) reelection campaign and activist Shaun King’s PAC raked in hundreds of thousands in taxpayer money meant to help small businesses.

    New data show that between $350,000 and $1 million flowed from the Paycheck Protection Program, a federal program created to help small businesses cope with the economic downturn caused by coronavirus, to Middle Seat Consulting, a Washington, D.C.-based digital firm that provides services to far-left Democrats.

  5. The campaign of Christine Eady Mann, a Democratic candidate for Congress running in Texas’s 31st district, received $28,600 in May from the PPP, a federal program designed to help small businesses. Mann’s campaign said it used the loan to offset “challenging” fundraising numbers. The campaign repaid the loan in full six weeks later.

There are many more but here is the kicker of it all perhaps….

NP: Entities led by high-ranking Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members, collaborators with state-owned enterprises, and Confucius Institute partners rank among the beneficiaries of the U.S. government’s coronavirus pandemic bailout.

These companies received up to $3.4 million from the U.S. federal government according to Treasury Department’s records released on Monday.

Beyond funding the opposition in the ongoing economic and information warfare between China and the U.S., Chinese companies often coerce American companies to comply with their censorship standards, routinely steal intellectual property, and spearhead massive outsourcing-fueled trade deficits at great cost to American jobs and workers.

Despite this, CCP-linked companies which benefited from the program meant to save American businesses and jobs hurt by the coronavirus include:

China United Transport, $350,000-$1,000,000

As a global transportation and logistics company, China United Transport’s brands itself as a lifeline for the global supply chain.

With weekly shipments to “Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Tianjing, Dalian, Qingdao, and Ningbo,” the company works with several Chinese state-owned ocean and air carriers.

China United lists AirChina, a state-owned enterprise that has received awards from the CCP and boasts it “has always demonstrated its strong brand image as a government-controlled enterprise” in its company profile.

Another partner, COSCO Shipping Lines, features 11 out of its 13 board members listing CCP affiliations in their biographies.

The Chairman and Managing Director Yang Zhijian, for example, serves as the Deputy Secretary of the CCP’s Central Committee and Deputy Managing Director Qian Weizhong serves as Party Secretary.

The CCP also retains a majority stake in partners China Eastern Airline and China Southern Airline.

China Manufacturers Alliance, $350,000-$1,000,000

China Manufacturers Alliance is a facilitator of U.S. dependence on Chinese manufacturing, defining its mission as “uniting major tire manufacturers in China under a unique and powerful cooperative alliance.”

Beyond serving as a boon for the Chinese economy, its parent company is Shanghai Huayi Group. The group is headed by CCP members including its president Lili Gu and Technology Director Dengxi Wu.

Boardmember Liu Genyuan has also advised the CCP’s Belt and Road Initiative, a predatory investment scheme whereby China funnels extensive amounts of money to developing countries who often default on the loans they are provided.

This allows the CCP to seize control of critical infrastructure and facilitate the regime’s quest to end the world’s reliance on the West by bringing countries into their technological and financial orbit.

China Luxury Advisors, $150,000-$350,000

China Luxury Advisors, which strives to “engage the global Chinese consumer,” boasts on its homepage that it’s a Tencent International Premium Agency Partner and Official Alibaba Partner.

Tencent has been identified by the State Department’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation as a “tool of the Chinese government,” noting the company has “no meaningful ability to tell the Chinese Communist Party ‘no’ if officials decide to ask for their assistance.”

It also provides “a foundation of technology-facilitated surveillance and social control” as part of the CCP’s broader crusade “to shape the world consistent with its authoritarian model,” the report added. And CCP collaboration is not far-fetched: its CEO is also known to have direct links to the CCP, currently serving as a Congressional Deputy and Standing Committee member and assisting the CCP with “law enforcement and security issues” and collaborating on “patriotic” video games.

Alibaba founder Jack Ma is a member of the CCP who insisted at a Wall Street Journal event to “be in love with them,” referencing the CCP. Forbes reported the “Chinese Government Has A Huge “Stake” In Alibaba” in 2015 and The New York Times unearthed the company’s “deep political connections of the investment firms, Boyu Capital, Citic Capital Holdings and CDB Capital, the China Development Bank’s private investment arm” in 2014.

The Times also noted Alibaba’s “senior executive ranks included sons or grandsons of the most powerful members of the ruling Communist Party.”

China Luxury Advisors also “works closely with WeChat to register and manage official accounts, develop mini-programs, create content, and place advertising across Tencent’s platforms.” WeChat is a Tencent-owned messaging app with a track record of banning or censoring users who share content counter to the state’s narratives and users are often subject to CCP surveillance and data breaches.

China Institute, $150,000-$350,000

China Institute has a nearly 100-year history of working alongside the CCP. Notable events it touts on its timeline include:

China Institute is instrumental in the Chinese Government’s decision to provide additional funds to Chinese students through its Committee on Wartime Planning for Chinese Students in the United States.

The New York-based advocacy group also hosts a Confucius Institute in partnership with East China Normal University (ECNU), a state-funded University which advertises its adherence to CCP “education and other related policies” in its teachings.

The partnership has allowed Confucius Institutes to metastasize into nine K-12 schools despite being controversial operations replete with “undisclosed ties to Chinese institutions, and conflicted loyalties,” propaganda, and intellectual property theft, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).’

The Confucius Institute’s Beijing Headquarters, colloquially known as “Hanban,” pushes teachers to use “teaching resources” penned by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) itself.

Chinatex, $150,000-$350,000

Chinatex is a global cotton trading enterprise focusing on apparel. The company’s introduction page boasts of its state-owned status and subservience to the CCP’S five-year plans:

In July 2016, Chinatex was integrated into Cofco Group as its wholly-owned subsidiary subject to approval by the State Council. According to its 13th Five-Year Plan, Chinatex is now adhering to the overall guiding principle of “professional management and industrialization development”, shouldering the important historical missions of “serving as the major force in maintaining the safety of the national cotton industry, a leader in cotton market regulation, and a practitioner of green, environmentally friendly factories”, vigorously enhancing its vitality, influence and control in the industry, and striving to become a world-class cotton merchant.

The Beijing-based manufacturer is responsible for siphoning American manufacturing and textile jobs.

GateChina, $150,000-$350,000

GateChina’s flagship website is WenxueCity, a Chinese-language news aggregator intended for expatriates. The outlet routinely links to content from CCP run and funded media outlets such as China Network Television.

The news of the loans going to CCP-linked companies is sure to raise eyebrows, especially given the Trump administration’s recent focus on China in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and the crackdown in Hong Kong.

A few more items are here like:

In Los Angeles, luxury residential brokerage the Agency received a $2 to 5 million PPP loan to retain 104 employees, according to the SBA data. Stimulus recipients in L.A. also included a number of Chinese developers, like Greenland Group, which received two $1 to $2 million loans to retain a total of 339 employees; and Shenzhen New World Group, which received two $2 to $5 million loans for a total of 533 employees. Shenzhen New World has been implicated as a major player in a bribery scheme surrounding recently-arrested City Councilmember Jose Huizar.

While U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies are not barred from receiving PPP assistance, lack of guidance in the early days of the program had led to significant confusion among potential borrowers.

Last month, an L.A. marketing agency that had received a PPP loan sued its Canadian landlord Onni Group, alleging the foreign company was seeking “back-door” access to the program by demanding the funds be used to pay rent. Check out more here.

 

25 Cities to go on Strike for BLM

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NEW YORK (AP) — A national coalition of labor unions, along with racial and social justice organizations, will stage a mass walkout from work this month, as part of an ongoing reckoning on systemic racism and police brutality in the U.S.

Dubbed the “Strike for Black Lives,” tens of thousands of fast food, ride-share, nursing home and airport workers in more than 25 cities are expected to walk off the job July 20 for about eight minutes — the amount of time prosecutors say a white Minneapolis police officer held his knee on the neck of George Floyd in May — in remembrance of Black men and women who died recently at the hands of police.

The national strike will also include a handful of worker-led marches through participating cities, organizers said Wednesday.

According to details shared exclusively with The Associated Press, organizers are demanding sweeping action by corporations and government to confront systemic racism in an economy that chokes off economic mobility and career opportunities for many Black and Hispanic workers, who make up a disproportionate number of those earning less than a living wage. They also stress the need for guaranteed sick pay, affordable health care coverage and better safety measures for low-wage workers who never had the option of working from home during the coronavirus pandemic.

“We have to link these fights in a new and deeper way than ever before,” said Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union, which represents over 2 million workers in the U.S. and Canada.

“Our members have been on a journey … to understanding why we cannot win economic justice without racial justice. This strike for Black lives is a way to take our members’ understanding about that into the streets,” Henry told the AP.

Among the strikers’ specific demands are that corporations and government declare unequivocally that “Black lives matter.” Elected officials at every level must use executive and legislative power to pass laws that guarantee people of all races can thrive, according to a list of demands. Employers must also raise wages and allow workers to unionize to negotiate better health care, sick leave and child care support.

The service workers union has partnered with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the American Federation of Teachers, United Farm Workers and the Fight for $15 and a Union, which was launched in 2012 by American fast food workers to push for a higher minimum wage.

Social and racial justice groups taking part include March On, the Center for Popular Democracy, the National Domestic Workers Alliance and the Movement for Black Lives, a coalition of over 150 organizations that make up the Black Lives Matter movement.

Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson, a strike organizer with the Movement for Black Lives, said corporate giants that have come out in support of the BLM movement amid nationwide protests over police brutality have also profited from racial injustice and inequity.

“They claim to support Black lives, but their business model functions by exploiting Black labor — passing off pennies as ‘living wages’ and pretending to be shocked when COVID-19 sickens those Black people who make up their essential workers,” said Henderson, co-executive director of Tennessee-based Highlander Research and Education Center.

Labor Supports BLM, Calls on Police Unions for ...

“Corporate power is a threat to racial justice, and the only way to usher in a new economy is by tackling those forces that aren’t fully committed to dismantling racism,” she said in a statement

Trece Andrews, a Black nursing home worker for a Ciena Healthcare-managed retirement home in the Detroit area, said she feels dejected after years of being passed over for promotions. The 49-year-old believes racial discrimination plays a part in her career stagnation.

“I’ve got 20 years in the game and I’m only at $15.81 (per hour),” she said in a phone interview.

As the single mother of a 13-year-old daughter and caregiver to her father, a cancer survivor, Andrews said inadequate personal protective gear makes her afraid of bringing the coronavirus home from her job.

“We’ve got the coronavirus going on, plus we’ve got this thing with racism going on,” Andrews said. “They’re tied together, like some type of segregation, like we didn’t have our ancestors and Martin Luther King fighting against these types of things. It’s still alive out here, and it’s time for somebody to be held accountable. It’s time to take action.”

The strike continues a decades-old labor rights movement tradition. Most notably, organizers have drawn inspiration from the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike over low wages, benefits disparity between Black and white employees, and inhumane working conditions that contributed to the deaths of two Black workers in 1968. At the end of that two-month strike, some 1,300 mostly Black sanitation workers bargained collectively for better wages.

“Strike for Black Lives” organizers say they want to disrupt a multi-generational cycle of poverty perpetuated by anti-union and other policies that make it difficult to bargain collectively for better wages and working conditions.

Systemic poverty affects 140 million people in the U.S, with 62 million people working for less than a living wage, according to the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, a strike partnering organization. An estimated 54% of Black workers and 63% of Hispanic workers fall into that category, compared to 37% of white workers and 40% of Asian American workers, the group said.

“The reason why, on July 20th, you’re going to see strikes and protests and the walk-offs and socially distanced sit-ins and voter registration outreach is because thousands and thousands of poor, low-wage workers of every race, creed and color understand that racial, economic, health care, immigration, climate and other justice fights are all connected,” the Rev. William Barber II, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, said in a telephone interview.

“If in fact we are going to take on police violence that kills, then certainly we have to take on economic violence that also kills,” he said.

Organizers said some striking workers will do more than walk off the job on July 20. In Missouri, participants will rally at a McDonald’s in Ferguson, a key landmark in the protest movement sparked by the death of Michael Brown, a Black teenager who was killed by police in 2014. The strikers will then march to a memorial site located on the spot where Brown was shot and killed.

In Minneapolis, where Floyd was killed on May 25, nursing home workers will participate in a caravan that will include a stop at the airport. They’ll be joined by wheelchair attendants and cabin cleaners demanding a $15-per-hour minimum wage, organizers said.

Angely Rodriguez Lambert, a 26-year-old McDonald’s worker in Oakland, California, and leader in the Fight for $15 and a Union, said she and several co-workers tested positive for COVID-19 after employees weren’t initially provided proper protective equipment. As an immigrant from Honduras, Lambert said she also understands the Black community’s urgent fight against police brutality.

“Our message is that we’re all human and we should be treated like humans — we’re demanding justice for Black and Latino lives,” she told the AP.

“We’re taking action because words are no longer bringing the results that we need,” she said. “Now is the moment to see changes.”

Feds Remarkable Investigations Lead to Several Arrests

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In a time where many people protesting and are vandalizing wearing protective virus face coverings, Federal law enforcement is doing extraordinary work to identify the criminals. Several arrests have been made and ATF is asking for the public’s help to assist in more identifications.

WASHINGTON, DC — Four men were charged with destruction of federal property in connection with an attempt to tear down a status in Lafayette Square, according to federal prosecutors. Only one has been arrested so far, and he will appear Monday in U.S. District Court related to the attempt to tear down the statue of Andrew Jackson.

Prosecutors said one of the suspects — Lee Michael Cantrell, 47, of Virginia — was seen on video using a wooden board and yellow strap trying to pull the statue off its base June 22.

Graham Lloyd, 37, of Maine, handed a hammer to an unknown person and was seen pulling on ropes, according to authorities. He also is accused of breaking off and destroying the wheels of cannons that were on the statue’s base.

Connor Matthew Judd, 20, of Washington, D.C., was trying to pull down the statue, while 37-year-old Ryan Lane of Maryland attached a rope to one part of the statue and pulled on another roped tied elsewhere, prosecutors said, citing the video.

Judd was arrested Friday, appeared in Superior Court of the District of Columbia Saturday and will appear before U.S. Magistrate Judge Robin M. Meriweather Monday. Prosecutors said the three other men have not been taken into custody yet.

U.S. Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt said Judd was arrested at home “without incident.”

All were charged by criminal complaint, which is a formal accusation for establishing probable cause and not evidence of guilt., officials said.

While the U.S. Park Police and FBI took the lead on the investigation, the Metropolitan Department provided “significant assistance,” according to a statement from prosecutors. More here.

*** An exceptional piece of work has led to the arrest of the ring leader. His name is Jason Charter. A look at his Twitter feed was likely an easy pathway to identification.

This is his Twitter banner and he describes himself as: Political activist/organizer. #IAmAntifa #SmashRacism

So, Jason: Image you were in fact found and arrested eh? Care to comment now?

 

Then Jason thought it was cool to re-Tweet this:

 

***

Law enforcement sources tell Fox News that Jason Charter was arrested at his residence Thursday morning, without incident, and charged with destruction of federal property. These sources add that Charter has connections to Antifa and was in a leadership role on the night of June 22 when a large group of protesters tried to pull down the statue.

Protesters try to topple Andrew Jackson statue in Washington's Lafayette Park

“They were very organized,” a federal law enforcement official said. “Charter was on top of the statue and directing people … they had acid, chisels, straps and a human chain preventing police from getting to the statue.”

Charter is expected to make an appearance — likely virtual — in U.S. District Court in Washington on Thursday, Fox News is told.

Protesters say the Andrew Jackson statue is offensive because he was a slave owner and because of his treatment of Native Americans. Another man, Graham Lloyd, 37, turned himself in for similar charges in Portland, Maine, and had an initial appearance in federal court there on Wednesday afternoon. Lloyd is also accused of destruction of federal property for his role in the attempt to take down the Jackson statue. Source

 

 

 

Italian Police Seize $1 Billion of ISIS Amphetamines

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The Guardia di Finanza said that markings on the drugs were consistent with those used by Islamic State (IS). Though the amphetamine has been linked to IS in the past, some experts doubted that IS had the capacity to produce drugs in such quantities, and stated that Syrian pro-regime entities were more likely responsible.

Police just made history's biggest drug seizure: 15 tons ...

IN: Police in Italy have announced the seizure of the largest shipment of amphetamines in counter-narcotics history, containing drugs believed to have been manufactured by the Islamic State in Syria. The drugs shipment was intercepted at the port of Salerno, located south of Naples in southwestern Italy.

 

Italian police announced on Wednesday that it had made “the largest seizure of amphetamines in the world”, both in terms of quantity and street value. The latter is estimated at approximately $1 billion. Drug traffickers are rarely known to transport such large volumes of drugs in a single shipment, due to the risk of capture by the authorities. However, the lack of supply in Europe due to the coronavirus pandemic has prompted suppliers to take unusual risks, according to experts.

The amphetamines —approximately 84 million tablets— were found hidden inside three containers filled with paper cylinders. More pills had been placed inside the hollow parts of agricultural machinery products, according to police. The confiscated tablets are marked with the logo for the drug Captagon, which is better known by its genetic name, Fenethylline. Captagon was a popular drug in the Middle East in the 1990s, and today amphetamines produced by the Islamic State bear its logo, according to the United States Drug Enforcement Administration.

The drug is regularly given to Islamic State volunteers prior to battles and terrorist attacks, in order to help reduce their inhibitions, including susceptibility to fear, and to prevent them from feeling physical pain. Security agencies in the Middle East refer to the substance as “the jihad drug”. It is particularly prevalent in Syria, which has become the global leader in the production of illicit amphetamines in the past decade.

Italian police said the shipment was most likely intended for distribution by “a consortium of criminal groups”, who would then traffic the substance to illicit markets across Europe. It would be unthinkable for a single distributor to be able to afford a $1 billion single purchase, according to officials. The largest buyer among these distributors was probably the Camorra —the organized crime syndicate based in the region of Naples. The Camorra has international links through which it can channel the illicit drugs in much larger volumes than other crime syndicates, according to experts.

Asked about the clues that led to the seizure of the amphetamines, a spokesman for the Italian police said the force knew the when the shipment was coming in, due to “ongoing investigations we have with the Camorra”. He added, “we intercepted phone calls and members, so we knew what to expect”.

NYT’s Report on Russian Bounties is False

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Let us begin with Catherine Herridge and her Tweets shall we?

President Trump’s response to the NYT’s article was that he was never told of such a thing. Now we have Speaker Pelosi saying this is as bad as it gets.

Have we forgotten about the op-ed published by the New York Times this past February?

The deputy leader of the Taliban and one of the world’s most wanted militants has written an opinion piece for the New York Times in which he says the Afghan insurgents are “fully committed” to a deal with Washington.

The article, headlined “What the Taliban Want”, represents the highest-level statement from the group on months of negotiations with the United States, and comes as they are believed to be days away from signing an agreement that would see America begin to withdraw troops from its longest war.

It is also believed to the first time that Sirajuddin Haqqani — who doubles as head of the Haqqani network, a US-designated terror group that is one of the most dangerous factions fighting Afghan and US-led NATO forces in Afghanistan — has given such a lengthy statement in English.

Previously, he has communicated mainly through rare audio messages, usually in Pashto. The most recent one on a Taliban website was dated June 2017.

In the Times article, Haqqani repeated many Taliban talking points from the negotiations, including how women would have rights “granted by Islam” — the problem being, as many observers have pointed out, the group’s repressive and brutal interpretation of the faith.

The leader of a group known for the frequent use of suicide bombers targeting civilians also said he is “convinced the killing and the maiming must stop”.

The Taliban have been conducting direct talks with the US since 2018 on a deal which would see Washington begin pulling troops out in return for security guarantees from the militants and a promise to begin peace talks with the government in Kabul. More here.

Are we to assume the New York Times has sided with the Taliban and manifesting more Russian disinformation? Yup for sure. Perhaps too, the NYT’s and Russia have officially collaborated in Infektion. What is that?

Forgeries

The Internet Research Agency is infamous for flooding mainstream social media platforms with compelling disinformation campaigns. The GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency, deploys strategic data leaks and destabilizing cyberattacks. But in the recent history of Russia’s online meddling, a third, distinct entity may have been at work on many of the same objectives—indicating that Russia’s disinformation operations went deeper than was publicly known until now.
Dubbed Secondary Infektion, the campaign came on the radar of researchers last year. Today, the social media analysis firm Graphika is publishing the first comprehensive review of the group’s activity, which seems to have begun all the way back in January 2014. The analysis reveals an entity that prioritizes covering its tracks; virtually all Secondary Infektion campaigns incorporate robust operational security, including a hallmark use of burner accounts that only stay live long enough to publish one post or comment. That’s a sharp contrast to the IRA and GRU disinformation operations, which often rely on cultivating online personas or digital accounts over time and building influence by broadening their reach.
Secondary Infektion also ran disinformation campaigns on a notably large array of digital platforms. While the IRA in particular achieved virality by focusing its energy on major mainstream social networks like Facebook and Twitter, Secondary Infektion took more than 300 platforms in all, including regional forums and smaller blogging sites. The combination of widespread and endless burner accounts has helped the group hide its campaigns—and its motives—for years. But the approach also made the actor less influential and seemingly less effective than the IRA or GRU. Without being able to build a following, it’s difficult to get posts to take off. And many Secondary Infektion campaigns were either flagged by platform anti-abuse mechanisms or simply pilloried by regular users.
“The main thing is that this really adds a large-scale, persistent threat actor into the mental map we have of Russian information operations,” says Ben Nimmo, director of investigations at Graphika. “All the while you have the IRA running its operations, all the while you have GRU running its operations, you had Secondary Infektion running its own brand of operations, which had a very different style, had a very different approach. This was all running at the same time, and quite often they were all homing in on the same targets.”
Secondary Infektion has a familiar hit list. The group has been active in running disinformation campaigns related to world elections, has attempted to sow division between European countries, and has highlighted US and NATO dominance and aggression. Domestically, the actor has run campaigns in defense of Russia and its government, targeted activists and groups critical of the regime—like the reporting group Bellingcat and anti-corruption advocate Alexei Navalny—and tried to discredit the World Anti-Doping Agency. Secondary Infektion has also painted Turkey as a villainous rogue state and sown division over issues of global migration, particularly Muslim displacement. It has run relatively few campaigns related to Syria and its civil war but is devoted to a common priority for Russia-backed digital actors: undermining and destabilizing Ukraine.
Though Secondary Infektion’s activities are difficult to track, Graphika researchers were able to piece the its activity together by looking at rare occasions where the group reused an account a few times, and identifying patterns in sets of blogs and forums the group would post to. Secondary Infektion also has a particular tendency to build its campaigns around “leaked” documents that are really just fabricated by the group but claim to reveal, say, corruption among the Kremlin’s critics or an anti-Russian plot from the US. Graphika did not see evidence that Secondary Infektion used ads to promote its content, but after months of investigation the researchers did find a sort of digital fingerprint they could use to track Secondary Infektion campaigns at a much larger scale and link many more digital posts to the actor. Graphika would not comment on the nature of this tell, though.
Facebook was the first to discover a group of Secondary Infektion accounts in May 2019, and provided the data to disinformation researchers along with the initial attribution to Russia. Since then other social networks and researchers have gathered more examples of the actor’s activity and reinforced the attribution. The group seemingly reduced its operations or went further underground after being publicly named in 2019. But it was still operating as of at least March 2020. Graphika is clear, though, that Secondary Infektion has not been tied to a specific organization or apparatus within Russia. Based on the available evidence and the group’s distinctive techniques and behaviors, the researchers don’t believe that Secondary Infektion operates under the purview of the IRA or GRU. But that remains possible. More here.
GRU is the Russian military mentioned in the NYT’s piece highly debated and contested in Washington DC right now.