With the help of leaked documents and witness accounts, Mediapart reveals the inside story on the United Arab Emirates' strategy to influence opinion in France, an operation involving private intelligence gathering and the manipulation of information . The story features an Emirati intelligence agent, a private intelligence agency in Switzerland, academics and two well-known French journalists. Another name that also crops up is that of President Emmanuel Macron's former bodyguard Alexandre Benalla. Yann Philippin and Antton Rouget investigate.
An Israeli unit codenamed 'Team Jorge', which sold hacking services and access to a vast army of fake social media profiles, became notorious recently when its activities were exposed by revelations from the non-profit network 'Forbidden Stories'. But they are not the only players in the disinformation sector.
