Israeli cyber and intelligence company Rayzone embroiled in Israeli businessman Dan Gertler
Israeli cyber and intelligence company Rayzone, part of whose secret activity was uncovered by Calcalist last week, provided cyber services to Jewish-British businessmen Moises and Mendi Gertner as part of their ongoing financial dispute with Israeli businessman Dan Gertler.
The revelation was uncovered in documents submitted as part
of arbitration proceedings that have been ongoing for years between the Gertner
brothers and Gertler regarding profits, estimated at hundreds of millions of
dollars, generated from mining rights of copper, cobalt, gold, and oil in
Africa.
The documents also showed that two people close to Gertler
have tried to hire the services of Rayzone on his behalf. One of them is
attorney Eles Dobronsky, who is linked to Member of Knesset Avigdor Liberman
and has partnered with Gertler in several business ventures. Among the services
discussed between the sides, according to the arbitration papers, was the use
of cyber capabilities in the fields of communications and intelligence gathering.
Ultimately, no deal was signed with Gertler.
According to the company's official releases, Rayzone is a
defensive and offensive cyber company that sells locating and tracking
technologies to intelligence and investigation organizations across the world.
As uncovered by Calcalist, the list of intelligence agencies, clandestine
services, and internal security bodies that Rayzone has worked or negotiated
with in the past hail from various countries, including Mexico, Singapore, the
Philippines, Vietnam, and Greece. This is the first time that it has been
revealed that Rayzone provides personal cyber services to private
businesspeople as well.
The connection between Rayzone and the Gertner brothers, and
the attempt by a person close to Gertler to hire the company, was disclosed in
a testimony provided in December 2015 by strategist and PR advisor Zeev Feiner,
as part of the arbitration proceedings.
Feiner worked previously as a spokesperson at the Ministry
of Defence where he met Yohai Bar Zakay Hasidoff, who would go on to own 20% of
Rayzone. Bar Zakay served as the assistant to the Director General of the
Ministry of Defence at the time, Pinhas Buchris. After leaving the ministry,
Bar Zakay founded Rayzone with co-founders Eran Reshef, Matan Caspi, Ron Zilka,
and Yaron Elrom.
Rayzone's offices are located at the Toyota Tower in Tel
Aviv, in which Feiner also rented offices after setting up his advisory company
PMPR around the same time. There were several collaborations between Rayzone
and Feiner when it came to clients, due to the previous acquittance between the
two. For example, a person who was aware of the cooperation testified that when
Rayzone worked with a security agency in a particular country and that same
country was looking for a company with expertise in online campaigns, Bar Zakay
would refer them to Feiner. Feiner, for his part, would refer his clients to
Rayzone when they were in need of cyber services.
Feiner testified that in 2013 he renewed a previous
acquaintance he had with Gertner, who he first met when he was a student in
England while Gertner was a senior figure in the local Jewish community.
"I was advising a foreign government at the time and I got to know an
American businessman (Zev Furst, a political advisor who was close to former
Israel President Shimon Peres, T.G., H.R.) who approached me and another guy
who was working with me in the same country," Feiner testified before
Judge Uri Goren. "He told me that the Gertner brothers are involved in a
legal proceeding and asked that we help them, that we meet with them."
The company with which Finer cooperated, according to his
testimony, was Rayzone, and the “other guy” was Bar Zakay. "I met Gertner
in Israel," said Feiner. "He told me that a large number of documents
was brought over as part of the arbitration proceedings with Dan Gertler. The
source of these documents, in his opinion, was places that are located inside
his office in London, and I'll not expand on that. The company with which I
cooperated and because of which we were approached for deals in cyber defense,
was Rayzone."
Shortly beforehand, a box of documents arrived at the office
of Gertler's attorney. Gertler, who is represented by attorneys Boaz Ben Zur
and Dori Klagsbald, wrote the following in October 2013 in an affidavit to
Judge Goren. "At the end of last week, I was (anonymously) sent additional
documents to the ones already revealed in the arbitration proceedings. These
documents were sent to me from the office of James Levy in Gibraltar. I don't
know who gave him the documents and I wasn't involved in acquiring them or
providing them to attorney Levy."
Feiner testified to Judge Goren that Rayzone was hired in
order to determine whether computers belonging to the Gertners were hacked.
"They checked Moises's office in London. I also accompanied them on one of
the trips there... I know that they identified suspicious findings, I don't
know to expand any more than that."
The probe, according to people close to the Gertner
brothers, revealed that a hack had taken place and email exchanges between
Mendi and Moises had been stolen. It is unclear if there was any evidence as to
who committed the suspected hack. The brothers claimed in a reply they filed to
the court this Sunday that Gertler hired the services of business intelligence
company Black Cube, and that they suspect that it was behind the hack.
According to a reply submitted to the arbitrator for the
brothers by attorneys Alex Hertman and Uriel Prinz of the S. Horowitz & Co.
law firm and by attorney Ron Berkman, Gertler conducted against them
"continuous surveillance, including through Black Cube; unlawfully took
from them documents in secret ways (through physical means and technological
means) and submitted them to the arbitrator as documents that supposedly
'landed' in his office; and also tried to harm them through the media,
including in the foreign press."
Black Cube first came to public awareness in 2017 when the
New Yorker magazine revealed that now-disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey
Weinstein contracted it to collect information on an actress accusing him of
sexual misconduct. Black Cube has apologized for taking the Weinstein job, but
the company has since been linked to several other controversial incidents,
including the targeting of officials in the Obama administration, and,
allegedly, of a member of The Citizen Lab.
According to Feiner's testimony, this wasn't the only
attempt to involve Rayzone in the dispute. Prior to the break-in of the offices
of the Gertner brothers, a friend of Gertler and attorney Eles Dobronsky
approached Rayzone in June 2013 in an attempt to hire their services on
Gertler's behalf. "A man who presented himself as a friend of Gertler's
approached Rayzone with a request to help him in the arbitration," said
Feiner. "I took part in a meeting with him and he told many stories about
the arbitration... When I was asked for my opinion, due to my partnerships with
them, I told them that I oppose it. This was in June 2013. I wasn't yet in
touch then with Gertner."
When asked what exactly Rayzone was asked to do, Feiner
said: "It was defined as strategic advising in order to aid in the
arbitration. There was a need to map out these things and then operate any
capabilities that are required, whether in communications, contacts,
information, or data gathering."
Dobronsky, who is close to Gertler, also approached Rayzone
on the matter. "After the meeting, the guy from Rayzone (Yohai Bar Zakay,
T.G. H.R.) told me that he has a meeting with attorney Doronsky who is sitting
here in the room," said Feiner. "He asked me to join him. Dobronsky,
I think, mainly wanted to inquire regarding the nature of my friend, to see if
he is suitable to help in the arbitration. This was mainly an introductory
meeting."
Feiner explained why he opposed to Rayzone working with
Gertler. "I told my friends that in my opinion it isn't appropriate to aid
in a matter like this. So they said okay, if you don't want us to help, offer
them a very high estimate so that nothing comes of it. I presented the offer
through my company because they said that 'if you want to drop it, then you be
at the front'. I wrote up a very expensive offer with the goal being that they
decline the service."
Feiner testified that despite the very costly quote,
Gertler's people continued to chase Bar Zakay. "He evaded them. In the
end, it dissipated. Nothing came of it."
Rayzone told Calcalist in response to the report: "The
company has a division which sells technological and cyber systems to
governments alongside a cyber defense division which provides solutions and
cyber defense services to many varied clients in Israel and across the world.
We do not address the identity of our clients." Rayzone also claimed that
it sells offensive cyber services only to governments and not to private
individuals.
Black Cube said in response: "These are false accusations.
Black Cube always abides by the law in any country in which it operates and
according to legal opinions from leading law firms across the world."
Zeev Feiner didn’t respond.
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