Israeli Accused Of Hacking For ExxonMobil Fights Extradition

An Israeli private detective arrested in Britain will fight a U.S. extradition request this month based on hacking and wire fraud charges involving an oil and gas firm looking for dirt on climate activists.

Amit Forlit allegedly arranged for hackers to steal private information from the accounts of hundreds of environmentalists on behalf of DCI Group, a Washington, D.C.-based public affairs and lobbying company, an investigation by the Reuters news agency uncovered.

DCI Group’s main client at the time was Exxon Mobil. DCI and Exxon have denied any wrongdoing.

Court papers filed in Forlit’s extradition, revelations in another private detective’s conviction and the Reuters investigation provide insight into a new world of corporate dirty tricks. The case also raises questions about Exxon’s long history of using contractors to maintain plausible deniability.

This story begins with activists and Democratic attorneys general pursuing a legal strategy to slow climate change. In 2015, they sought to prove that Exxon Mobil scientists knew in the 1990s that burning oil and natural gas was causing global warming. Yet top executives ignored them and instead launched campaigns to sow doubt about climate change among politicians and the public.

ExxonMobil has spent more than two decades sparring with activists over climate change, turning back virtually every shareholder challenge at its annual meeting each spring. But late last month, the oil giant, which has shunned renewable energy investments embraced by some rivals, suffered a landmark defeat when upstart investment fund Engine No.1 successfully won election of three of its four board candidates, overcoming fierce campaigning from management.

A ship, operated for Exxon Mobil, drilling Guyana's first production oil well offshore in 2018. America’s biggest energy company, Exxon Mobil, made a big bet on a risky oil prospect in Guyana. Now the oil giant is entangled in the country’s political future.

Public health advocates won billions of dollars and major concessions from the tobacco industry using a similar strategy. Exxon quickly mobilized to shut down the #ExxonKnew movement and argued it was a political vendetta with no legal merit.

At about the same time, according to court papers filed in London, the FBI alleges a “Washington-based PR and lobbying firm” hired Forlit on behalf of an unnamed oil and gas corporation to discredit individuals involved in climate change litigation.

Reuters reports the FBI believes Forlit paid another Israeli private investigator, Aviram Azari, to hire mercenary hackers in India to infiltrate the email accounts of hundreds of climate activists and their attorneys.

Azari is wrapping up a federal prison sentence after pleading guilty to hacking-for-hire charges. One of his targets was the Rockefeller Family Fund, where descendants of Exxon’s founder have been trying to force the company to cut fossil fuel production.

Neither Forlit’s nor Azari’s attorneys responded to Reuters’ requests for comment.

The hackers broke into several climate activist accounts and stole confidential memos and documents, court papers in Azari’s case show. Reuters revealed that DCI distributed those documents, without disclosing their source, to the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Free Beacon, which wrote stories critical of the lawsuits.

Attorneys for Exxon and the National Association of Manufacturers have also used the stolen documents in motions to dismiss the climate lawsuits. Exxon has prevailed in some cases, while others are pending.

When the Reuters investigation was published over Thanksgiving week, Exxon called the allegations “conspiracy theories.” In a follow-up statement, the Spring-based company told Reuters, “If there was any hacking involved, we condemn it in the strongest possible terms.”

DCI said the company "has not been involved in nor commissioned others to hack or to obtain information unlawfully." Exxon reportedly ended its relationship with DCI in 2020.

Big corporations have long pushed the envelope of what’s legal. Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Steve Coll wrote a fascinating book about Exxon’s history of dirty tricks in “Private Empire: Exxon Mobil and American Power.” Generations of Exxon executives played by a single rule: maintain plausible deniability.

Exxon is by no means the only corporation to hire outside investigators who have engaged in unsavory or illegal activities, with or without the company’s knowledge. Raphael Satter, the lead Reuters investigative journalist and a former colleague of mine at the Associated Press, has published a series of pieces on mercenary hackers gathering information for use in lawsuits around the globe.

The Wall Street Journal has also reported on allegations that Forlit provided hacking-for-hire services to support Elliott Management’s effort to force Argentina to repay its debts. A Washington, D.C.-based PR firm allegedly paid Forlit $20 million to gather information on Argentine officials, an attorney representing the United States told the British court.

DCI was handling Elliott’s public relations and lobbying concerning Argentina at the time. The government settled the claims in 2016.

Illegally obtained documents should not end up in court, but judges have difficulty determining what documents a private investigator stole from what they found online.

The FBI appears to be working backward, tracing the stolen documents to the Indian hackers and then allegedly tracing the money to Azari and Forlit. The big question is what DCI and Exxon knew about their contractors’ tactics. Forlit’s extradition hearing is on Jan. 22.