Amit Forlit
===
reuters israeli-private-eye-wanted-us-over-alleged-hacking-exxon-lobbyist-lawyer-says-2025-01-22
WASHINGTON/LONDON, Jan 22 (Reuters) - The lawyer for an Israeli private investigator said for the first time publicly on Wednesday that her client is being prosecuted over allegations that he was hired by an Exxon Mobil (XOM.N), opens new tab lobbyist to hack emails of environmental activists.
The disclosure came in a court filing in Westminster Magistrates Court in London, where U.S. authorities are seeking permission to extradite Amit Forlit, who was arrest:{ed at Heathrow Airport last year.}:
Forlit’s U.K.-based lawyer, Rachel Scott, told the court U.S. authorities have charged Forlit "with a conspiracy to carry out computer hacking against individuals and entities involved in (or directly associated with) environmental activism."
That hacking campaign, Scott wrote, "is alleged to have been commissioned by DCI Group, a lobbying firm representing ExxonMobil, one of the world's largest fossil fuel companies."
In November Reuters reported Forlit was wanted by the U.S. Department of Justice in connection with an espionage campaign targeting environmentalists seeking to hold Exxon legally accountable for its impact on climate change.
It was the latest in a series of cases uncovered by Reuters where hackers are alleged to have played a key role in swaying legal battles, a topic of increased law enforcement concern worldwide.
The Justice Department, which has not made its indictment public, declined to comment. Forlit has previously denied being involved in hack-for-hire work.
Exxon said the oil company "has not been involved in, nor are we aware of, any hacking activities" and that, if there were hacking involved, "we condemn it in the strongest possible terms." DCI Group said the allegations that it commissioned the hacking operation were false, adding that it directs all of its employees and consultants to comply with the law. Scott did not immediately return a message seeking further details on the extradition case.
In the filing, she noted the U.S. indictment uses codenames to represent the various parties. Scott said it was important to identify the companies by name so the U.K. court could understand who was involved and what was at stake.
The Reuters Daily Briefing newsletter provides all the news you need to start your day. Sign up here.
Reporting by Raphael Satter in Washington and Sam Tobin in London; Editing by Anna Driver, Blake Morrison and Chris Sanders
Raphael.Satter@thomsonreuters.com
---
opb
A yearslong U.S. Justice Department investigation of a global hacking campaign that targeted prominent American climate activists took a turn in a London court this week amid an allegation that the hacking was ordered by a lobbying firm working for ExxonMobil. Both the lobbying firm and ExxonMobil have denied any awareness of or involvement with alleged hacking.
The hacking was allegedly commissioned by a Washington, D.C., lobbying firm, according to a lawyer representing the U.S. government. The firm, in turn, was allegedly working on behalf of one of the world’s largest oil and gas companies, based in Texas, that wanted to discredit groups and individuals involved in climate litigation, according to the lawyer for the U.S. government. In court documents, the Justice Department does not name either company.
As part of its probe, the U.S. is trying to extradite an Israeli private investigator named Amit Forlit from the United Kingdom for allegedly orchestrating the hacking campaign. A lawyer for Forlit claimed in a court filing that the hacking operation her client is accused of leading “is alleged to have been commissioned by DCI Group, a lobbying firm representing ExxonMobil, one of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies.”
Forlit has previously denied ordering or paying for hacking.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
According to a source familiar with the U.S. probe who was not authorized to speak publicly, the U.S. has investigated DCI’s possible role in the hacking. Reuters and *The Wall Street Journal* previously reported that the U.S. government has investigated DCI.
DCI lobbied for ExxonMobil for about a decade, according to federal lobbying records. NPR has not been able to confirm what, if any, links the Justice Department may have thought DCI had with the hacking campaign. NPR has not found any indications that the Justice Department has investigated ExxonMobil in relation to this case.
DCI and ExxonMobil declined to comment on the allegations made in the London hearing. Both companies referred NPR back to statements they had provided earlier in our investigation.
Craig Stevens, a partner at DCI, said in an email that no one at the firm has been questioned by the U.S. government as part of the hacking investigation. “Allegations of DCI’s involvement with hacking supposedly occurring nearly a decade ago are false and unsubstantiated. We direct all our employees and consultants to comply with the law,” Stevens said. “Meanwhile, radical anti-oil activists and their donors are peddling conspiracy theories to distract from their own anti-U.S. energy activities.”
ExxonMobil spokesperson Elise Otten said in an emailed statement that the company “has not been involved in, nor are we aware of, any hacking activities. If there was any hacking involved, we condemn it in the strongest possible terms.”
In a court document arguing for Forlit’s extradition, the lawyer for the U.S. government described a sophisticated hacking operation that spanned continents. Forlit ran security companies that gathered information using various methods, including hiring “co-conspirators to hack into email accounts and devices,” according to the court filing.
A lawyer representing the U.S. government revealed in the court filing that Forlit has been indicted in the U.S. on charges of conspiracy to commit computer hacking, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and wire fraud, according to the court filing in London.
Climate activists who were targeted by hackers say the plot that U.S. officials have been trying to unravel was aimed at disrupting their efforts to fight climate change by pushing governments and society to slash the use of fossil fuels like oil and coal.
“It was undoubtedly designed to intimidate and scare advocates from continuing their work to hold these major oil companies accountable for the decades of deception that they’re responsible for,” says Lee Wasserman, director of the Rockefeller Family Fund and one of the hacking victims.
The fossil fuel industry faces dozens of lawsuits filed by states and localities accusing companies of misleading the public about the risks of climate change. The industry says that those lawsuits are meritless and politicized and that climate change is an issue that should be dealt with by Congress, not the courts.
The potential impact on civil society of hacking-for-hire operations is grave, according to cybersecurity and legal experts.
“Nothing is more powerful at chilling speech and encouraging self-censorship than the feeling that your entire digital world, which probably touches your whole world, could be invaded by people who mean you harm simply because of what you’re doing at work,” says John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab, a cyber watchdog at the University of Toronto that analyzed the attacks. “Simply because you’re concerned about rising sea levels.”
The U.S. has said previously that ExxonMobil took advantage of leaked information
The U.S. hacking investigation became public in 2019 with the arrest in New York of a business associate of Forlit’s named Aviram Azari. A former Israeli police officer and private investigator, Azari eventually pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit computer hacking, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
The hackers Azari hired didn’t target just American climate activists, according to federal prosecutors. They also attacked government officials in Africa, members of a Mexican political party and critics of a German company called Wirecard.
U.S. District Judge John Koeltl sentenced Azari in November 2023 to more than six years in prison and ordered him to forfeit more than $4.8 million that prosecutors allege he was paid for managing the hacking campaigns.
At Azari’s sentencing, federal prosecutors did not say who they believed had hired Azari to target the climate activists. The Justice Department stated in a sentencing memo that ExxonMobil was the beneficiary of the information that the attacks revealed.
Federal prosecutors asserted in the Azari sentencing memo that information stolen from climate activists was leaked to the media, resulting in news stories that “appeared designed to undermine” state climate investigations of ExxonMobil. The company’s lawyers used the news stories in court as part of their defense against the state investigations, prosecutors said.
ExxonMobil said in a statement at the time that it had done nothing wrong. “ExxonMobil has no knowledge of Azari nor have we been involved in any hacking activities,” the company said.
The sentencing memo in Azari’s case noted a private email among climate activists that surfaced in the media in 2016. The email described plans for a closed-door meeting in New York among leading climate activists, including writer and organizer Bill McKibben and Peter Frumhoff, then the chief climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a watchdog and research group. The meeting’s goal, according to the email, was to sharpen attacks on ExxonMobil and convince the public that the company is a “corrupt institution” that pushed the world toward “climate chaos and grave harm.” It also raised the prospect of legal action through state attorneys general and the Justice Department.
ExxonMobil and some Republican lawmakers cited the document as they tried to fight off state climate investigations, saying activists and prosecutors colluded to advance a political agenda.
lamar nyag ltr: 05.18.16SSTLettertoNYAG
may 18 2016
abuse of prosecutorial discretion
ask for docs
Sensenbrenner Neugebauer posey frank lucas dana Rohrabacher
mo brooks
bridenstine randy weber john moolenaar
brian babin loudermilk ralph lee abraham
Lawyer for U.S. government described a sophisticated hacking campaign
Azari was sent to a federal prison in New Jersey in 2023. Five months later, Forlit was arrested in London. The Justice Department has been working through British lawyers to have Forlit extradited to the U.S. to face criminal prosecution “arising from a ‘hacking-for-hire’ scheme,” court documents show.
One of Forlit’s clients from 2013 to 2018 was an unnamed “D.C. Lobbying Firm,” the court filing says. That firm “acted on behalf of one of the world’s largest oil and gas corporations, centred in Irving, Texas,” the document says. The company, in particular, wanted to discredit people and organizations engaged in climate change litigation against it, a lawyer for the U.S. wrote. Until mid-2023, ExxonMobil was headquartered in Irving, Texas.
A lawyer representing the U.S. alleged that the lobbying firm gave Forlit targets to hack. The lawyer said there’s a “strong circumstantial case” that Forlit gave the list of at least 128 targets to Azari, who then hired hackers in India.
Forlit and Azari both referred to the operation as “Fox Hunt,” the lawyer for the U.S. said in the London court filing. The hacking obtained “non-public documents which were provided to the oil and gas company and published as part of a media campaign to undermine the integrity of civil investigations,” according to the filing.
D.C.-based firm lobbied for ExxonMobil for about a decade
DCI, the public affairs firm that Forlit’s lawyer said her client allegedly worked for, has a long history working for the fossil fuel industry.
The firm worked for a nonprofit that supports the U.S. coal industry. And one of DCI’s executives was identified as a spokesman for a group that backed the controversial Dakota Access oil pipeline.
In the early 2000s, ExxonMobil provided funding for a website DCI published called Tech Central Station, which the Union of Concerned Scientists called a “hybrid of quasi-journalism and lobbying.” And from 2005 until early 2016, ExxonMobil paid DCI around $3 million to lobby the federal government, according to lobbying disclosures.
The lawyer for the U.S. government said in an extradition statement that the hacking operation started in late 2015. At that time, the oil and gas industry was facing a mounting backlash. Stories by investigative journalists in 2015 revealed that ExxonMobil’s own scientists warned top executives about dire risks from climate change as early as the 1970s. Despite those warnings, the oil company went on to lead a decades-long campaign to sow public confusion about global warming. Activists seized on the reports, popularizing the hashtag #ExxonKnew to argue that ExxonMobil knew about human-caused climate change despite denying it publicly.
In Washington, D.C., Democrats urged the Justice Department to investigate whether ExxonMobil misled the public about climate change. And a group of state attorneys general banded together to find “creative ways to enforce laws being flouted by the fossil fuel industry and their allies,” New York’s attorney general said in early 2016.
Since then, dozens of lawsuits have been filed in the U.S. against ExxonMobil and other fossil fuel corporations, largely by Democratic-led states and towns. They allege the industry misled the public for decades about the dangers of burning fossil fuels, the primary cause of climate change. The lawsuits seek damages to help communities cope with climate risks and damages.
Victims say finding out who ordered the hacking is crucial
Forlit’s lawyer, Rachel Scott, focused on the litigation against ExxonMobil in her opening arguments in London. She said the U.S. is trying to prosecute Forlit in part “to advance the politically-motivated cause of pursuing ExxonMobil.”
The U.S. government is not part of the climate lawsuits filed by states and localities.
It has been years since the climate activists were targeted by hackers, but finding out who directed and paid for the operation is still vital, says Matt Pawa, an environmental lawyer and hacking victim.
It’s important “for the purposes of deterrence,” Pawa says, “so that this is not done again.”
===
desmog
An Israeli private investigator wanted by U.S. authorities for allegedly carrying out a hack-and-leak operation commissioned on behalf of ExxonMobil is fighting against his extradition to a Brooklyn, NY, detention center.
During a packed hearing last week at London’s Westminster Magistrates’ Court attended by DeSmog, lawyers for Amit Forlit used a legal strategy that one climate accountability advocate is referring to as “bizarre.”
The defense is arguing that Forlit, who is accused of being hired by the Washington D.C.-based public relations and lobbying firm DCI Group to illegally hack into the emails of environmental activists and others involved with climate change litigation against Exxon, shouldn’t be extradited on the grounds that the charges against him are politically motivated.
Last Wednesday was the first time Exxon and DCI were officially named in connection with the allegations – part of the defense’s claim that Forlit is “a form of collateral damage” in the legal pursuit of ExxonMobil.
To support his case, Forlit’s lawyers sought to present evidence from “expert” witness Scott Walter, president of a conservative U.S. think tank called the Capital Research Center (CRC) that for years publicly argued that the science of climate change is faulty and uncertain – including publishing a post last year disputing that “climate change” is “settled science.”
In his affidavit, Walter claimed that current efforts to hold ExxonMobil accountable in court for lying to the public about the dangers of climate change are at their core a political project connected to the U.S. Democratic Party.
Forlit is facing up to 45 years in prison for allegedly carrying out cyberattacks and hacking against groups and individuals involved with efforts to file lawsuits against ExxonMobil for misleading the public over the impact of burning fossil fuels on the earth’s climate, and spearheading public communications efforts to undermine the science.
Drawing on Walter’s affidavit, Forlit’s UK-based lawyer Rachel Scott stated in court, “we submit that these lawsuits are politically motivated.”
“It’s a bizarre strategy,” said Kert Davies, director of special investigations at the nonprofit Center of Climate Integrity, which has been involved with climate litigation. “Trying to claim that this guy is facing political persecution when, in fact, he was allegedly paid large sums of money to execute a massive hacking operation aimed at hundreds of employees at environmental nonprofit organizations and even those people’s spouses and kids.” Davies was one of the 128 individuals targeted by the hackers.
‘Opinion presented as fact’
On a grey January day, journalists packed into the London courtroom gallery where prosecutors representing the U.S. Department of Justice argued that Forlit should be extradited to New York. Upon his extradition, Forlit faces a federal indictment charging him “with three offences consisting of conspiracy to commit computer hacking, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and wire fraud,” according to prosecution documents. “The maximum sentences are five, 20, and 20 years’ imprisonment, respectively.” The indictment has not been made public.
Wearing casual trousers and a blue shirt, Forlit watched from the side of the courtroom as lawyers argued about the political implications of his case. Acting on behalf of U.S. authorities, lawyer Adam Payter, with the firm 6KBW, took aim at the affidavit from CRC’s Walter, calling it “opinion presented as fact” and arguing that it was “inadmissible” as evidence.
Payter presented written material from the CRC’s website claiming that “environmentalist groups” and others are attempting to “undermine Americans’ freedoms.” The lawyer pointed out that CRC has on multiple occasions professed skepticism about human-caused climate change and advocated against solutions to the crisis by publishing a newsletter titled “Green Watch,” which outlines these positions. Payter then informed the court that, according to publicly available filings, Walter’s group has previously received funding from ExxonMobil – a conflict of interest Walter did not disclose in his affidavit.
In a blow to Forlit’s defense, District Judge John McGarva ruled that Walter’s affidavit could not be admitted as evidence.
Contrary to the defense’s claims that the charges against Forlit are politically motivated, Forlit “has been sought to be prosecuted for straight-forward criminal allegations that he orchestrated the hacking of persons for money,” the prosecution argued in a legal document submitted to the court.
“That Forlit, as the alleged orchestrator of a hacking scheme designed to politicise Climate Change Litigation,” should claim that he cannot be extradited and prosecuted because this Climate Change Litigation is politicised, “may be thought ironic,” stated Payter in a written submission to the court.
While the judge dismissed Walter’s statement, he agreed to consider supplementary reports and other material provided by Walter. This supplementary material included a report by Christopher Horner a former senior fellow with the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), another group whose representatives have historically expressed climate skeptic viewpoints. According to publicly available data, CEI received at least $2.1 million in funding from ExxonMobil between 1997 and 2006. In 2018, when CEI published Horner’s report, five of CEI’s eleven board members had links to groups funded by present or historic players in the fossil fuel industry.
In court, Payter stated that he would like to add further context on CEI on the final day of the hearing scheduled next month.
Paid $16 million
The allegations against Forlit come from a Department of Justice investigation started in 2018. According to federal investigators, Forlit was the leader of several Israeli-based intelligence-gathering firms that specialized in “offensive and defensive cyber capabilities, including computer intrusions.”
In a court filing, Payter alleged that Forlit’s firms were paid $16 million between 2013 and 2018 by a Washington, D.C. lobbying firm, which, in turn, was acting on behalf of one of the world’s biggest oil companies, a company based in Irving, Texas, that wanted to undermine groups connected to climate litigation.
Scott, the lawyer representing Forlit, filed papers that named the names that Payter, the U.S.government’s lawyer, did not; she wrote that the hacking effort “is alleged to have been commissioned by DCI Group, a lobbying firm representing ExxonMobil…”
Some of the specific hacking initiatives were led by another Israeli private investigator named Aviram Azari, who oversaw hackers in India who in turn illegally accessed the electronic accounts of environmental campaigners. Azari was arrested in 2019, and sentencedto 80 months’ imprisonment after pleading guilty to computer hacking, identity theft, and wire fraud. (Azari’s sentence incorporated lengthy time in pre-sentence custody, and on January 3, he was released from prison and briefly transferred to the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, after which he was sent to Israel.)
Prosecutors contend that DCI provided the hacked documents to Exxon and selected media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal. Exxon has used the allegedly stolen materials – which include a proposed legal strategy against the company – in its defense against ongoing climate litigation in Hawaii.
Both ExxonMobil and DCI have previously stated that they were not involved in the hacking operation.
Forlit was arrested in April 2024 under an Interpol Red Notice at London’s Heathrow Airport as he was attempting to board a flight to Israel. He was released on bail, forced to surrender his passport and make a security payment of £200,000 ($257,370).
The allegations in this case suggest oil and gas producers are willing to go to extreme lengths to discredit their environmental opponents, explained Robert Brulle,visiting research professor of environment and society at Brown University.
“The climate change countermovement is a sophisticated effort, involving multiple organizations engaging in a wide variety of strategies to obstruct climate mitigation efforts and to maintain business as usual,” he wrote in an email to DeSmog. “Climate litigation represents a threat to the business model of fossil fuel corporations, and so opposition to it is a core part of their efforts.”
The hearing will continue in early February.
*Rebecca John is a research fellow at the Climate Investigations Center founded by Kert Davies, who is mentioned in this story.
---
===
npr
The U.S. is trying to unravel a hacking plot that targeted climate activists
January 24, 2025
Heard on Morning Edition
By
The U.S. has accused an Israeli private investigator of orchestrating a hacking campaign that targeted American climate activists. Extradition hearings for the private investigator, Amit Forlit, were held at Westminster Magistrates' Court in London.
A yearslong U.S. Justice Department investigation of a global hacking campaign that targeted prominent American climate activists took a turn in a London court this week amid an allegation that the hacking was ordered by a lobbying firm working for ExxonMobil. Both the lobbying firm and ExxonMobil have denied any awareness of or involvement with alleged hacking.
The hacking was allegedly commissioned by a Washington, D.C., lobbying firm, according to a lawyer representing the U.S. government. The firm, in turn, was allegedly working on behalf of one of the world's largest oil and gas companies, based in Texas, that wanted to discredit groups and individuals involved in climate litigation, according to the lawyer for the U.S. government. In court documents, the Justice Department does not name either company.
As part of its probe, the U.S. is trying to extradite an Israeli private investigator named Amit Forlit from the United Kingdom for allegedly orchestrating the hacking campaign. A lawyer for Forlit claimed in a court filing that the hacking operation her client is accused of leading "is alleged to have been commissioned by DCI Group, a lobbying firm representing ExxonMobil, one of the world's largest fossil fuel companies."
Private detective who led a hacking attack against climate activists gets prison time
Forlit has previously denied ordering or paying for hacking.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
According to a source familiar with the U.S. probe who was not authorized to speak publicly, the U.S. has investigated DCI's possible role in the hacking. Reuters and *The Wall Street Journal* previously reported that the U.S. government has investigated DCI.
DCI lobbied for ExxonMobil for about a decade, according to federal lobbying records. NPR has not been able to confirm what, if any, links the Justice Department may have thought DCI had with the hacking campaign. NPR has not found any indications that the Justice Department has investigated ExxonMobil in relation to this case.
DCI and ExxonMobil declined to comment on the allegations made in the London hearing. Both companies referred NPR back to statements they had provided earlier in our investigation.
Craig Stevens, a partner at DCI, said in an email that no one at the firm has been questioned by the U.S. government as part of the hacking investigation. "Allegations of DCI's involvement with hacking supposedly occurring nearly a decade ago are false and unsubstantiated. We direct all our employees and consultants to comply with the law," Stevens said. "Meanwhile, radical anti-oil activists and their donors are peddling conspiracy theories to distract from their own anti-U.S. energy activities."
ExxonMobil spokesperson Elise Otten said in an emailed statement that the company "has not been involved in, nor are we aware of, any hacking activities. If there was any hacking involved, we condemn it in the strongest possible terms."
California's lawsuit says oil giants downplayed climate change. Here's what to know
In a court document arguing for Forlit's extradition, the lawyer for the U.S. government described a sophisticated hacking operation that spanned continents. Forlit ran security companies that gathered information using various methods, including hiring "co-conspirators to hack into email accounts and devices," according to the court filing.
A lawyer representing the U.S. government revealed in the court filing that Forlit has been indicted in the U.S. on charges of conspiracy to commit computer hacking, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and wire fraud, according to the court filing in London.
Climate activists who were targeted by hackers say the plot that U.S. officials have been trying to unravel was aimed at disrupting their efforts to fight climate change by pushing governments and society to slash the use of fossil fuels like oil and coal.
"It was undoubtedly designed to intimidate and scare advocates from continuing their work to hold these major oil companies accountable for the decades of deception that they're responsible for," says Lee Wasserman, director of the Rockefeller Family Fund and one of the hacking victims.
The fossil fuel industry faces dozens of lawsuits filed by states and localities accusing companies of misleading the public about the risks of climate change. The industry says that those lawsuits are meritless and politicized and that climate change is an issue that should be dealt with by Congress, not the courts.
The potential impact on civil society of hacking-for-hire operations is grave, according to cybersecurity and legal experts.
"Nothing is more powerful at chilling speech and encouraging self-censorship than the feeling that your entire digital world, which probably touches your whole world, could be invaded by people who mean you harm simply because of what you're doing at work," says John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab, a cyber watchdog at the University of Toronto that analyzed the attacks. "Simply because you're concerned about rising sea levels."
The U.S. has said previously that ExxonMobil took advantage of leaked information
The U.S. hacking investigation became public in 2019 with the arrest in New York of a business associate of Forlit's named Aviram Azari. A former Israeli police officer and private investigator, Azari eventually pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit computer hacking, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
The hackers Azari hired didn't target just American climate activists, according to federal prosecutors. They also attacked government officials in Africa, members of a Mexican political party and critics of a German company called Wirecard.
U.S. District Judge John Koeltl sentenced Azari in November 2023 to more than six years in prison and ordered him to forfeit more than $4.8 million that prosecutors allege he was paid for managing the hacking campaigns.
At Azari's sentencing, federal prosecutors did not say who they believed had hired Azari to target the climate activists. The Justice Department stated in a sentencing memo that ExxonMobil was the beneficiary of the information that the attacks revealed.
Federal prosecutors asserted in the Azari sentencing memo that information stolen from climate activists was leaked to the media, resulting in news stories that "appeared designed to undermine" state climate investigations of ExxonMobil. The company's lawyers used the news stories in court as part of their defense against the state investigations, prosecutors said.
ExxonMobil said in a statement at the time that it had done nothing wrong. "ExxonMobil has no knowledge of Azari nor have we been involved in any hacking activities," the company said.
The sentencing memo in Azari's case noted a private email among climate activists that surfaced in the media in 2016. The email described plans for a closed-door meeting in New York among leading climate activists, including writer and organizer Bill McKibben and Peter Frumhoff, then the chief climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a watchdog and research group. The meeting's goal, according to the email, was to sharpen attacks on ExxonMobil and convince the public that the company is a "corrupt institution" that pushed the world toward "climate chaos and grave harm." It also raised the prospect of legal action through state attorneys general and the Justice Department.
ExxonMobil and some Republican lawmakers cited the document as they tried to fight off state climate investigations, saying activists and prosecutors colluded to advance a political agenda.
Lawyer for U.S. government described a sophisticated hacking campaign
Azari was sent to a federal prison in New Jersey in 2023. Five months later, Forlit was arrested in London. The Justice Department has been working through British lawyers to have Forlit extradited to the U.S. to face criminal prosecution "arising from a 'hacking-for-hire' scheme," court documents show.
One of Forlit's clients from 2013 to 2018 was an unnamed "D.C. Lobbying Firm," the court filing says. That firm "acted on behalf of one of the world's largest oil and gas corporations, centred in Irving, Texas," the document says. The company, in particular, wanted to discredit people and organizations engaged in climate change litigation against it, a lawyer for the U.S. wrote. Until mid-2023, ExxonMobil was headquartered in Irving, Texas.
A lawyer representing the U.S. alleged that the lobbying firm gave Forlit targets to hack. The lawyer said there's a "strong circumstantial case" that Forlit gave the list of at least 128 targets to Azari, who then hired hackers in India.
Forlit and Azari both referred to the operation as "Fox Hunt," the lawyer for the U.S. said in the London court filing. The hacking obtained "non-public documents which were provided to the oil and gas company and published as part of a media campaign to undermine the integrity of civil investigations," according to the filing.
D.C.-based firm lobbied for ExxonMobil for about a decade
DCI, the public affairs firm that Forlit's lawyer said her client allegedly worked for, has a long history working for the fossil fuel industry.
The firm worked for a nonprofit that supports the U.S. coal industry. And one of DCI's executives was identified as a spokesman for a group that backed the controversial Dakota Access oil pipeline.
In the early 2000s, ExxonMobil provided funding for a website DCI published called Tech Central Station, which the Union of Concerned Scientists called a "hybrid of quasi-journalism and lobbying." And from 2005 until early 2016, ExxonMobil paid DCI around $3 million to lobby the federal government, according to lobbying disclosures.
The lawyer for the U.S. government said in an extradition statement that the hacking operation started in late 2015. At that time, the oil and gas industry was facing a mounting backlash. Stories by investigative journalists in 2015 revealed that ExxonMobil's own scientists warned top executives about dire risks from climate change as early as the 1970s. Despite those warnings, the oil company went on to lead a decades-long campaign to sow public confusion about global warming. Activists seized on the reports, popularizing the hashtag #ExxonKnew to argue that ExxonMobil knew about human-caused climate change despite denying it publicly.
In Washington, D.C., Democrats urged the Justice Department to investigate whether ExxonMobil misled the public about climate change. And a group of state attorneys general banded together to find "creative ways to enforce laws being flouted by the fossil fuel industry and their allies," New York's attorney general said in early 2016.
Since then, dozens of lawsuits have been filed in the U.S. against ExxonMobil and other fossil fuel corporations, largely by Democratic-led states and towns. They allege the industry misled the public for decades about the dangers of burning fossil fuels, the primary cause of climate change. The lawsuits seek damages to help communities cope with climate risks and damages.
Victims say finding out who ordered the hacking is crucial
Forlit's lawyer, Rachel Scott, focused on the litigation against ExxonMobil in her opening arguments in London. She said the U.S. is trying to prosecute Forlit in part "to advance the politically-motivated cause of pursuing ExxonMobil."
The U.S. government is not part of the climate lawsuits filed by states and localities.
It has been years since the climate activists were targeted by hackers, but finding out who directed and paid for the operation is still vital, says Matt Pawa, an environmental lawyer and hacking victim.
It's important "for the purposes of deterrence," Pawa says, "so that this is not done again."
===
ref
23
It is only very recently that the political lobbying which underpinned that act has been laid bare, by the disclosure of a tranche of public records in November 2023. As Mr Walters explains at §§43-46 of his affidavit, the US District Court for the Southern District of New York granted leave for Energy Policy Advocates (EPA) (a non-profit which campaigns on governmental transparency in energy policy) to file an amicus curiae brief in the NYAG’s case against ExxonMobil.18 That brief, which attaches and analyses the disclosed public records, reveals the extent of the role played by the Rockefeller Family Fund (RFF) – one of the Democratic Party’s most longstanding and significant donors19 – in working with climate activists to push the NYAG into launching the litigation.
...
Mr Forlit is an Israeli citizen, who served with Shin Bet (Israel’s internal security agency) from 1990 to 1997. On leaving, he founded a private investigations firm called Gadot Information Services (Gadot), which offers tailor-made security (both physical and electronic) to its clients and provides complex cross-border investigative services including asset tracing, litigation support and lawful surveillance. Gadot’s clients include top-tier law firms, lobbying companies and hedge funds.
...
Former state Sen. Thomas Bromwell, a powerful figure in Annapolis during his nearly 20 years in the legislature, has agreed to plead guilty to taking bribes from a construction company executive, his attorney said yesterday.
Barry Pollack, Assange's U.S.-based lawyer, said Monday that it was “extremely disappointing” that Britain's Supreme Court is unwilling to hear the appeal....
Mr. Bromwell, 58, will plead guilty to racketeering conspiracy and filing a false tax return, his attorney, Barry Pollack, told the Associated Press. Sentencing guidelines call for a prison term between six ½ years and about eight years for the former Senate Finance Committee chairman, Mr. Pollack said.
Three Raymond Buildings has a track record of appearing in high-profile extradition proceedings. Frequently sought out by both the CPS and requested persons, the set is equipped to represent clients from the initial hearing to the Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights. Helen Malcolm KC appeared in two cases on trials in absentia in EU countries before the Supreme Court, raising questions related to fair trial rights and the application of EU retained law in European Arrest Warrant cases. Rachel Scott is representing a former Goldman Sachs investment banker facing extradition to the United States on allegations of bribery and corruption involving Ghanaian public officials.
The clients included a consulting firm in Washington, D.C., on whose clients’ behalf AF’s firms obtained information.11 That client, identified in the Request as the ‘D.C. Lobbying Firm’, paid AF’s firms $16million dollars between 2013 and 2018.
...
There are at least 128 individual targets.17 There are five individual ‘Indictment Victims’ all of whom are US citizens who resided in the USA at the time of the offences. The indictment identifies that Victims 1 and 2 worked for Victim Organisation 1, the Californian-based non-profit. Victims 3 and 4 were employees at a public affairs and political consulting firm based in amongst other places, NY. Victim 5 was an employee at Victim Organisation 3, an international environmental organisation headquartered in NY.18 20.
AF’s Firms earned over $7million between 2015 (when the hacking in relation to CCL began) to 2017 in illicit proceeds. Firm 3 billed the D.C. Lobbying Group for the work. AF’s Firms paid Azari. AF (and CC-4, the operator of Firm 3) received their illicit proceeds into US-based bank accounts.19
Court papers link Exxon to climate hacking ring for first time
By Lesley Clark | 01/27/2025
A man charged with conspiring to steal information from climate advocates alleged that Exxon and one of its lobbying firms were involved with the hacking campaign.
Exxon and other energy companies are being sued by municipalities for damages related to climate change. Mark Humphrey/AP
An Israeli man charged with hacking indicated in court briefs filed in London that a sprawling criminal case stemming from stolen information from climate advocates occurred allegedly at the behest of Exxon Mobil and the lobbying firm DCI Group.
Neither company has been accused of wrongdoing by U.S. authorities, and both have said they were not involved in the alleged hacking scheme.
The development in court last week marks the first time that Exxon and DCI, which it has used as a lobbying firm, have been publicly linked to what prosecutors describe as a yearslong hacking campaign to steal information from environmental activists who have helped states and cities sue energy companies for contributing to climate change. The municipalities are seeking billions of dollars from oil companies, including Exxon, for damages related to flooding and other impacts.
The revelation was included in a 49-page brief filed by an attorney for Amit Forlit, an Israeli citizen who was arrested in April at Heathrow airport for his role in the alleged hacking scheme. The brief, which opposes U.S. efforts to extradite Forlit from the United Kingdom, said the hacking “is alleged to have been commissioned by DCI Group, a lobbying firm representing Exxon Mobil, one of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies.”
The U.S. government is seeking Forlit’s extradition as part of its investigation into a worldwide hacking ring that operated from 2012 to 2019. The government refers in court documents only to a “D.C. lobbying firm” that acted “on behalf of one of the world’s largest oil and gas corporations, centered in Irving, Texas.”
Efforts to extradite Forlit come about a year after his alleged associate, Israeli private eye Aviram Azari, was sentenced to nearly seven years in federal prison for his role in a hacking operation that targeted climate activists and others. Court records allege that Azari received a hacking target list from Forlit, who received it from a “DC lobbying firm.”
Documents stolen by Azari and his ring of hackers were cited by Exxon in court as the company battled an array of climate lawsuits that cities, counties and states filed against the oil and gas industry.
The Department of Justice declined to comment for this story.
Some climate activists whose email and social media accounts were infiltrated by the team of India-based hackers that worked at Azari’s direction said they were surprised to hear that Exxon and DCI were named in court records.
“Perpetrators are rarely caught in hacking cases, so we feel fortunate that people are being held to account for these crimes apparently committed on behalf of Exxon by surrogates all the way from Washington to Israel to India and back,” said Kert Davies, who was director of the Climate Investigations Center at the time of the hacking and is now at the Center for Climate Integrity, which supports climate litigation against energy companies.
DCI officials have said no one at the company has ever been questioned about the case. Craig Stevens, a partner at the company, said in an email to POLITICO’s E&E News that “allegations of DCI’s involvement with hacking supposedly occurring nearly a decade ago are false.”
He added that all DCI employees and consultants are directed to comply with the law.
“Meanwhile, radical anti-oil activists and their donors are peddling conspiracy theories to distract from their own anti-U.S. energy activities,” Stevens said.
An Exxon spokesperson said the company was not involved in or aware of any hacking activities.
“If there was any hacking involved, we condemn it in the strongest possible terms,” the spokesperson said in an email.
Forlit is fighting extradition to the U.S. for a variety of reasons, including an allegation that he’s being prosecuted to “advance the politically-motivated cause of pursuing ExxonMobil.”
His attorney, Rachel Scott, argued that his prosecution is “but one piece within a complex matrix of ongoing litigation on climate issues in the United States, which can only sensibly be seen as politically motivated.”
The U.S. government, which is not involved in the climate lawsuits against the oil and gas companies, dismissed the argument that the charges against Forlit are politically motivated, writing in its own brief that he faces prosecution “for straight-forward criminal allegations that he orchestrated the hacking of persons for money.”
“That there may be a wider political context (as there are with many offences) does not begin to establish the bar” to prevent extradition, states the brief. It also notes that Forlit is accused of being involved in plans to steal information related to “Argentinian debt relief.”
The *Wall Street Journal* reported in October 2024 that investigators were looking into whether Forlit oversaw the theft of emails from Argentine government officials while working on behalf of a hedge fund that sued the country.
Reuters reported on the climate hacking allegations last year, prompting then-Senate Budget Chair Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) to urge the Department of Justice to “take a good, long look at Exxon and its fellow fossil fuel flunkies.”
The court documents filed by Forlit last week said a New York grand jury in November 2022 returned an indictment charging Forlit with conspiracy to commit computer hacking, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud. The charges carry maximum prison sentences of five to 20 years.
The hacking attempts directed at climate activists began soon after a pair of investigative news reports in 2015 revealed that Exxon privately knew about climate change in the 1970s but publicly denied the scientific consensus for decades.
Environmentalists were tipped off to the hacking after a reporter called to ask about an email that detailed a private meeting at the Rockefeller Family Fund headquarters in January 2016. The meeting was mentioned in a Wall Street Journalarticle several months later, and the email was printed a day later in the Washington Free Beacon. Exxon itself later cited the news articles in court documents.
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reuters
- FBI has been investigating Exxon Mobil consultant
- Cyber spying operation targeted hundreds of Exxon Mobil critics
- Leaked documents later cited by Exxon Mobil and others in court filings
WASHINGTON, Nov 27 (Reuters) - The FBI has been investigating a longtime Exxon Mobil consultant over the contractor's alleged role in a hack-and-leak operation that targeted hundreds of the oil company’s biggest critics, according to three people familiar with the matter.
The operation involved mercenary hackers who successfully breached the email accounts of environmental activists and others, the sources told Reuters.
The scheme allegedly began in late 2015, when U.S. authorities contend that the names of the hacking targets were compiled by the DCI Group, a public affairs and lobbying company working for Exxon at the time, one of the sources said. DCI provided the names to an Israeli private detective, who then outsourced the hacking, according to the source.
In an effort to push a narrative that Exxon was the target of a political vendetta aimed at destroying its business, some of the stolen material was subsequently leaked to the media by DCI, Reuters determined. The Federal Bureau of Investigation found that DCI shared the information with Exxon before leaking it, the source said.
Some environmental activists interviewed by Reuters say the hacking operation disrupted preparations for lawsuits by cities and state attorneys general against Exxon and other energy companies. Those lawsuits were modeled on litigation against the tobacco industry in the mid-1990s, which resulted in a watershed settlement and sweeping restrictions, opens new tab on cigarette sales.
The stolen material continues to be used today to counter litigation claiming the oil giant misled the public and its investors about the risks of climate change. As recently as April, an industry trade group that has received funding from Exxon cited one of the hacked documents, opens new tab – an internal memo sketching out the proposed litigation strategy of the environmentalists – in an effort to get the Supreme Court to quash a lawsuit filed by the city of Honolulu against Exxon and other energy companies. The case is pending.
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The group, the National Association of Manufacturers, said it was not aware of the allegation the material had been hacked “and will consider whether to stop using it in future briefs.”
Exxon and DCI parted ways around 2020, according to two people familiar with the matter.
In a statement, Exxon said it “has not been involved in or aware of any hacking activities,” calling allegations to the contrary “conspiracy theories.” Reuters could not determine whether Exxon itself has also been the subject of the FBI investigation.
DCI said: “We direct all our employees and consultants to comply with the law.”
The leaks “sent a shudder through the environmental community,” said Kert Davies, director of investigations for an environmental group, the Center for Climate Integrity. Davies was among those targeted by the hackers. Matt Pawa, an attorney whose strategy drove much of the anti-Exxon litigation, said the leaks fueled a legal counteroffensive that nearly knocked him out of business.
“Those documents were directly employed by Exxon to come after me with all guns blazing,” he said in a recent interview. “It turned my life upside down.”
The investigation into the hack-and-leak operation comes amid growing concern among law enforcement agencies worldwide about how such cyberespionage schemes threaten to taint judicial proceedings.
The FBI has been investigating the broader use of mercenary hackers to tamper with lawsuits since early 2018, Reuters has previously reported. The Israeli private detective hired by DCI, Amit Forlit, was arrested this year at London’s Heathrow Airport and is fighting extradition to the United States on charges of hacking and wire fraud.
U.S. law enforcement authorities declined to comment on their efforts. They have not spoken publicly about the case against Forlit, which remains under seal. But in court hearings earlier this year, British lawyers acting on behalf of the American government alleged that Forlit had carried out hack-for-hire work for a “Washington-based PR and lobbying firm” and that he worked on behalf of an oil and gas corporation which wanted to discredit individuals involved in climate change litigation. In those hearings, the energy company and the lobbying firm were not identified.
Federal prosecutors have secured a related conviction: that of Forlit’s former business associate, private investigator Aviram Azari. Azari pleaded guilty in 2022 to wire fraud, conspiracy to commit hacking and aggravated identity theft, which included targeting the environmental activists. In court files, prosecutors did not assert any link between Azari and Exxon, DCI or Forlit. But one of the sources with knowledge of the FBI investigation said Forlit outsourced the hacking of the environmental activists to Azari.
Forlit’s attorneys did not respond to messages from Reuters seeking comment. A lawyer for Azari, Barry Zone, declined to comment.
Addressing his victims after he was sentenced last year to 80 months in prison, Azari said that “there will come a day” when he could provide more information about what he had done. “You don't know everything," he said.
CODENAME “FOX HUNT”
The hack-and-leak operation came on the heels of a series, opens new tab of media reports, opens new tab in 2015 contending that scientists at Exxon knew for decades that fossil fuels were warming the Earth as the company's top executives publicly said otherwise. Exxon has said, opens new tab that its internal research and public positions on climate change have been misinterpreted.
Under the hashtag “ExxonKnew,” groups such as Greenpeace called for legal action. So did then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who said the Department of Justice should probe the firm because “there’s a lot of evidence they misled people.” In November 2015, New York’s attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, announced he was investigating Exxon. Other suits followed.
With Exxon on the defensive, DCI swung into action to protect what was then one of the firm’s most important clients. Reuters interviewed a dozen former DCI employees to piece together the firm’s relationship with Exxon.
Founded in 1996 by veterans of Republican politics, DCI has worked for a variety of tobacco, telecom, hedge fund and energy firms. On its website, DCI says it handles public relations crises, litigation support, and opposition research.
Five former DCI employees said Exxon was long one of DCI’s biggest sources of revenue. One ex-employee said the oil giant regularly steered more than $10 million in business a year to DCI. Lobbying work alone for Exxon earned DCI at least $3 million between 2005 and 2016, according to publicly available data gathered by the transparency website OpenSecrets, opens new tab.
DCI’s staff in Washington kept track of social media chatter around the ExxonKnew campaign as well as moves made by state attorneys general, according to two people familiar with the matter. DCI also hired the Israeli detective Forlit, who tapped Azari to hack the accounts, according to one of the sources familiar with the FBI investigation. The operation’s code name was “Fox Hunt,” the source said.
Azari was the subject of a 2022 Reuters investigation that revealed how he and other private investigators used mercenary hackers in India to help wealthy clients gain the upper hand in legal cases. The report drew on a large dataset of Indian hacking activity, which shows that the spies tried to break into more than 13,000 email addresses over a seven-year period. Among the targets were more than 500 email addresses belonging to environmentalists, their funders, their colleagues and their family members, all of whom were targeted between 2015 and 2018.
Some details of the hacking campaign previously have been made public. In 2020 the Canadian digital watchdog group Citizen Lab identified 10 organizations, opens new tab targeted in a sweeping cyberespionage effort, including Greenpeace, the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Rockefeller Family Fund.
Reuters has learned the identity of other prominent targets, which include former Democratic presidential candidate and billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer, and the ex-wife of Schneiderman, New York’s then-attorney general.
Steyer's lawyers did not respond to requests for comment. In an email, Schneiderman's ex-wife and former political adviser, Jennifer Cunningham, said she had long suspected that Exxon was behind the hack-and-leak effort.
Beginning in April 2016, news reports appeared alleging the ExxonKnew campaign was a politicized effort pushed by wealthy benefactors. Within 24 hours of one another, the Wall Street Journal, opens new tab and the Washington Free Beacon, opens new tab published stories based on an internal memo, opens new tab circulated about a meeting at the offices of the Rockefeller Family Fund. The memo said participants planned to discuss how to convince the public that “Exxon is a corrupt institution” and “delegitimize them as a political actor.”
The person with knowledge of the law enforcement investigation said the FBI assessed that the memo was obtained via the Forlit-led hacking operation. Separately, Reuters determined that the memo was subsequently leaked to the media by DCI.
Washington Free Beacon editor Eliana Johnson said that the paper did not comment on sourcing. The Wall Street Journal did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
Exxon’s lawyers repeatedly drew on the hacked documents to support the company’s litigation.
After the New York attorney general filed suit against Exxon in 2018, for instance, the energy company’s lawyers cited the stolen Rockefeller meeting memo to argue that the case should be thrown out.
The lawyer representing Exxon, Theodore Wells, told New York’s Supreme Court in his October 2019 opening statement that Schneiderman had improperly formed “a political alignment with activists for the purpose of advancing an agenda directed at energy companies.”
New York lost the case two months later, when a judge ruled that the attorney general failed to prove that Exxon had defrauded investors by hiding the true cost of climate change regulation.
In an interview, Schneiderman said the leaked documents were used “to great effect” to bolster what he called Exxon’s “baseless claim that we were engaged in a politically motivated ‘witch hunt.’”
Wells and his law firm, Paul Weiss, did not respond to messages seeking comment.
The memo or other hacked documents were also cited in court filings by Exxon against attorneys general in Massachusetts and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as in the company's 2018 effort, opens new tab to depose climate change attorney Pawa and other lawyers.
Much of the litigation is ongoing. On Tuesday, Maine became the ninth U.S. state to file a lawsuit accusing oil companies or allied groups of deceiving the public about climate change. Pawa said the industry has continued to invoke the hacked files in its effort to push back. “They were used over and over again,” he told Reuters. The net effect, he said, was “chilling people from exercising their constitutional rights.”
Reporting by Raphael Satter and Christopher Bing in Washington; editing by Chris Sanders and Blake Morrison
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Thomson Reuters
Reporter covering cybersecurity, surveillance, and disinformation for Reuters. Work has included investigations into state-sponsored espionage, deepfake-driven propaganda, and mercenary hacking.
Thomson Reuters
Award-winning reporter covering the intersection between technology and national security with a focus on how the evolving cybersecurity landscape affects government and business.