According to the Israeli daily Calcalist, David Avital, a shareholder in one of Rayzone’s subsidiaries, is currently harboring Zerón, the former Mexican official subject to an international arrest warrant and whose innocence the AIMS avatars defended. (“Mr. Zerón is indeed in Israel. However, he never lived in an apartment belonging to David Avital,” Turlevsky, Zerón’s lawyer, said.)
Investigating this network, Forbidden Stories repeatedly confronted the blurred lines between states and private companies, and the interconnected worlds of intelligence, influence and cyber-surveillance. But questions remain as to how Hanan is paid for his services.
Forbidden Stories and its partners gained access to a brochure, sent by Hanan as part of a pitch to Cambridge Analytica in 2015, that provided a picture of how much these services might cost. This rather vague document of just over three pages is entitled “elections, intelligence and special operations,” and suggests that the author had field experience since 1999. This is the same year that Demoman, the company of which Hanan is CEO, was founded. In the brochure, Hanan proposes options that “feed and enhance each other,” combining “strategic intelligence,” “public perception,” “information warfare,” “communication security,” and a “special package” for “D-Day.” The brochure praises his team, composed of former intelligence services and special forces from Israel, the United States, Spain, the United Kingdom and Russia. According to the brochure, the team also includes “experts in media and mass media” who know “the best way to use the information to deliver a story, a message, or a scandal, to create the desired effects.” According to the brochure, Hanan charged $160,000 for an eight-week “initial research and preparation phase,” plus $40,000 for travel expenses. (This rate was much lower than what he had proposed to the consortium’s reporters in 2022: 6 million Euros for one campaign.)
However, it was not through Demoman that Hanan marketed his hacking services. And for good reason: the company is registered with the Israeli Ministry of Defense. According to Israeli law, it is illegal to sell hacking services to private individuals or businesses, or for use in foreign political campaigns.
During various meetings with the undercover journalists, Hanan claimed to have about 100 employees globally. Although this number is impossible to confirm, the Demoman website claims to have offices and representatives in Israel, the United States, Switzerland, Spain, Croatia, the Philippines and Colombia. Mexican and Ukrainian addresses were also mentioned, but, according to Hanan, they were closed due to a business slowdown and war, respectively.
During the same meeting, Hanan’s brother also claimed to be using AIMS bots to bet on the crypto-currency market, and thus reap additional gains. Anything to make a dollar.