Black Cube and Harvey Weinstein
| Black Cube and Harvey Weinstein
| |
|---|---|
| Type | Undercover intelligence operation to stop publication of sexual-abuse allegations |
| Date | October 2016 – July 2017 (reported 6 November 2017) |
| Location | New York, Los Angeles, London |
| Participants | Black Cube; Boies Schiller Flexner (contracting law firm) |
| Organisers | Harvey Weinstein, through his lawyers. The firm was recommended to him by Ehud Barak (according to a Weinstein email reported in 2019) |
| Victims | Actress Rose McGowan; journalists including Ben Wallace (New York magazine), Jodi Kantor (New York Times) and Ronan Farrow (The New Yorker); other women with allegations |
| Outcome | Black Cube ended the contract in July 2017. The allegations were published in October 2017, and Black Cube apologised that November |
Black Cube and Harvey Weinstein refers to the 2016–17 operation in which the Israeli private intelligence firm Black Cube, hired through Harvey Weinstein's lawyers, used undercover operatives with false identities to try to stop the publication of sexual-abuse allegations against him. Operatives secretly recorded the actress Rose McGowan and approached journalists. Ronan Farrow revealed the operation in The New Yorker in November 2017. It became the best-known example of Black Cube's methods.
Hiring
In 2019 Ronan Farrow reported that Weinstein had written to his lawyer David Boies about a firm "recommended to him by Ehud Barak, the former Prime Minister of Israel": "The Black Cube Group from Israel contacted me through Ehud Barak," Weinstein wrote.[1] On 28 October 2016 Boies's firm, Boies Schiller Flexner, wired Black Cube the first $100,000 of what would become a $600,000 invoice. The documents do not show how much of it was paid. The firm and Black Cube signed a contract that month and several more later.[2]
One contract, dated 11 July 2017 and signed by Boies, set out the project's "primary objectives":
- to "provide intelligence which will help the Client's efforts to completely stop the publication of a new negative article in a leading NY newspaper";
- to "obtain additional content of a book which currently being written and includes harmful negative information on and about the Client".
The article was the New York Times story published on 5 October 2017, and the book was McGowan's memoir Brave.[2] At the same time, Boies's firm was representing the New York Times, including in a libel case. Boies confirmed that his firm had contracted with and paid two of the agencies. He said he had not selected the firms or directed their work, and denied a conflict of interest.[2] A Black Cube executive asked the firm's lawyers to refer to Weinstein as "the end client" or "Mr. X", because using his name "will make him extremely angry".[2]
Methods
| # | Target | Approach | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rose McGowan | From May 2017 an operative calling herself "Diana Filip", deputy head of sustainable and responsible investments at a supposed London firm, "Reuben Capital Partners", offered McGowan $60,000 to speak at a gala on women's rights. She met McGowan at least four times and secretly recorded her. In September a second operative, "Paul", joined. Black Cube delivered more than a hundred pages of transcripts and descriptions of McGowan's book to Weinstein | [2] |
| 2 | Ben Wallace, New York magazine | The same operative, calling herself "Anna" and hinting at her own allegation against Weinstein, contacted him on 28 October 2016 and met him twice to find out who was talking to the press | [2][1] |
| 3 | Jodi Kantor and Ronan Farrow | "Filip" emailed both reporters | [2] |
| 4 | Women with allegations and journalists | Black Cube contracted to hire "an investigative journalist" to conduct ten interviews a month for four months for $40,000, and to report the results to the client. In January 2017 a freelance journalist recorded a long call with McGowan without telling her. Farrow later identified the journalist Black Cube hired as Seth Freedman, a former Guardian writer, who called Wallace ("He was pumping me for what I had heard and learned", Wallace said) and eventually spoke with McGowan | [2][1] |
| 5 | Cover infrastructure | Reuben Capital Partners had a bare-bones website and a London address at shared offices near Piccadilly Circus. The office provider had never heard of it. Sources said Black Cube creates fictional companies as cover | [2] |
Farrow reported that over the course of a year Weinstein had his agencies "target", or collect information on, dozens of people and compile psychological profiles.[2] In 2019 he named the undercover operative as Stella Penn Pechanac. He reported that "Anna, Adriana, Eva, Diana, Maja" were all her aliases, and the same cover company, Reuben Capital Partners, appeared in the Iran deal operation.[1][3] Pechanac later gave her own account of the Weinstein job to Vanity Fair Spain.[4]
End of the contract and responses
A source told ABC News that "Black Cube ended the contract in July. A couple loose ends were tied up in August… They felt that they could not help him anymore." ABC said Black Cube's own statement did not admit working for Weinstein.[5] In its statement to The New Yorker, Black Cube said:
"It is Black Cube's policy to never discuss its clients with any third party, and to never confirm or deny any speculation made with regard to the company's work. Black Cube supports the work of many leading law firms around the world, especially in the US, gathering evidence for complex legal processes, involving commercial disputes, among them uncovering negative campaigns."[2]
Weinstein's spokesperson said: "It is a fiction to suggest that any individuals were targeted or suppressed at any time."[2]
Black Cube apologised in November 2017 after the reports.[6] The Times of Israel described the apology as coming from a board member.[7] Details of the arrangement, including the Boies Schiller contract, were later described at Weinstein's New York criminal trial.[8] Black Cube adviser Adrian Leppard later said the firm no longer accepts cases involving sexual harassment.[9]
See also
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Ronan Farrow, The Black Cube Chronicles: The Undercover Operative, The New Yorker, 8 October 2019.
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 Ronan Farrow, Harvey Weinstein's Army of Spies, The New Yorker, 6 November 2017.
- ↑ Ronan Farrow, Israeli Operatives Who Aided Harvey Weinstein Collected Information on Former Obama Administration Officials, The New Yorker, 6 May 2018.
- ↑ Javi Sánchez, interview with Stella Penn Pechanac, Vanity Fair (Spain), 7 January 2020.
- ↑ Michael Rothman, Kelly McCarthy, Jason Chervokas and Jordana Miller, Harvey Weinstein hired elite intelligence agency to target accuser Rose McGowan, others: Source, ABC News, 7 November 2017.
- ↑ Oliver Holmes, Israel intel firm denies it was hired by Trump aides to discredit Obama officials, The Guardian, 7 May 2018.
- ↑ ToI Staff, Cambridge Analytica-linked businessman helped start Black Cube, lawsuit claims, Times of Israel, 23 August 2018.
- ↑ Stephanie Kirchgaessner and Owen Bowcott, Intelligence firm Black Cube ordered to pay £350,000 to Israeli TV show, The Guardian, 25 November 2020.
- ↑ MC World Desk, Inside Black Cube: How the intelligence firm made millions from corporate investigations, Moneycontrol (summarising the Financial Times), 4 November 2025.