Psy-Group
| Psy-Group | |
|---|---|
| Trade name | |
| Logo | |
| Type | Private; liquidated |
| Founded | 2014 |
| Founder(s) | Royi Burstien; Joel Zamel (ownership reported) |
| Defunct | |
| Headquarters | Israel |
| Industry | Influence operations; private intelligence |
| Services | |
| Parent | |
| Subsidiaries | |
| Revenue | |
| Number of employees | |
| Homepage | |
Psy-Group was the trading name of Invop Ltd, an Israeli influence and intelligence company set up in 2014. Royi Burstien, a lieutenant colonel in the reserves of military intelligence, was chief executive. Joel Zamel has been described as owner and, in the Senate record, as founder. The company went out of business in 2018 as the FBI examined its work, and Invop was put into liquidation in April of that year. It did not sell spyware. It sold campaigns: false personas, lists of targets, and material meant to move an election or a campus argument. The US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence found that it pitched the Trump campaign in 2016 and that the pitch, as far as the committee could establish, was not carried out.[1][2]
The people
Burstien told the New Yorker he had set the firm up in 2014. Zamel, in the Senate report, described Burstien’s background as intelligence work and influence operations. The committee said it did not know the precise nature of that work. Zamel was questioned by investigators on the Mueller inquiry. On 14 December 2016 a company of his signed a memorandum with Cambridge Analytica for case-by-case cooperation on intelligence and social-media work, and for joint pitches to the US government and other clients. The Wall Street Journal reported the memorandum. Cambridge Analytica closed in 2018 after the Facebook data scandal. Psy-Group closed the same year.[1][3]
The 2016 pitch
Volume five of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Russia report, released on 18 August 2020, gave the firm a section of its own. The committee had looked at three foreign-linked influence companies it first suspected might have shaped the 2016 election: Psy-Group, Cambridge Analytica and Colt Ventures. It found that Psy-Group representatives engaged with senior Trump campaign officials in 2016 for a contract to work for the campaign, and that “these engagements purportedly never materialized into any Campaign work.” Burstien told the New Yorker the talks went nowhere. The same report said the firm had on separate occasions worked for at least two Russian oligarchs, including Oleg Deripaska, whom the committee called a proxy for the Russian state and intelligence services. Israel, asked about a firm staffed by former intelligence officers bidding to shape a US vote, declined the blame.[1]
Project Butterfly
A campaign that did run was domestic to the United States and aimed at Palestine solidarity organising. Internal documents described by the New Yorker put the start in February 2016. The code name was Project Butterfly. It began against boycott, divestment and sanctions activists on campuses in one state, which former employees identified as New York. Operatives drew up lists of people and organisations. A later job, in the summer of 2017, was an attempt to sway a local election in central California. It failed. The Foundation for Defense of Democracies met the firm and did not contract. The New Yorker reported that the company went out of business in February 2018 as FBI agents began to examine the work.[2]
Where it sits
Psy-Group is the influence end of the same counter as Black Cube, not the spyware end of NSO Group, Paragon Solutions and Candiru. Black Cube sells a recording to a law firm. Psy-Group sold a persona and a list. Both were staffed from Israeli intelligence. Both closed, or were convicted, when a US inquiry arrived. The Senate’s finding on the Trump pitch is that it was not carried out. The finding on Project Butterfly is that the documents exist.
See also
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Israel ducks blame for firm with ex-intel officers that bid to shape US vote, Times of Israel, 25 August 2020.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Adam Entous, How a Private Israeli Intelligence Firm Spied on Pro-Palestinian Activists in the U.S., New Yorker, 28 February 2019.
- ↑ Byron Tau and Rebecca Ballhaus, Israeli Intelligence Company Formed Venture With Trump Campaign Firm Cambridge Analytica, Wall Street Journal, 22 May 2018.