Hedge Funds, Short Sellers, Financial Journalists
The most prominent targeting of the financial sector concerned a cluster of hedge funds, short sellers, journalists, and investigators working on topics related to market manipulation at German payment processor Wirecard AG . We note that the offices of Wirecard AG were searched on Friday, June 5 2020 by German police in connection with a criminal investigation against certain executive board members launched by Munich prosecutors.
After extensive work with targeted organizations and individuals surrounding the Wirecard AG case, we concluded the unifying thread behind this targeting was its aim at individuals who held short positions in Wirecard AG around the time of the targeting and financial reporters covering the Wirecard AG case. Some individuals were targeted almost daily for months, and continued to receive messages for years.
Private emails from multiple journalists, short sellers, and hedge funds were made public as part of a leaks website and campaign, which included a PDF circulated via online posts to various forums. The campaign took its name from Zatarra, then a company operated by several of the targets. As Table 5 shows, the document draws heavily on excerpts of correspondence between journalists and their sources. The targets have said that these emails were misleadingly presented and edited before being posted on the website. We believe that, while the documents may have been based on emails obtained by Dark Basin through phishing, a second entity may have undertaken the work of compiling and presenting these documents on the website, given the sophistication of the writing, use of investigative jargon, and techniques such as detailed organizational charts.
Vielleicht ist mein englisch zu schlecht, aber ich verstehe die Vorwürfe gegen Wirecard jetzt nicht?! |
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