Team Jorge is the name given to an outfit of Israeli contractors specialized in the use of malign cyber activities including hacking, sabotage and bot farm-run social media disinformation campaigns to manipulate the outcomes of elections. The group was exposed in February 2023 after an undercover operation by journalists from Israel and France as part of consortium of investigative journalists coordinated by Forbidden Stories. The organization has been active since at least 2015 and boasts of having manipulated 33 presidential elections worldwide, many of them in Africa, and in 27 cases with successful results. Their activities were revealed following a 2022 sting operation in Tel Aviv, carried out by three undercover journalists, who posed as prospective clients and filmed their interactions with Tal Hanan — the group's leader and former Israeli special forces operative — in which he explained the inner workings of the organization. Tal Hanan used the pseudonym "Jorge" when working with the hacking and disinformation group, which inspired the Team Jorge name. Background According to Tal Hanan, the group's leader, Team Jorge has existed for more than two decades, and has been engaged in propaganda and disinformation activities in more than 30 countries. However, its first documented activity dates to 2015. Their services have been available to government intelligence agencies, political campaigns, and private companies that wished to covertly manipulate public opinion. One of the organization's primary tools is a software package called Advanced Impact Media Solutions, or Aims. The software automates centralized control of thousands of fake social media profiles on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Telegram, and others. A number of these profiles also have Amazon and Airbnb accounts, along with credit cards and bitcoin wallets. The group also employs hacking techniques to brute force accounts of potential victims. The group is said to have six offices across the world, with its headquarters located in Modi'in-Maccabim-Re'ut, a town 35 kilometres (22 mi) southeast of Tel Aviv. Among the people working for this organization is Tal Hanan's brother, Zohar Hanan (known under the alias Nick), described as the group's chief executive. Investigation and exposure Team Jorge's activities were revealed after a sting operation by three undercover journalists, Gur Megiddo of TheMarker, Frédéric Métézeau of Radio France and Omer Benjakob of Haaretz, posing as prospective clients filmed interactions with Tal Hanan in Tel Aviv in 2022 in which he explained the inner workings of the organization. In the conversations,