![]() ![]() Then an unexpected call to one of his lawyers started a new investigation into its possible origins - one that led to BellTroX, the suspected hacking company, and another firm in India. The judge questioned how the documents had come to light, however, and Azima believed that the beneficiary of the hack, the emirate, was behind it. Azima denied the allegations, but his hacked records were used against him last year during a trial in London, where a judge found him liable and ordered him to pay the fund $4.2 million in damages. Lawyers and private investigators working for the emirate’s fund said in 2016 that they found emails and records belonging to Azima online and that these showed he had misled it. But by a decade later, that relationship had soured. In 2007, Azima entered into a joint business venture with the emirate’s investment fund. The case’s reach touches on the United States, Britain, India and Ras al Khaymah, a tiny emirate ruled by a sheikh near Dubai. The case of Azima offers an unusually well-documented anatomy of hack-and-dump operations, showcasing their international complexity and the difficulties of identifying those who run and pay for them. “You can’t have a business that does this without a demand for it,” said Mark Califano, a former federal prosecutor who has worked in the corporate investigations industry. Gupta, who has denied any wrongdoing, remains a fugitive. hacking charges in 2015 alongside two American private investigators. The name of BellTroX’s owner, Sumit Gupta, had surfaced before, when he was indicted on U.S. Meanwhile, a cybersecurity watchdog, Citizen Lab, reported last year that an Indian company called BellTroX ran a “hacking for hire” operation for hundreds of clients seeking to gather information about activists, journalists and people involved in litigation. Data stolen from a number of companies, such as Sony and Intel, as well as state and local government agencies, have also been dumped online. ![]() Recently, as reporters at The Financial Times were investigating alleged fraud at Wirecard, a payment processor, emails written by one of the journalists were posted on the web. ![]() Along with upending politics, the operations are creating challenges for law firms, news organizations and companies throughout the business world. The tactic, called a “hack and dump” or “hack and leak,” is best known for its use against Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign. ![]()
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