A decade-old mystery is finally heading to trial. Climate activists who were targeted by sophisticated phishing attacks in 2016 are about to learn who orchestrated the operation, and evidence suggests the trail leads back to one of the world's largest oil companies.
The case centers on Amit Forlit, an Israeli private investigator arrested at JFK Airport in 2018 and now facing hacking and wire fraud charges in federal court in New York. Court documents and unsealed indictments allege that Forlit coordinated a sprawling cybercriminal enterprise on behalf of a lobbying firm representing ExxonMobil, the oil giant whose own scientists concluded in 1982 that burning fossil fuels caused climate change.
The hacking campaign targeted more than 100 people, including climate advocates, policy consultants, and foundation officials who were investigating Exxon's deception on climate science. Kert Davies, founder of the Climate Investigations Center, received more than 80 phishing emails, including one posing as a colleague offering a document labeled "ExxonMobil (confidential).docx." Jennifer Cunningham, a policy consultant to the New York attorney general, only recently discovered from the unsealed indictment that hackers successfully breached her account, something she had never been told.
The breakthrough came this spring when Forlit's extradition from the UK led his lawyers to file court documents naming DCI Group, a Washington lobbying firm with a longstanding relationship with Exxon, as the alleged client that commissioned the hack. The newly unsealed indictment corroborates this allegation, describing a client as "one of the worldâs largest oil and gas corporations, with headquarters in Irving, Texas" - details matching only ExxonMobil among major global energy companies.
According to prosecutors, a principal at the lobbying firm contacted Forlit in 2015 with a memo outlining how they would "operationalize the research on the bad guys." The memo referenced recent attacks on the oil company over climate change and described an opportunity to go "on offense." Forlit allegedly proposed a $125,000 monthly project to gather intelligence for use in lobbying and legal proceedings. He then contracted Aviram Azari, an Israeli hacker who managed a criminal enterprise generating more than $4.8 million over five years.
Azari, arrested separately in 2018, eventually pleaded guilty to hacking charges in 2022 but claimed he did not know who hired him. Prosecutors later revealed that stolen documents from climate advocates' accounts were leaked to the press and then incorporated into Exxon's court filings as it battled state investigations into climate deception.
Both ExxonMobil and DCI Group deny involvement. Exxon has issued previous statements condemning hacking "in the strongest possible terms" and saying it has no knowledge of any such activities. Craig Stevens, a partner at DCI Group, wrote in an email that the firm has been "told by the government that neither DCI nor any of its personnel are under investigation" and denied any knowledge of the hacking. Neither company has been charged.
Yet the pieces alleged in court documents paint a detailed picture. The indictment describes Forlit sending a proposal with a $125,000 monthly budget for the climate project, stolen materials flowing back through the conspiracy to the lobbying firm and oil company, and Forlit's intelligence firms earning $7 million between 2014 and 2017 for their work.
The targets are now waiting for the trial to reveal what the Department of Justice has uncovered. Lee Wasserman, director of the Rockefeller Family Foundation, believes he is "Victim 5" in the indictment. He recalls the chilling effect the phishing attempts had on accountability work: colleagues switched from email to phone calls, and Wasserman found himself whispering, wondering if someone had bugged his office. He and others hope the court process will finally answer the question that has haunted them for a decade: who directed this operation and who paid for it.
Kert Davies, still monitoring Exxon's conduct, said the trial is crucial. "None of that has been proven yet. So any furtherance of that story and that proof is really important to me, personally, and to a lot of the people who were attacked by this operation 10 years ago. It's personal, because I really don't like bullies or liars or cheaters."
Author James Rodriguez: "This trial could be the moment accountability advocates finally get real answers, but ExxonMobil's continued denials suggest they're betting the court never connects all the dots publicly."
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