The reports of payroll startup Deel allegedly hiring a corporate spy to steal confidential information from its competitor Rippling read more like a blockbuster thriller than something in the business pages.
But corporate espionage is more common than you’d think, and we got one spook to let us behind the scenes.
The professional snoop agreed to answer some of our questions under the condition of anonymity because his company had never before granted a press interview. What we can reveal is that he is a former Israeli military officer who lives in California and cofounded his 50-person corporate espionage firm in 2012.
The company is enlisted by law firms to gather evidence to win a suit or shift a situation in their favor. “Our job is to create a different reality within the bounds of the law,” our source says. One job he turned down? Working for Harvey Weinstein around his sexual harassment allegations: “Some things aren’t worth the money. If our wives knew we protected him, I don’t think it would go down well.”
Although The Standard cannot confirm every incident detailed by our source, he was connected to us by a reputable source in the corporate intelligence industry and provided his name and company name for verification.
This interview has been edited for content and clarity.
When and how did you start your firm?
We started it in 2012. We’re ex-Israeli government employees. The family member of one of my cofounders had a business issue, and we tried to help the lawyer solve the case. That law firm contacted us a few months later for another job, who then referred us to a different law firm. Today we work with roughly 20 law firms around the world.
Do you only go through attorneys, or do you work with clients directly?
Ninety-five percent of the time we ask the law firm to engage with us. Almost every wealthy individual in the world has an in-house lawyer or an outsourced lawyer. Clients can come and go, but oftentimes the relationship is with the legal firm. Sometimes clients will say, “I want all the information about this person from his phone.” Well, that’s illegal. And the lawyer will say, “Maybe we should get this or that, in the bounds of the law.” Clients think that it’s two clicks on a computer, and you can get everybody’s information. It doesn’t really work like that.
How often do people and companies seek out these services?
There are about 10 to 15 reputable firms globally that do these things. We try to really keep ourselves as quiet as we can, but we get maybe 50 offers a year that materialize to 15 or 20 jobs max. Maybe a third will be new clients.
Can you tell me more about that first job?
The client was a businessperson in Africa. His tenders [applications for government contracts] kept getting blocked, and he was suspicious that another businessperson who was very close to the government was deliberately blocking him.
The goal was to get testimony from the other side on what he was doing, [for a lawsuit]. In that situation, you basically build a cover story and try to engage with someone as a friend. We found out he had a foundation, and we created a company and contacted and donated to his foundation. Eventually, we offered more than a million dollars, and that caught his eye.
We brought him and his assistants to a country where, legally, you can record. We hosted him there for two days — a massive hotel, a lot of alcohol, a lot of Champagne, a lot of fun. The last day we had a meeting to decide whether to give him the million dollars. We said, “We’re also really interested in getting a few tenders. We are happy to give you over a million dollars to your foundation, but this is really what we want to get.” He said, “Yeah, no problem. There’s no tender in this country that happens without my approval.”
That was our first win.
Wow. Any other notable cases?
One of the wealthiest families in Africa built a private airport. But there was another family in Africa, of Indian origin, connected to the president of South Africa. They wanted to get the private airport into their hands, despite the other family already investing $300 million.
The family that invested the money couldn’t operate the airport because they couldn’t get the license. The lawyers in our last case got contacted by that family, and they asked for help.
So we joined the Indian company. We became their employees, climbed the ladder there, and expressed our interest in aviation. Eventually, they sent our sources to meet the government a few times and push them not to approve [the other family’s license.] We were really inside.
How do you execute a project like that, and how much does it cost?
There’s a couple phases. One phase is [figuring out] what jobs will allow you access to the principal. You have to find the job and make sure you get the job. That means putting in 20 or 30 different candidates who then need to climb the ladder. So for one project, there are multiple small projects.”
We do initial research, then staging and infrastructure, and then the operation. Opening a case and initial research will vary between $25,000 and $50,000.
Then, staging. In the first example I gave, we needed to approach that guy in Africa with a company in Asia that really exists and has employees. You build something from nothing that looks like it existed for 10 years. That costs anything from $150,000 to $300,000.
Then the actual operation. In the airport example, that took a year and a half. That was six salaries for a year and a half, so the cost can get into the millions. But hey, we solved a problem that costs them $25 million on a yearly basis.
Do you offer any services outside of business disputes?
We predominantly try to do things that are not personal, so we prefer the business aspect of things. We do try to help families if their loved ones get kidnapped. Most of the time it’s barely profitable. Another thing we do is work with nonprofits on human trafficking. Young girls from central and Eastern Europe, if they get abducted, we try to return them back home.
Whoa. How do you do that?
If I know who you are and I have your passport, I can see the last flight you took. For example, a model who should have been flown to Hong Kong went to Bangkok instead. So then you go to Bangkok and you start putting things together slowly. Who picked them up from the airport? Where do they like Eastern European girls here? Now you start walking the streets of those places and looking step by step. We try not to negotiate [with kidnappers]. We don’t kill. We just give enough evidence to the local police and Interpol [to make the arrest].
Is there anything else you don’t do?
People contact us sometimes to rescue people from jail. That is a big no for us. We don’t get involved in those things, because that’s highly illegal. We’re not lawyers, and we are not judges; we are operators and intelligence.
Another big no is to deal with things on the dark net. It isn’t illegal to be an observer on the dark net, but it is illegal to do transactions. So we don’t do those things.
Where do you recruit from?
Most of the time, it’s word of mouth. For people that left [Israeli] organizations we grew up in, it’s very easy to know who’s good, who’s more talented, who’s a better fit. When we hire people from outside, it’s sometimes people we interact with as government employees, or you meet somebody who tells you he’s MI6 or CIA or whatever. It’s very easy to call bullshit after a few meetings.
What traits do you look for in employees? What makes someone good at this job?
It really depends on the role they play. That’s what I think people don’t understand about this world. They think we’re all agents like Jason Bourne. But it’s like a sports team; you have different positions. You have people who are very good at computers. You have people who are very good at finance. You have people who go into a room, and in 20 minutes they’re the star of the show. Then you have people who are unseen, who just don’t attract attention.
Do you guys use high-tech spy gadgets? Do you have hackers on staff?
We do have hackers, but we don’t hack, because it’s highly illegal. But we do other things. You don’t understand how much information people leave on the open-source web. A few clicks, most likely, I can get your credit card.
My credit card number?
Yes. Those databases do exist.
We also have a few proprietary tools that we built that can, in a click of a button, give me all your history on Twitter. I know everything that you did on Twitter, when you changed your name and when you liked a post. That’s a tool that we built; it’s purely legal, but think about how much information that gives me. I now can figure out what you like, when you liked it, I can see patterns that you do — it’s a very powerful tool.
What about sources? How do you find and make those?
As humans, we all have needs. Let’s take the situation between you and me. The person who connected us, I have a good relationship with him and want to make him happy. So here I am filling a need for somebody who is not even on the call, and you’re benefiting from it. I’m benefitting very little, but I’m doing something for someone I really like. So we’re all filling a need.
Now, let’s take a company. I’ll find the people in that company that have secrets, and then I’m going to learn what they need in their lives. And I’m going to make it happen. Sometimes it’s crazy things, like a surgery for a kid. And after I give you your needs, I’m going to ask you for the secret.
Do you say beforehand, “I’ll give you this thing you need if you give me this information?” Or do you just ask them afterward, because now they trust you?
I’ll give you an example. Let’s say you have a synagogue that’s money-laundering for settlements in Israel. I want to know how your money is being laundered, so I’ll befriend you, find out your hobbies, and we’ll start meeting at that hobby.
Give me a hobby you have.
Hiking.
Amazing. There are great hikes in Peru. So I will start meeting you at hikes, and I will tell you I’m going with the best photographer to Machu Picchu, and I have one extra spot. Would you like to join me? We are already friendly, and I’m going to tell you, “This is going to be free.” And you’ll join me. You’ll have the best time of your life.
Then, a few weeks later, we’re going to start meeting for coffee, and I’m going to tell you about my cousin who has a synagogue in Australia and wants to send money to settlements in Israel. Now, most likely — because we’re friends, and I gave you such a gift — you’re going to say, “I know all about that!” That’s how it happens.
It might be a false positive, so they actually won’t have the secret that we want them to have. Sometimes they’ll tell you, “Look, I don’t know, but Joe does. Joe calls the shots.” Or sometimes they say, “Sorry, I’m not going to speak to you about this.” And the relationship ends there. There’s always B and C and D and E and F plans.