Indian Chronicles

Key Facts:

An operation spanning 15 years

Involved over 15 UN Rights Council accredited NGOs

Resurrected Prof. Louis B. Sohn who passed away in 2006

Stole the identiy of Martin Schulz and used the photo of James Purnell a former UK government minister

Over 750 fake media outlets in 119 different countries

Over 550 domain names registered

The campaign was led by the Srivastava Group which is an Indian holding company. The content generated by the fake outlets was amplified by ANI.

Tactics utilized:

Using Regus to acquire virtual offices to appear legitimate

Creating false websites most of which had corresponding false twitter handles.

False names for journalists to appear legitimate. Additionally, they would intentionally misspell these fake journalists names to make it harder to trace when they were publishing in different outlets. They used extinct local news outlets or names similar to real media outlets.

A large volume of stolen content from other news outlets like Voice of America and Russia Today. Parts of the content stealing were likely automated. They mixed in false anti-Pakistan articles and op-eds with the rest of the content. This content was picked up by larger outlets like ANI which amplified the messages.

They resurrected at least 10 NGOs, they found previously active groups like the Commission to Study the Organization of Peace (CSOP) had their identity stolen by the groups linked to the Srivastava group. Students were paid to represent these Zombie NGOs at the UNHCR. These students were given specific texts to read from and received 186 euros to speak.

They listed Louis B. Sohn as having attended events in 2007 and 2011 even though he passed away in 2006.

The campaign created support groups within the European parliament. They published op-eds from MEPs and invited them on free trips to Bangladesh, the Maldives, and Kashmir. These trips were widely reported on by the fake news outlets and these reports were picked up by the more reputable ANI.

Goal:

They sought to create content for a domestic audience in India to reinforce anti-pakistan and anti-chinese sentiments in India. This content made it seem that there was international support for countering Pakistan. Internationally their aim was to improve the perception of India, damage the reputation of other countries and garner support from international institutions like the EU and the UN.

Discovery:

The EU disinfo lab discovered the extent of this campaign in 2019. Since the discovery the India chronicles shut down many of the sites and changed many of the names, the EP today became the EU Chronicle. The influence campaign is still on going.

Black Boxing Output