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A Spanish firm cleans the image of corrupt, abusers and drug traffickers from 54 countries on the Internet

2023-02-17T22:24:14.725Z


Eliminalia uses fake news, cloned websites and bots to deceive Google, according to an investigation by Forbidden Stories and EL PAÍS, which reveals for the first time the company's customer relationship


The Catalan company Eliminalia has earned millions of euros in the last decade for cleaning up the internet reputation of hundreds of those convicted and investigated in 54 countries for corruption, money laundering, sexual abuse and drug trafficking.

This has been confirmed by an investigation by the journalist organization Forbidden Stories, where EL PAÍS participates with more than twenty media such as

The Washington Post

,

The Guardian, Le Monde, Der Spiegel

and

Haaretz,

and which reveals the disinformation tricks of this company to annihilate digital content.

The use of false websites or the fraudulent use of intellectual property laws are their main weapons.

A hundred reporters have analyzed a leak of 50,000 documents that includes contracts, passports, content to be deleted and fees paid by nearly 1,500 users.

The initiative is part of the

Story killers

project (exterminators of reports, in English), which breaks down the disinformation industry.

With 774 clients, Spain is Eliminalia's main market, followed by Italy (300 users), Mexico (159), the United Kingdom (126) and Colombia (73).

The Spanish list of individuals who knocked on the door of this company ranges from Adrián de la Joya, a businessman connected to former commissioner José Manuel Villarejo, to former member of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) Ramón Camp i Batalla.

There are also less public figures, such as a policeman convicted of violence or a priest arrested for looting widows.

Eliminalia has also focused its radar on Latin America.

Former governors plagued by corruption, such as the Mexican PRI member from Veracruz Javier Duarte or doctors with a dark past linked to the DINA (National Intelligence Directorate), the repressive arm of the dictatorship of Chilean General Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990), such as Hernán Horacio Taricco Lavin, are on the international list of clients.

Along with them, there is an Italian company fined for selling spy systems to the Syrian regime (Area Spa) or a Swiss bank that hosted the fortunes of alleged Venezuelan money launderers (CBH Compagnie Bancaire Helvétique).

Two investigative journalism portals,

Maka Angola

and

The Elephant

They also ended up in the peephole of this company that uses the slogan "We erase your past."

The rates paid by politicians, drug traffickers, sexual abusers, white-collar criminals and businessmen in trouble to evaporate their digital past range from 500 euros for a website -according to a 2018 contract- to 400,000 euros, depending on the articles to be neutralized and its complexity.

To achieve its purpose, the firm resorts to different disinformation tactics.

One is sending petitions to search engines and web hosting companies denouncing false copyright infringement.

Between 2015 and 2021, Eliminalia sent thousands of these fraudulent requests on the grounds that they affected already published information.

And he resorted to shell companies to hide his trail.

Fool the algorithm

Another plan to evaporate unwanted content is to trick the algorithm of search engines like Google so that it better position news created

ad hoc

by Eliminalia on fake websites.

These are articles that highlight the supposed benefits of customers and bury the information to be marginalized on the Internet.

For this purpose, Eliminalia uses a web of 600 websites that it controls through its Florida company, Maidan Holding, according to technical analyst Tord Lundstrom.

Dozens of fake fake websites like

Le Monde France, London New Times

, and

CNNEWS Today

have published articles about the company's customers.

Founded in 2013 by Diego (Dídac) Sánchez Jiménez, a thirty-year-old who presents himself as a “self-made” entrepreneur and who is the author of the book

El secreto del éxito

, Eliminalia has spread its network across 12 countries.

Italy, Switzerland, Turkey and the US make up an organization chart that has one of its headquarters in Tbilisi (Georgia), where the company moved its headquarters from Kiev in February 2022 after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Along with Sánchez, the Eliminalia strategist is José María Hill Prados, 62.

Founder of the Russian children's foster organization

Padres para Siempre

, this businessman passes for being the mastermind of international expansion.

The Spanish intelligence services explain the choice of Ukraine as the epicenter of Eliminalia's operations until last year with a fundamental reason: "It is a country where money laundering controls are almost non-existent," they point out.

Through corporate skeins, the founder of Eliminalia controls several companies with his partner Hill Prados, who was sentenced by the Barcelona Court to eight years in prison for abusing a minor in 2005.

Sánchez and Hill Prados have declined to answer questions from this newspaper.

The Parisian law firm Montmartre, represented by lawyers David and Pascal Winter, has responded that "most of the questions sent to Eliminalia concern professional secrecy or a request for information about clients to which they cannot respond."

With declared income in 2021 of 791,110 euros, compared to 1.7 million the previous year, the firm with which the company operates in Spain (Eliminalia 2013 SL) changed its name on January 20.

Just when this journalistic investigation was facing the final stretch.

Its new name is Idata Protection SL, according to the Mercantile Registry.

On the floor of a charming business building on Avenida Portal de l'Àngel, Barcelona's commercial thoroughfare, a sign gave notice of this modification.

"The company is called Idata Protection, but we belong to Eliminalia," explains one of the three employees of the small office to EL PAÍS.

Another worker confirms by phone that the company is now dedicated to data protection and that Sánchez is not in Barcelona.

These are some of Eliminalia's most relevant clients in Spain.

Their records include the fees they paid and the content they wanted to wipe out of cyberspace.

Adrian de la Joya

Businessman linked to the retired commissioner José Manuel Villarejo and splashed in corruption scandals such as the

Gürtel case

,

El Pequeño Nicolás

or the Lezo plot.

He was arrested in the investigation for the adventures of the ex-policeman.

He maintains a close relationship with the Lebanese arms merchant Abderramán El Assir: both are married to the Fernández Longoria sisters, daughters of a former Spanish ambassador to Egypt.

De la Joya, investigated in the

Villarejo case

, hired Eliminalia in December 2016. He paid 16,000 euros to make 13 media items such as publico.es or vozpopuli.com disappear.

The articles denounced his relationship with Villarejo and the former PP treasurer Luis Bárcenas and his links with the builder Francisco Hernando, better known as Paco,

The Pocero

.

De la Joya has declined to answer questions from this newspaper.

Jose Mestre Fernandez

Catalan businessman, 64 years old, former general director of Terminal Cataluña (Tercat), a company that managed a cargo terminal in the port of Barcelona.

A friend of the king emeritus, he is considered one of the richest men in Catalonia.

In 2010, he received an award for best entrepreneur of the year in the logistics sector.

And, five years later, he was sentenced to 12 years in prison for facilitating the entry of 186 kilos of cocaine on the

MSC Corinna.

, a Panamanian-flagged ship that docked in the Catalan capital in June 2010. Mestre is on the list of 12 businessmen that Corinna Larsen, Juan Carlos I's ex-partner, commissioned a Swiss detective to investigate as alleged front men for the former head of state.

The businessman paid Eliminalia 30,249 euros between 2016 and 2020 for deindexing from Google more than 200 news items published in EL PAÍS,

El Mundo, La Vanguardia, La Razón

and

El Confidencial

about his conviction, presence on the Falciani List and a robbery at his home in Barcelona.

This newspaper has tried unsuccessfully to collect Mestre's version.

Ramon Camp i Batalla

Former CiU deputy and senator and former member of the General Council of the Judiciary, Camp i Batalla, who practices as a lawyer in the Roca Junyent law firm, paid 7,380 euros to hide or disappear news such as "The TSJC investigates whether Ramón Camp prevaricated in some oppositions” from emporda.info or “A report from the prosecution links Puigdemont to a businessman in the 3% plot” from the RTVE website.

This newspaper has unsuccessfully tried to collect his version.

Juan Hormaechea

He was mayor of Santander during two legislatures (1987-1990 and 1991-1995).

The former leader, who died in 2020 at the age of 81, required the services of this company in 2017. He requested the de-indexation of six news items from EL PAÍS and

Periodista Digital

, as well as a Wikipedia profile.

He paid 4,416 euros.

Hormaechea left politics after resigning from his position and being sentenced to six years in prison and 14 years of disqualification for embezzlement and prevarication.

He avoided jail thanks to a pardon.

Ramón and Higini Cierco

The top shareholders of the extinct Banca Privada de Andorra (BPA), an entity intervened in March 2015 for the alleged laundering of funds from criminal groups, paid Eliminalia at least 225,489 euros between 2016 and 2020 to bury hundreds in the network of news about the fall of the financial institution, the funds hidden in the BPA by the family of the former Catalan president Jordi Pujol or the alleged connection with the former commissioner José Manuel Villarejo.

The information to be annihilated was published in media such as

El Confidencial, La Vanguardia and Crónica Global

.

The Ciercos used the companies Nearco Crisis Positioning Strategies and Grup Inmobiliari Cierco SA for this purpose. A family lawyer assures that his clients would not have hired Eliminalia if they had known about his techniques.

Xavier Mayol Gonzalez

The former deputy general director of the extinct BPA hired Eliminalia in 2017 to deindex 18 news items published in EL PAÍS

, El Mundo and Cinco Días,

among others.

Mayol paid 13,156 euros.

The former executive, who is being investigated in Andorra, has declined to answer questions from EL PAÍS.

Jose Nogueira Garcia

Galician shipowner extradited in 2008 from Uruguay for his participation in a drug trafficking network that operated with cocaine between the Río de la Plata and the Spanish coasts.

Involved in Operation Hurricane, which allowed the capture of the mother ship

Río Manzanares

on the high seas with 2,500 kilos of cocaine.

He was sentenced to nine years in prison.

He paid Eliminalia 17,725 euros between 2018 and 2019 for deleting news from newspapers such as

La Voz de Galicia and

headlines such as "Uruguay extradites José Nogueira from Arousa detained as head of a drug trafficking network."

This newspaper has unsuccessfully tried to collect the shipowner's version.

Paul Abasolo Amantegui

Former Portugalete soccer player sentenced to three years in prison for crimes of sexual abuse of three women and pardoned in 2011. He paid 21,445 euros for deindexing more than 30 links with news related to his abuses in Abc, El Mundo, El Confidencial and

EITB

, according to his 2018 contract. Abasolo has declined to respond to this newspaper.

Antonio Aguilera Sanchez

Partner of the producer and ventriloquist José Luis Moreno, alleged ringleader of Operation Titella (puppet in Catalan), who is investigating a network that perpetrated million-dollar bank scams.

His contract is dated 2020 and establishes a payment of at least 5,173 euros for deleting news of this plot that allegedly contracted credits that he did not pay and diverted abroad.

"We decided to block any type of relationship [with Eliminalia] as soon as we realized that their way of operating was not consistent with our good practices," says Andrea Baggio, an executive at ReputationUp, the intermediary that Aguilera used to hire Eliminalia, according to reports. documents.

Antonio Herrero Lazaro

Arrested in Operation Pompeii, which dismantled a network of brothels in Spain and money laundering.

A judge of the National Court attributed to 32 investigated in this plot a tax fraud of 111 million euros.

At the top, figure Herrero, who contracted between 2015 and 2017 for 15,531 euros the disappearance of 17 news about the case in laverdademurcia.es, Interviú (reportage

Los amos de los brothels

), elperiodico.com and burbuja.info (

The king of the brothels

).

Through his lawyer, Jesús Miana, the businessman has declined to respond to this newspaper.

Tomas Sanchez Pacheco

Alleged real estate fraudster arrested 15 times.

He hired Eliminalia between 2020 and 2021. He disbursed 20,000 euros for hiding information about his alleged criminal activity on the web telecinco.es and forums such as burbuja.info, among others.

This newspaper has tried unsuccessfully to collect his version.

Eloy Alvarez Suarez

Endocrinologist sentenced to eight years in prison and disqualified by the Provincial Court of León for sexual abuse of three young people.

He paid 1,391 euros in 2018 to Eliminalia for hiding 10 news about his case.

This newspaper has tried unsuccessfully to collect his version.

Victor Bayona Viedma

Local police sentenced to two years in prison for violence against a detainee from Trinidad and Tobago.

In his 2021 contract, there is a payment of 1,028 euros for eliminating information about his case.

This newspaper has tried unsuccessfully to collect his version.

david vargas pino

Priest expelled from the Church in 2013 after a sex scandal.

He was arrested by the Mossos d'Esquadra for defrauding and looting widows and vulnerable people.

The contract with Eliminalia does not state the amount he paid.

This newspaper has tried unsuccessfully to collect his version.

investigacion@elpais.es

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2023-02-17

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