Forlit trial tests whether hacking of Exxon critics can be traced to client

Israeli investigator faces federal hacking and wire fraud charges

A federal trial in New York could answer a decade-old question: who hired private hackers to break into the email accounts of climate activists and lawyers seeking to hold ExxonMobil accountable for what the company knew about climate change, according to a report from The Guardian.

Israeli private investigator Amit Forlit faces hacking and wire fraud charges. Court documents allege the operation was commissioned by DCI Group, a lobbying firm representing ExxonMobil, one of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies. Forlit pleaded not guilty.

The case centers on a wave of phishing emails sent in 2016 to climate activists, lawyers and consultants who were working to hold Exxon accountable for what the company knew about climate change. Kert Davies, founder of the Climate Investigations Center, received more than 80 phishing emails, including one disguised as a Dropbox document titled “ExxonMobil (confidential).docx.”

A Justice Department investigation confirmed that hackers successfully breached the accounts of more than 100 victims, including the group of Exxon critics.

The unsealed indictment from the U.S. attorney’s office in New York alleges Forlit was “a leader of a sprawling cybercriminal enterprise” operating through Israel-based intelligence-gathering firms, with co-conspirators in the U.S., U.K., Israel and India. The indictment says the operation targeting climate activists was carried out on behalf of a client described as “one of the world’s largest oil and gas corporations, with headquarters in Irving, Texas.”

The chain of events, according to prosecutors, began in October 2015 when the client asked the lobbying firm for help responding to civil investigations related to climate change. A principal at the lobbying firm contacted Forlit about a project targeting people working on climate and environmental issues, according to the indictment. In a memo sent to Forlit, the principal laid out a plan for how they “would operationalize the research on the bad guys” and referenced “recent attacks” on the client “over climate change by groups on the left” and the “opportunity to go ‘on offense.’”

Prosecutors alleged Forlit then sent a proposal with a $125,000 monthly budget and subsequently contracted Aviram Azari, another Israeli private investigator, who in turn hired hackers. Between 2014 and 2017, Forlit’s firms allegedly earned $7 million, including for work on the climate hack.

Azari was arrested at John F. Kennedy International Airport in 2019 and pleaded guilty to hacking charges in 2022. Sentencing documents showed he played a critical role in a massive hacking campaign targeting thousands of people worldwide, with clients paying him more than $4.8 million over nearly five years. Azari denied knowledge of the client who ordered the climate operation.

The government’s sentencing memo said some of the hacked documents stolen from climate advocates’ online accounts were leaked to the press, and articles about those hacked documents were later incorporated into Exxon’s court filings as it battled state attorneys general investigations.

Lee Wasserman, director and secretary of the Rockefeller Family Foundation, said he believes he was one of the victims. “We think Exxon and their allies’ conduct was the most consequential corporate deception of all time,” he told The Guardian. Wasserman said the phishing attempts had a chilling effect, causing him to switch from email to phone calls and at times find himself whispering because he wondered if his office or home had been bugged.

“None of that has been proven yet,” Davies said, referring to Exxon’s alleged involvement. “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.”

Jennifer Cunningham, a former partner at the public affairs firm SKDKnickerbocker who consulted for the New York attorney general’s climate litigation work, said she initially believed the hackers were unsuccessful. After reviewing the Forlit indictment she said she recognized herself as a likely victim, writing in text messages: “Wait – I must be Victim 3? If so, I guess they were successful in hacking in, which I never knew.”

ExxonMobil declined to comment on the record but has previously said it has not been “involved in, nor are we aware of, any hacking activities. If there was any hacking involved, we condemn it in the strongest possible terms.” 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 that they had “no knowledge or understanding” of the alleged hacking activity, calling any insinuation otherwise “completely false and unsubstantiated.”

MSI previously reported that the Supreme Court agreed to hear a climate change lawsuit against oil and gas firms, and that fossil fuel-funded judicial seminars have targeted climate litigation. The Forlit trial represents a separate legal front, testing whether the hacking operation that targeted Exxon’s critics can be traced back to the company itself.

Forlit faces up to 45 years in prison. His lawyer referenced the indictment in a filing arguing against extradition from the U.K., naming the alleged client for the first time: “The hacking is alleged to have been commissioned by DCI Group, a lobbying firm representing ExxonMobil.”

Wasserman said he hopes the court process will reveal how the idea was hatched, who directed the operation, and who paid for it. “We’re all sitting on the edge of our seats waiting to see if we hear that at trial,” he said.