Former WSJ reporter says regulation agency used Indian hackers to sabotage his profession By Reuters

By Raphael Satter

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A former Wall Road Journal reporter is accusing a significant U.S. regulation agency of getting used mercenary hackers to oust him from his job and break his status.

In a lawsuit filed late Friday, Jay Solomon, the Journal’s former chief international correspondent, stated Philadelphia-based Dechert LLP labored with hackers from India to steal emails between him and one among his key sources, Iranian American aviation government Farhad Azima.

Solomon stated the messages, which confirmed Azima floating the thought of the 2 of them going into enterprise collectively, have been put right into a file and circulated in a profitable effort to get him fired.

The lawsuit, filed in federal courtroom in Washington, stated Dechert “wrongfully disclosed this file first to Mr. Solomon’s employer, the Wall Road Journal, at its Washington DC bureau, after which to different media retailers in an try and malign and discredit him.” It stated the marketing campaign “successfully induced Mr. Solomon to be blackballed by the journalistic and publishing neighborhood.”

Dechert didn’t instantly return a message in search of remark. Azima – who filed his personal lawsuit towards Dechert on Thursday in New York – didn’t instantly return a message.

Solomon’s swimsuit is the newest in a collection of authorized actions that follows Reuters’ reporting about employed hackers working out of India. In June, Reuters reported on the actions of a number of hack-for-hire outlets, together with Delhi area-companies BellTroX and CyberRoot, that have been concerned in a decade-long collection of espionage campaigns concentrating on 1000’s of individuals, together with greater than 1,000 legal professionals at 108 completely different regulation corporations.

On the time, Reuters reported that individuals who had grow to be hacking targets whereas concerned in a minimum of seven completely different lawsuits had every launched their very own inquiries into the cyberespionage marketing campaign.

That quantity has since grown.

Azima, Solomon’s former supply, is amongst those that have gone to courtroom over the alleged hacking. His legal professionals, like Solomon’s, allege that Dechert labored with BellTroX, CyberRoot and a slew of personal investigators to steal his emails and publish them to the online.

BellTroX and CyberRoot usually are not events to the swimsuit and couldn’t instantly be reached. Executives at each corporations have beforehand denied wrongdoing.

Solomon and Azima allege that Dechert undertook the hack-and-leak operation within the curiosity of its consumer, Sheikh Saud bin Saqr al-Qasimi, ruler of the Center Jap emirate of Ras Al Khaimah. Reuters has reported that legal professionals for Ras Al Khaimah’s funding company – RAKIA – used the emails to assist win a fraud lawsuit filed towards Azima in London in 2016.

Azima, who denies RAKIA’s fraud allegations, is attempting to have the judgment thrown out.

Along with being deployed in courtroom, the leaked emails additionally made their strategy to The Related Press, which printed two articles about Azima in June of 2017, together with one that exposed the airline mogul had supplied reporter Solomon a minority stake in an organization he was establishing. The Journal fired Solomon shortly earlier than the AP’s story was printed, citing moral violations.

Solomon says he by no means took Azima up on his proposal or benefited financially from their relationship. In a first-person account of the scandal printed within the Columbia Journalism Assessment in 2018, the ex-journalist stated he by no means pushed again on Azima’s discuss of enterprise alternatives as a result of he was attempting to humor a person who had been essential to his reporting on the Center East. Solomon acknowledged “critical errors in managing my supply relationship with Azima” however stated he had been the goal of an “extremely efficient” data operation.

The Journal, which isn’t a celebration to swimsuit, didn’t instantly return an e mail. The AP didn’t instantly return a message.

Solomon gained a number of awards for his work as a international correspondent earlier than his firing. He declined to offer an on-the-record remark concerning the lawsuit, however in his 2018 account he referred to as the episode a warning for journalists.

“Leaks and hacks of emails and correspondences can blow up intricate reporting and derail months, if not years, of labor,” he stated.