This is the final installment in a three-part series. Read Part I here and Part II here. Support The New Yorker’s award-winning journalism by subscribing here.
For a reporter, there are few things more valuable than an inside source—a whistle-blower who feels ethically compelled to expose an operation from within. In October of 2017, while reporting on sexual-assault accusations against the movie producer Harvey Weinstein, I learned that he had hired the Israeli private-intelligence agency Black Cube to surveil his accusers and the journalists trying to tell their stories. I had obtained a list of marks suggesting that the spy agency’s operatives had approached the actress Rose McGowan, the writer Ben Wallace, and me. But I needed confirmation, and that would require an insider outraged enough to risk leaking the full details of the operation.
I blanketed Tel Aviv, where Black Cube was based, with calls and e-mails, asking about the company’s work for Weinstein. There was a formal denial from their freelance publicist, Eido Minkovsky, who flattered his way through our phone calls. “My wife’s seen your pictures,” he said. “There’s no way she’s gonna come to New York. She’s not allowed to. I confiscated her visa.”
“You’re a sweet talker,” I said.
“Yeah, that’s my game,” Minkovsky replied.
Two men close to the Black Cube operation, who spoke on condition of anonymity, offered a similar denial. In a series of phone calls, they said that the agency had only done Internet research for Weinstein, and that its operatives had never contacted reporters or accusers. I pressed them about the names on the target list, including McGowan and another actress who had accused Weinstein of assault in my reporting, Annabella Sciorra. (Weinstein has denied “any allegations of non-consensual sex.”) “We never approached any of these,” the man with the deeper of the two voices said. “I also made sure with my team here, any of these you wrote here: Annabella Sciorra… Rose McGowan...” I told them that both Ben Wallace and I suspected that we’d been targeted. “We don’t generally work on journalists as a target,” came the reply. The man with the higher voice swore that they were telling the truth. “We’re Talmud Jews!” he said. “We don’t swear for nothing!” The calls were both ominous and entertaining.
More in the Black Cube Chronicles
Black Cube was founded in 2010, by Dan Zorella and Avi Yanus, two veterans of a secret Israeli intelligence unit. The agency stressed that its tactics had been vetted by attorneys around the world and that it stayed within the letter of the law. (The agency’s agreement with Weinstein specified that all of the firm’s activities would be conducted “by legal means and in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations.”) But others in the private-intelligence world told me that Black Cube had a reputation for flouting rules. In 2016, two of its operatives were jailed in Romania, for intimidating a prosecutor and hacking her e-mails. They were later convicted, and received suspended sentences. One person involved with Black Cube’s operations told me, “it’s impossible to do what they do without breaking the law.” When I asked the head of a competing Israeli private-intelligence firm, who had had dealings with Black Cube, what I should do if I suspected that I was being followed by a Black Cube agent, he said, “Just start running.”
The two men close to the Black Cube operation had promised to send documents that would disprove any claims that Black Cube had followed accusers or reporters. “I will send you the documents today,” the lower voice said. “We’ll use a one-time e-mail or one of our servers.” Thirty minutes after they hung up, a message arrived from the encrypted-messaging service ProtonMail, with documents attached. Another message followed a few hours later, from a different e-mail service, Zmail, with more documents. I assumed that both messages were from the two men close to the Black Cube operation, though the ProtonMail message had an unusually intimate tone. “Hello mutual friend,” it said. “Attached you’ll find new information concerning the HW&BC affair. Best, cryptoadmin.” The ProtonMail account it came from bore the name Sleeper1973.
Attached was an extensive record of Black Cube’s work for Weinstein. The documents included their first contract, signed in late October, 2016, and a revision from July 11, 2017, which extended Black Cube’s work for Weinstein through November of 2017. The later contract directed the spies to “provide intelligence which will help the Client’s efforts to completely stop the publication of a new negative article in a leading NY Newspaper,” a reference to reporting on Weinstein by the Times. The contract also directed them to obtain a copy of a memoir that McGowan was writing, which was described as “a book which currently being written and includes harmful negative information on and about the Client.” The agency agreed to hire “an investigative journalist,” and an “agent by the name of ‘Anna’” for four months.
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The invoices attached were substantial: the fees, including bonuses, could have reached seven figures. The contracts were signed by Black Cube’s director, Avi Yanus, and by the law firm of Boies Schiller, which represented Weinstein. This was astonishing: Boies Schiller also represented the Times. But there was the signature of the firm’s chairman, David Boies, in blue-inked cursive, on a contract to kill the paper’s own reporting.
The next morning, I called the two men close to the Black Cube operation. I thanked them for sending the documents. They sounded cheerful, confident that what they had sent would exonerate the firm of conducting intrusive surveillance on Weinstein’s behalf. “We did not approach any of these women undercover,” the deeper of the two voices said. “We did not approach any of these journalists undercover.”
When I began asking questions about the contract that called for those very tactics, they sounded confused. They denied that such a contract existed.“I’m looking at it. It’s on Black Cube’s stationery,” I said. “I’m referring to a document you guys sent me.”
“When you say, ‘we guys,’ what do you mean by ‘we guys?’ ” the deeper voice said, sounding cautious, even worried.
“This was in the binder of documents that you sent to me yesterday,” I said. “Not the second dump from Zmail, but the very first one, from the Sleeper e-mail.”
There was a long silence on the line.
“We did not send you any burner e-mail yesterday,” the deeper voice said. “The only thing we sent you yesterday was from Zmail.”
Realization prickled my skin. The men had promised to send me Black Cube documents from a discreet e-mail account. What was the likelihood that someone would leak a conflicting, and more devastating, tranche of documents at exactly the same time? But that seemed like the only explanation.
Anxious to protect the source, I changed the subject and told the two men that I had authenticated the contracts with David Boies and others. “They are genuine,” I said. There was a touch of panic in the deeper voice. “I . . . I don’t know who sent that,” the man said. Then, collecting himself, he added, “We should do this friendly, I would say.” I wondered what the alternative would look like.
After I got off the phone, I sent an e-mail to the Sleeper1973 address. “Can you give any information that would help authenticate these documents? Some parties involved are denying several pieces of this.” A response arrived immediately: “I’m not surprised they denied it, but it is all true. they were trying to get Rose’s book, via a girl named ‘Ana’ (possibly a HUMINT agent).” Another set of files was attached, which contained a wide range of correspondence and ancillary documents. Over time, these, too, checked out.
My editors asked me to try to learn more about source, whom we started calling Sleeper. “Sleeper1973 is possibly a Woody Allen reference,” I wrote, referring to a film directed by my father and released in 1973. “Which is certainly cheeky.” Someone with a dark sense of humor, then. (I’d publicly criticized my father after my sister accused him of sexual assault. He has denied the allegation.)
Sleeper rebuffed my pleas for an encrypted call or an in-person meeting. “I can understand your editors’ concern although I’m afraid to reveal my identity. Every online method can be monitored these days...its hard for me to trust it wont come back at me,” Sleeper wrote. “I’m sure you know NSO so I’m not interested in taking unnecessary risks.” NSO Group is an Israeli cyber-intelligence firm known for developing software that can take control of a cell phone and strip-mine it for data. According to watchdog groups, the software has been used to target dissidents and journalists around the world. (NSO has said that the software is “not a product to track or surveil dissidents or journalists for doing their job; it’s licensed only for the sole purpose of investigating or preventing crime and terror.”)
Sleeper continued sending information from the encrypted e-mail address, and it always proved accurate. After McGowan told me that she’d spent time only with trusted contacts and couldn’t think of anyone who might have been “Anna,” the undercover operative, I asked Sleeper for help. Another lightning-quick reply: “Regarding Anna, her genuine name is Stella Pen. I’ve attached pictures as well. She allegedly got 125 pages of Rose’s book (as appears on BC’s agreement with Boies), and discussed the findings with HW himself.” Attached were three photos of a statuesque blonde with a prominent nose and high cheekbones. I texted the photos to McGowan and Ben Wallace.
“Oh my God,” McGowan wrote back. “No fucking way.” For months, she had been meeting with the woman in the photos, who had claimed to be a women’s-rights advocate working for a fictional wealth-management firm.
Wallace remembered her immediately, too—she’d posed as a Weinstein victim. “Yes,” he wrote back. “Who is she?”
I presented the evidence from Sleeper to the men close to the Black Cube operation, and they soon dropped their denials. They described, in detail, the efforts that their operative had made to insinuate herself into McGowan’s life. McGowan had been an easy mark. “She was trusting,” the deeper voice explained. “They became very good friends. I’m sure she’s a bit shocked.” McGowan had told the operative that it seemed like everyone in her life was secretly connected to Weinstein. She’d even suspected her lawyers. But, the men told me, “she of course didn’t suspect us.”
As The New Yorker prepared to publish an article revealing the work that Black Cube and other private-investigation firms had done for Weinstein, panic set in at those organizations. Black Cube sent the magazine legal threats, promising to take “appropriate action against you” if we published the Black Cube documents or information from them. Inside the agency, one of the firm’s senior leaders even contemplated destroying the material from the Weinstein investigation. “We wish to dispose of every document and information we possess in regards with this project,” read one e-mail.
The men close to the Black Cube operation said that the agency was frantically hunting for the person who had leaked the contracts and other documents to me. The company was, the deeper voice told me, “investigating everything. All the parties involved, and what was stolen.” Black Cube was also ordering employees to take polygraph tests, and had promised to sue anyone caught lying. “We find it hard to believe that a worker would go on a suicide mission like this,” the higher voice said.
I wrote to Sleeper, worried. “I just want to make sure you are not at risk,” I wrote. “I will do all I can to keep you protected.”
The reply was immediate: “I do appreciate your care. . . Momentarily, I feel safe.”
Just before we published, I made one last attempt to get the source’s identity. In response, Sleeper told me something that made it clear where the documents were coming from—and asked me to keep the secret.
There was also a hint about motive. “I’m an insider who is fed up with BC’s false and devious ways of obtaining material illegally,” Sleeper wrote. “Moreover, in this case, I truly believe HW is a sex offender and I’m ashamed as a woman for participating.”
I paused, processing this revelation. That, in the end, is all that I can tell you about Sleeper, and about the risks that she took to uncover something vast. She was a woman and she’d had enough.
“Lets just say that I will never ever give you something that I cant back you for 100%,” she wrote in one of her final messages to me. “I work in the information industry. World of espionage and endless action. Hope we can actually talk about it some day. The project I’m involved in. . . .out of this world, my dear.”
This excerpt is drawn from “Catch and Kill,” by Ronan Farrow, out this month from Little, Brown and Company.
