A dozen years in the past, John Mark Dougan, a former deputy sheriff in Palm Seaside County, Fla., despatched voters an e-mail posing as a county commissioner, urging them to oppose the re-election of the county’s sheriff.
He later masqueraded on-line as a Russian tech employee with a pseudonym, BadVolf, to leak confidential info in violation of state legislation, fooling officers in Florida who thought they had been coping with a foreigner.
He additionally posed as a fictional New York Metropolis heiress he known as Jessica, tricking an adviser to the Palm Seaside County Sheriff’s Workplace into divulging improper conduct by the division.
“And boy, did he ever spill ALL of the beans,” Mr. Dougan mentioned in a written response to questions for this text, during which he confirmed his function in these episodes.
These subterfuges in america, it turned out, had been solely a prelude to a extra distinguished and doubtlessly extra ominous marketing campaign of deception he has been conducting from Russia.
Mr. Dougan, 51, who acquired political asylum in Moscow, is now a key participant in Russia’s disinformation operations in opposition to the West. Again in 2016, when the Kremlin interfered within the American presidential election, a military of laptop trolls toiled for hours in an workplace constructing in St. Petersburg to attempt to idiot Individuals on-line.
Right this moment Mr. Dougan could also be engaging in a lot the identical job largely by himself, based on American and European authorities officers and researchers from firms and organizations which have tracked his actions since August. The teams embody NewsGuard, an organization that opinions the reliability of stories and data on-line; Recorded Future, a menace intelligence firm; and Clemson College’s Media Forensics Hub.
Working from an house crowded with servers and different laptop tools, Mr. Dougan has constructed an ever-growing community of greater than 160 pretend web sites that mimic information retailers in america, Britain and France.
With the assistance of commercially obtainable synthetic intelligence instruments, together with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and DALL-E 3, he has stuffed the websites with tens of hundreds of articles, many based mostly on precise information occasions. Interspersed amongst them are additionally bespoke fabrications that officers in america and European Union have attributed to Russian intelligence businesses or the administration of President Vladimir V. Putin.
Between September and Might, Mr. Dougan’s retailers have been cited or referred to in information articles or social media posts almost 8,000 instances, and seen by greater than 37 million individuals in 16 languages, based on a report back to be launched Wednesday by NewsGuard.
The fakes have just lately included a baseless article on a pretend San Francisco Chronicle web site that mentioned Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, had smuggled 300 kilograms of cocaine from Argentina. One other false narrative appeared final month within the sham Chronicle and on one other web site, known as The Boston Occasions, claiming that the C.I.A. was working with Ukrainians to undermine Donald J. Trump’s presidential marketing campaign.
Mr. Dougan, in a collection of textual content exchanges and one phone interview with The New York Occasions, denied working the websites. A digital path of clues, together with internet domains and web protocol addresses, suggests in any other case, the officers and researchers say.
A buddy in Florida who has identified Mr. Dougan for 20 years, Jose Lambiet, additionally mentioned in a phone interview that Mr. Dougan instructed him in January that he had created the websites.
Steven Brill, a founding father of NewsGuard, which has spent months monitoring Mr. Dougan’s work, mentioned he represented “a large incursion into the American information ecosystem.”
“It’s not just a few man sitting in his basement in New Jersey tapping out a phony web site,” he added.
Mr. Dougan’s emergence as a weapon of the Kremlin’s propaganda battle follows a troubled life in america that included dwelling foreclosures and chapter. As a legislation enforcement officer in Florida and Maine, he confronted accusations of extreme use of power and sexual harassment that resulted in expensive lawsuits in opposition to the departments he labored for.
He faces an arrest warrant in Florida — its information sealed by courtroom order — on 21 felony prices of extortion and wiretapping that resulted from a long-running feud with the sheriff of Palm Seaside County.
Mr. Dougan’s actions from Moscow, the place he fled in 2016 one step forward of these prices, proceed to attract scrutiny from the authorities in america. Final 12 months, he impersonated an F.B.I. agent in a phone name to Mr. Brill, based on an account by Mr. Brill to be revealed subsequent week in a brand new ebook, “The Dying of Reality.”
Mr. Dougan, who acknowledged making the decision in a textual content message this week, had been angered by a NewsGuard report in February 2023 that criticized YouTube for permitting movies parroting Russian propaganda in regards to the battle in Ukraine, together with some by Mr. Dougan.
In a rambling, profanity-laced video in response on YouTube final 12 months, Mr. Dougan posted excepts of the decision with Mr. Brill and confirmed a Google Earth satellite tv for pc {photograph} of his dwelling in Westchester County, a suburb of New York Metropolis — “simply down the highway from the Clinton crime household,” as Mr. Dougan put it, referring to the house of former President Invoice Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The decision prompted an F.B.I. investigation that, based on Mr. Brill, traced the decision to Mr. Dougan’s phone in Russia. (A spokeswoman for the bureau didn’t reply to a request for touch upon the investigation or Mr. Dougan’s earlier actions.)
A Historical past in Regulation Enforcement
Mr. Dougan started to hone the talents that he’s placing to make use of right this moment throughout a turbulent childhood in america. Within the written responses to questions for this text, he mentioned he had struggled at dwelling and in class, bullied due to Tourette’s syndrome, however discovered a ardour in computer systems. When he was 8, he mentioned, the person who would grow to be his stepfather started instructing him to put in writing laptop code.
“By the point I used to be 16,” he wrote in a single response, “I knew a dozen completely different programming languages.”
After a four-year stint within the Marine Corps, which he claims he provided to affix in lieu of a jail sentence for fleeing a police cease for rushing on a bike, he grew to become a police officer first in a small power in Mangonia Park, Fla., after which the Palm Seaside County Sheriff’s Workplace from 2005 to 2009.
In line with information studies and his personal accounts through the years, Mr. Dougan repeatedly clashed with superiors and colleagues, dealing with quite a few inner investigations that he mentioned had been retaliatory as a result of he objected to police misconduct, together with cases of racial bias.
In 2009, he moved briefly to Windham, Maine, to work in one other small-town police division. There he confronted a grievance of sexual harassment that resulted in his dismissal earlier than he accomplished his probationary interval.
Mr. Dougan began an internet site known as WindhamTalk to defend himself. The web site foreshadowed others he would create, together with one dedicated to the Palm Seaside County Sheriff’s Workplace, PBSOTalk.
After shifting again to Florida, he used PBSOTalk to torment particularly the division’s elected sheriff, Ric L. Bradshaw, whom he accused of corruption. He posted the illegal recordings of “Jessica” chatting with a former detective commander, Mark Lewis, who, Mr. Dougan claimed, was investigating the sheriff’s critics, together with himself. As Mr. Dougan acknowledged in a video interview final 12 months, it’s unlawful in Florida to report a phone dialog with out permission.
In a press release, a spokeswoman for the Sheriff’s Workplace, Therese C. Barbera, mentioned Mr. Dougan was “a wished felon for cyberstalking utilizing unsubstantiated and fabricated claims which have NO factual foundation.”
In February 2016, PBSOTalk posted confidential details about hundreds of cops, federal brokers and judges. The subsequent month. F.B.I. brokers and native cops searched Mr. Dougan’s dwelling, seizing all of his digital tools.
Fearing arrest, he mentioned, he made his approach to Canada and caught a flight to Moscow. He was indicted on the 21 Florida felony prices the following 12 months.
Peddling Russia Propaganda
In Russia, Mr. Dougan refashioned himself as a form of journalist, documenting his travels across the nation, together with Lake Baikal in Siberia and Crimea, the peninsula in Ukraine that Russian annexed in 2014 in violation of worldwide legislation.
He posted images and movies from these journeys on YouTube, which suspended his channel after NewsGuard’s report final 12 months. He additionally appeared repeatedly on state media, together with with two former intelligence operatives, Maria Butina, who penetrated Republican political circles, and Anna Chapman, one in all 10 spies who impressed the tv collection “The Individuals.”
In 2021, as Mr. Putin started mobilizing the army forces that will invade Ukraine, Mr. Dougan posted a video that the Kremlin would cite as one justification for its assault. In it, he claimed that america operated organic weapons factories in Ukraine, an accusation that Russia and its allies have pushed with out ever offering proof.
As soon as the battle began, Mr. Dougan recounted in his written responses to questions, he traveled to Ukraine 14 instances to report from the Russian aspect of the entrance traces. He appeared in Russian authorities hearings purporting to show Ukraine’s transgressions, indicating some stage of cooperation with the federal government authorities.
He has confronted criticism for the studies, together with in a profile in The Each day Beast, that he posted on YouTube and different platforms. Mr. Dougan has portrayed the battle a lot as Russia’s propaganda has: as a righteous battle in opposition to neo-Nazis backed by a decadent West, led by america and NATO.
“The West has persistently lied about each side of this battle,” he wrote. “Why does just one aspect get to inform their story?”
Faux Information Websites within the U.S.
In April 2021, Mr. Dougan revived an internet site known as DC Weekly, which had been created 4 years earlier and revealed pretend articles in regards to the Palm Seaside County Sheriff’s Workplace. In line with a report final December by Clemson’s Media Forensics Hub, the area and web protocol handle had been shared by PBSOTalk and Mr. Dougan’s private web site, in addition to two advertising books he wrote in exile and a safety agency he operated, Falcon Eye Tech, which provided “offshore safety monitoring providers.”
After Russia’s assault on Ukraine started in 2022, the location carried articles in regards to the battle.
Then, final August, the location started to publish articles based mostly on elaborate fabrications that the Western authorities officers and disinformation researchers mentioned got here from Russia’s propaganda models. They usually appeared first in movies or audio recordings on obscure X accounts or YouTube channels, then unfold to websites like DC Weekly after which to Russian state media as in the event that they had been genuine accusations, a course of researchers name “narrative laundering.”
The baseless narratives included claims that family members or cronies of Ukraine’s chief secretly purchased luxurious properties, yachts or jewellery, and that Prince Andrew, the brother of King Charles III of Britain, had kidnapped and abused youngsters throughout a secret go to to Ukraine.
Dozens of recent websites have appeared in current months. They included ones made to appear like native information retailers: The Chicago Chronicle, The Miami Chronicle, The Boston Occasions, The Flagstaff Submit and The Houston Submit. Some hijacked names of precise information organizations, like The San Francisco Chronicle, or approximated them, within the case of 1 known as The New York Information Each day.
When The New York Occasions reported on the brand new websites in March, DC Weekly revealed a prolonged response in a stilted model that indicated using synthetic intelligence. It was written beneath the identify Jessica Devlin, one of many fictitious journalists on the location. “I’m not a shadowy overseas actor,” the article mentioned.
On the finish, the article invited media inquiries at an e-mail handle with the area Falcon Eye Tech.
Two days later, Mr. Dougan answered.
103 New Websites in Two Days
Mr. Dougan, who grew to become a Russian citizen final 12 months and voted within the nation’s presidential election in March, mentioned in his messages to The Occasions that he made a residing by promoting safety units he designed for a producer in China. He denied being paid by any Russian authorities, claiming he funds his actions himself.
His buddy Mr. Lambiet, a personal investigator and former journalist, mentioned he thought of Mr. Dougan man however cautioned that Mr. Dougan had a propensity to make issues up. “He’s like a Russian disinformation marketing campaign: It’s arduous to know what’s true and what’s not,” he mentioned.
As proof of Mr. Dougan’s function within the information websites has emerged, he has shifted techniques. Recorded Future, the menace intelligence firm, launched a report this month that detailed his ties to businesses linked to the Russian disinformation. The report documented the intensive use of A.I., which one of many firm’s researchers, Clément Briens, estimated made Mr. Dougan’s work far cheaper than hiring a troll military.
On the time, Recorded Future recognized 57 domains that Mr. Dougan had created. In a two-day span after the report was revealed, 103 new websites appeared, all on a server in California.
“He’s attempting to obfuscate the Russian hyperlinks,” Mr. Briens mentioned.
Mr. Dougan at instances treats his actions as a sport of cat and mouse. He spent months participating with a researcher at NewsGuard, McKenzie Sadeghi, revealing particulars of his life in Moscow whereas mocking her boss, Mr. Brill.
“He appeared to be toying with me, each to elicit my responses and, it appeared, to point out off his expertise for international on-line mischief, with out truly admitting something,” she wrote within the report back to be revealed on Wednesday.
Whereas Mr. Dougan’s websites have centered on Russian narratives in regards to the battle in Ukraine, the researchers and authorities officers say he has laid the inspiration for interference within the unusually massive confluence of elections going down around the globe this 12 months.
This means a “threat of an expanded operation scope within the close to future, doubtlessly concentrating on various audiences and democratic programs in Europe and different Western nations for varied strategic aims.” the diplomatic service of the European Union wrote in a report final month when the community included solely 23 web sites.
In current weeks, the websites have included themes that appear supposed to stoke the partisan fires in america earlier than November’s presidential election.
Final month, articles appeared on two of Mr. Dougan’s newer pretend websites, The Houston Submit and The Flagstaff Submit, detailing a baseless declare that the F.B.I. had planted an eavesdropping machine in Mr. Trump’s workplace at Mar-a-Lago in Florida.
A number of the new websites have names, like Proper Evaluate and Purple State Report, that counsel a conservative political bent. In April, a web site that researchers additionally linked to Mr. Dougan provided “main cryptocurrency rewards” for leaks of details about American officers, singling out two prosecutors and a choose concerned within the prison instances in opposition to Mr. Trump.
“If the location was mine,” he wrote in response to a query about it, “I might need individuals to offer paperwork on any soiled politician, Republican, Democrat or different.”
