Paywall removed:

Intelligence sources believe Epstein was running ‘the world’s largest honeytrap operation’ on behalf of the KGB when he procured women for his network of associates.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      3 hours ago

      Also research Cambridge Analytica

      Cambridge Analytica Ltd. (CA), previously known as SCL USA, was a British political consulting firm that came to prominence through the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal. It was founded in 2013, as a subsidiary of the private intelligence company and self-described “global election management agency” SCL Group by long-time SCL executives Nigel Oakes, Alexander Nix and Alexander Oakes, with Nix as CEO. Cambridge Analytica was hired by a variety of political actors, including the Trinidadian government in 2010 and the 2016 presidential campaigns of Ted Cruz and Donald Trump.

      Nigel John Oakes (born July 1962) is a British businessman, and the founder and CEO of Behavioural Dynamics Institute and SCL Group

      Alexander James Ashburner Nix (born 1 May 1975) is a British businessman who was the former CEO of Cambridge Analytica

      Alexander Waddington Oakes (born November 1968) is a British businessman, and the co-founder and an executive of Behavioural Dynamics Institute and SCL Group

      So, I’m seeing a country’s name come up over and over again. But it’s not Russia.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          3 hours ago

          Aleksandr Kogan, the Cambridge University academic who orchestrated the harvesting of Facebook data

          Aleksandr Kogan (born April 6, 1986) is a Moldovan-born American scientist

          Education University of California, Berkeley (BA)

          University of Hong Kong (MA, PhD)

          :-/

          The chief executive of Lukoil, Vagit Alekperov, is a former Soviet oil minister who has said the strategic aims of Lukoil are closely aligned with those of Russia. “I have only one task connected with politics, to help the country and the company. I’m not close to Mr Putin, but I treat him with great respect,” he told the New York Times.

          In 1990, Alekperov was appointed deputy minister of the Oil and Gas Industry of the Soviet Union and became the youngest deputy energy minister in Soviet history

          At this time, Western oil companies began actively seeking partners in Russia. During a visit to British Petroleum facilities in the United Kingdom in 1990, Alekperov personally headed the Russian delegation at the negotiations. Rondo Fehlberg, an executive at BP, told NY Times that Alekperov took control of the agenda during that 1990 trip, sternly asking the BP executives to explain how a modern oil company should be set up.

          …

          During at least three meetings in Turkey and London in 2014 and 2015, executives associated with Alekperov’s firm Lukoil allegedly questioned persons at the Alexander Nix associated firms SCL Group, which is closely associated with Aleksandr Kogan, and Cambridge Analytica, which is closely associated with Steve Bannon, who supported Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign for President of the United States, and Robert Mercer, who supported Ted Cruz’s campaign for President of the United States, about how United States election data about American voters could be used to target them according to Christopher Wylie

          …

          In 2000, Lukoil acquired the distribution and marketing operations of American oil company Getty Oil. This resulted in the control of a network of gas stations in the United States, as well as the first time Lukoil entered the American oil market.

          In September 2004, ConocoPhillips purchased a 7.6% stake in Lukoil for about $2 billion. According to some commentators, the sale of this deal was planned before in a personal meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and ConocoPhillips’ president and CEO, James Mulva. After the auction, Lukoil and ConocoPhillips announced the creation of a strategic alliance. Later, the American company increased its stake to 20% in Lukoil and sold to the Russian company part of its network of gas stations in the United States and Western Europe. The two oil companies also agreed to jointly develop an oil and gas field in the northern Timan-Pechora area of Russia (Komi Republic) and intended to secure the rights to develop the West Qurna Field in Iraq, one of the country’s largest.

          Hey look there’s more…

          The EU’s gas love-in with Azerbaijan is a gift for the Russian oil giant Lukoil

          Lukoil gas station rebranded BP

          UK extends sanctions exemption for Lukoil Bulgaria subsidiaries

          Oh what a tangled web we weave.