A masked journalist discovered that a network offers money for social media posts that damage the party in power of Moldova.
A secret network financed by Russia is trying to stop the next democratic elections in an eastern country, according to the BBC.
With the help of an infiltrated journalist, we discovered that the network promised to pay the participants if they had published pro-Russian propaganda and false news that would damage the European power party in Moldova before the parliamentary elections of September 28 in the country.
The participants were paid to secretly find and record supporters of the Fili-Russian opposition of Moldova and also to conduct false research. This was done in the name of a non -existent organization, which is illegal. The results of this false research suggested that a network organizer could launch the foundations to question the result of the elections.
The results of false research, suggesting that the feast in power will lose, have already been published online.
In fact, the official polls suggest that the action and solidarity party (PAS), founded by President Maia Sandu, is currently head of the Block Electoral Block (BEP), which is pro-Russian.
We discovered connections between the secret network and the modeling of Oligarca Ilan Shoor – sanctioned by the United States for “Malvagia influence of the Kremlin influence” and now fugitive in Moscow. The United Kingdom also sanctioned it for corruption.
We also find connections between the network and a non -profit organization called Evrazia.
Evrazia has connections with short and has been sanctioned by the United Kingdom, the United States and the EU for presumably corrupted the citizens of modeling to vote against the EU membership last year. The adhesion referendum has been approved, but with a very small margin.
“In 2024, the focus of the campaign [de Ilan Shor] They were money. This year, the attention is paid to disinformation, “said Moldova Police Chief of Police Viorel Cernauteananu, at the BBC world service.
We asked Ilan Shoor and Evrazia to comment on the conclusions of our investigation, but they did not answer.
BBC survey
Moldova can be small, but, located between Ukraine and Romania, an EU member, has a strategic importance both for Europe and the Kremlin, the experts say.
The BBC World Service infiltrated the network, coordinated by the request for Telegram messages – through a link sent by a complaint.
This gave us a crucial vision of how a non -democratic advertising network works.
Our Ana infiltrated reporter and 34 more recruits have been invited to participate in secret seminars who would have “prepared the agents”. With titles such as “How to go from your cuisine to national leadership”, they seemed to act as a selection process. Ana and the others had to undergo regular tests on what they had learned.
Our journalist was therefore contacted by a network coordinator called Alina Juc. Juc’s profile on social networks indicates that it comes from Transnistria, a separatist region from the Eastern Moldgram to Moscow, and his Instagram shows that he has made several trips to Russia in recent years.
Juc said to Ana that he would receive 3,000 legislatures (about $ 950) a month to produce publications on Tiktok and Facebook during the pre-election period and that the money would have been sent by Promsvyazbank (PSB)-a sanctioned Russian state bank that operates as an official Russian defense bank and is an shareholder of an Ilalan company.
Ana and the other recruits have been trained to produce publications on social networks using chatgpt. It has been said that the content “attracts people if the image contains a satire … on reality”, but that excessive use of the AI ​​should be avoided to ensure that publications seem “organic”.
Within the Telegram group, Ana and BBC had access to the previous instructions sent to the participants. Initially, he had been asked to make patriotic publications on the historical figures of Moldova, but gradually the requests were openly political.
Ana was asked to publish unfounded accusations, including that the current government of Moldova is planning to falsify the results of the elections, that the possible adhesion of Moldova to EU depends on its citizens to become LGBTQ+ and that President Sandu is facilitating children’s trafficking.

In recent years, campaigns on social networks have become fundamental in the national elections of practically every country. BBC monitored publications on social networks that supported the party in power in Moldova, Pas, but we have not discovered any evident disinformation campaign.
During our secret operation with the opposition network, we only share publications that have actually been accurate and limit your number.
We wanted to find out who most of the net was, since we had the test that was composed of several groups similar to what we had infiltrated. We are looking for standard of similar activities in other accounts that we could monitor through our access to the telegram.
We conclude that the network is made up of at least 90 Tiktok accounts – some passing through news vehicles – who have published thousands of videos, for a total of over 23 million views and 860,000 likes since January. The population of Moldova is only 2.4 million inhabitants.
We share our discoveries with the United States Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFLLEB), which informed us that its analysis shows that the network can be even greater. The largest network has accumulated over 55 million views and over 2.2 million likes Tiktok since January, he discovered DFLLab.

The network was not limited to disinformation publishing. Juc also offered Ana 200 Law Moldevos ($ 64) per hour in cash to make an unofficial survey, interviewing people in the capital of Moldova on their favorite candidates in the elections.
Before performing this task, the participants received training on how to subtly influence the interviewees.
They were also asked to secretly graduate the interviewees who declared to support the pro-Russian opposition.
Juc revealed that this consisted of “preventing the vote from being fraudulent”, suggesting that the results of the research and the secret recordings would have been used in the event of a PAS victory as a presumed proof that had won unjustly.
Our tests also suggest that the network to which our journalist has joined is financed by Russia. Ana heard – and filmed – Alina Juc on the phone asking for money in Moscow.
“Listen, you can bring money from Moscow … I just have to pay the salaries of my people”, we filmed.
It was not clear who would send you the money, but we found calls between the network and Ilan Shor through the NGO Evrazia.

Ilan Shoor and Evrazia did not respond to the conclusions of our investigation.
The BBC found the photos of Ana’s supervisor, Alina Juc, on the Evrazia website and one of the groups of telegrams to which Ana was added was called “Leaders of Evrazia”.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the United Kingdom states that Evrazia operates “in Moldova in the name of the corrupt and fugitive Oligorca Ilan Shoor … with the aim of destabilizing the modeled democracy”.
We asked Alina Juc to comment on our conclusions, but she didn’t answer.
Tiktok said he has implemented further security measures before the elections and “fighting unknown behavior aggressively”. The owner, owner of Facebook, did not respond to our conclusions.
The Russian Embassy in the United Kingdom denied the involvement in false news and electoral interference and stated that it is the EU that interferes with the elections of Moldova.
Additional Report: Malvina Cojocari, Andrea Jituu, Angela Stanciu
Source: Terra

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