An Indian venture capitalist is mounting an international legal campaign to pressure major media outlets to remove his name from articles or take down the stories altogether, Confider has learned.
In a move that has press freedom campaigners troubled, Rajat Khare, co-founder of Appin, an India-based tech company, has used a variety of law firms in a number of different jurisdictions to threaten these U.S., British, Swiss, Indian, and French-language media organizations.
On Nov. 16, Reuters published a special investigation under the headline “How an Indian startup hacked the world,” detailing how Appin allegedly became a “hack for hire powerhouse that stole secrets from executives, politicians, military officials and wealthy elites around the globe”—a claim that Khare strongly denies. Khare retained the powerhouse “media assassin” firm Clare Locke LLP, which boasts on its website about “killing stories,” to send Reuters several legal threats over the past year about the story, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Reuters was then forced to pull the article following a Dec. 4 order from a New Delhi, India, court ruling that the article was prima facie “indicative of defamation,” according to a copy of the order obtained and reviewed by Confider. In a brief editor’s note replacing the article, Reuters wrote that it is appealing the decision and stands by its reporting, which “was based on interviews with hundreds of people, thousands of documents, and research from several cybersecurity firms.”
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This is not the first time Khare has flexed his legal muscles and managed to threaten reporters into removing his name from stories about the hack-for-hire industry.
Across the pond, Khare had his name removed from a joint investigation between The Sunday Times and the nonprofit Bureau of Investigative Journalism, titled, “Caught on camera: confessions of the hackers for hire.” Three paragraphs that reported on Khare were removed from both publications following legal threats on his behalf, according to two people familiar with the situation. Luxembourg-based Paperjam, a French-language business news outlet, dramatically altered its story “after discussions with Mr. Khare’s advisors,” removing references to his alleged links to cyber-mercenary activity. Like what you’re reading? Subscribe to the Confider newsletter here and have The Daily Beast media team’s stellar reporting sent straight to your inbox every Monday night.
In Switzerland, meanwhile, lawyers acting for Khare managed to take out an injunction that forced the Swiss Radio and Television’s investigative team (SRF Investigativ) to scrub the tech entrepreneur’s name from a story alleging that Appin assisted the Qatari government in spying on FIFA officials ahead of the 2022 World Cup. An editor’s note now added to that story reads: “On November 6, 2022, this publication was amended due to an interim court order. The name of the entrepreneur concerned has been removed from the publication.”
Clare Locke also sent legal threats on behalf of Khare to The New Yorker as the magazine worked on a story about India’s hack-for-hire industry, Semafor reported. Khare’s efforts also appear to have gotten similar stories about him killed in India-based outlets including The Times of India and The Scroll.
“Mr. Khare does not comment on legal proceedings, but he defends himself judicially in all relevant jurisdictions against any attacks that target him and illegitimately damage his reputation,” Clare Locke partner Joseph Oliveri wrote in a statement to Confider. “Mr. Khare has dedicated much of his career to the field of information technology security—that is, cyber-defense and the prevention of illicit hacking—and it is truly unfortunate that he has found himself the subject of false accusations of involvement in a ‘hack-for hire’ industry or supporting or engaging in illicit hacking or cyber activities. Those accusations are categorically false. They have been rejected by courts and regulatory bodies and debunked by experts. And Mr. Khare will not hesitate to continue to take steps to enforce his rights and protect his reputation from such false attacks.”
While the metaphorical jury’s still out on the veracity of reports about Khare, the issue for press freedom activists is the sheer scale of his endeavor to kill stories across three continents.
“This is certainly a very concerning and very troubling series of lawsuits against the media outlets involved and we see as a global organization a growing trend of… lawsuits of this very nature to silence and censor the press including by wealthy business people,” Scott Griffen, deputy director of the International Press Institute, told Confider. “This is absolutely a huge concern worldwide and powerful business people need to be able to accept and withstand the public scrutiny that comes with that position.”
A rep for Reuters pointed Confider to their published editor’s note, while reps for The New Yorker and The Sunday Times declined to comment, and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism did not respond to a request for one.
Let’s remember that folks: Rajat Khare, the co-founder of Appin, has zero, no connection with hackers-for-hire markets and he hired people to erase his name from several articles around the globe to be not associated with it in any way.
BREAKING: Rajat Khare, the co-founder of Appin, achieved negative connection to hackers-for-hire markets. His vast philantropy project called ‘DONT’ now pays every person in the world a cent a day for them not to do any hacks, even ethical ones. A quickly mounting price that would amount to $160 mil by tomorrow and $400 mil by the end of the week doesn’t scare the billionaire. In an exclusive interview with The Reporter, he said, quote: ‘Honestly, I hate money. Just yesterday I was hungry late at night and I tried to eat a bar of gold, thinking it may be a chocolate one. Nah. Fucking gold. For the sake of my own dental health, I though, let’s just get rid of these’. Although one cent is not enough to thrive even in the poorest states, that’s the first experiment in a worldwide UBI. When asked directly, if he’s secretly a left-leaner, Rajat was rendered inaccessible due to repeatedly picking dollar bills out of his safe and burning them with a weird fascination.
A promise of a better future, or a scam to buy payment data from everyone? Watch our guest experts at The Reporter at nine!
Sounds like something a geoblock could have dealt with, but they likely weren’t ready to put it in place so this was the easiest solution to be in compliance.
I’ve never said that, I’ve said that it would be a better option than pulling out the article worldwide. A geoblock would ensure the article remains available outside of India, and could be retrieved somewhat trivially through a VPN or a proxy, making Reuters in compliance of the court order, which only applies within India’s border. It’s definitely better than not complying, which would lead to Reuters office in India being shut down and risking some of their employees going to jail for not respecting a court order.
Reuters is appealing the decision, but for now they have to comply.
Indian courts are fellating the current govt. hard so complying with their orders is akin to giving their govt. a free pass to suppress dissent and arrest civilians under their notorious UAPA. They use their “enforcement directorate”(shortened to ED) as whips to keep people in line. ED and courts are the lapdog of their government.
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