Cambridge Analytica bosses secretly filmed 'boasting of dirty tricks to manipulate elections'

Senior executives at Cambridge Analytica were secretly filmed apparently boasting that they could entrap politicians in compromising positions with bribes and Ukranian sex workers, a new investigation has claimed.

In an undercover investigation by Channel 4 News, senior executives from the British firm which credits itself with Donald Trump’s presidential election victory, are filmed claiming they also used ex-spies to dig dirt on political opponents.

It comes as the data company is embroiled in a scandal over allegations it harvested personal details from more than 50 million Facebook users.

A Cambridge Analytica spokesman said the firm entirely refutes any allegation that it or any of its affiliates use entrapment, bribes or so-called “honey-traps”.

In the Channel 4 News investigation broadcast on Monday, the company’s chief Alexander Nix was filmed saying the British firm has “a long history of working behind the scenes”, and suggested the company could go incognito by setting up fake IDs and websites.

He was also recorded saying the firm operates using sub-contractors from Britain and Israel.

The admissions were filmed at a series of meetings at London hotels over four months, between November 2017 and January 2018, where an undercover reporter for Channel 4 News posed as a fixer for a wealthy client hoping to get candidates elected in Sri Lanka.

Channel 4 claimed the executives boasted in the meetings that Cambridge Analytica and its parent company Strategic Communications Laboratories (SCL) had worked in more than two hundred elections across the world, including Nigeria, Kenya, the Czech Republic, India and Argentina.

January 2018, at the Berkeley Hotel:

Reporter: “It has to be the deep digging and what we want to know is what is the expertise of the deep digging that you can do to make sure that the people know the true identity and secrets of the people?

Mr Nix: “Oh, we do a lot more than that. I mean deep digging is interesting but you know equally effective can be just to go and speak to the incumbents and to offer them a deal that’s too good to be true, and make sure that that’s video recorded, you know, these sorts of tactics are very effective instantly having video evidence of corruption, putting it on the internet, these sorts of things.”

Reporter: “And the operative you will use for this is who?”

Mr Nix: “Well someone known to us.”

Reporter: “OK so it is somebody, you won’t use a Sri Lankan person no because there’s issue.”

Mr Nix: “No. No, no, we’ll have a wealthy developer come in, somebody posing as a wealthy developer.”

Mr Turnbull: “I’m a master of disguise.”

Mr Nix: “Yes. They will offer a large amount of money to the candidate, to finance his campaign in exchange for land for instance, we’ll have the whole thing recorded on cameras, we’ll blank out the face of our guy and we post it on the internet.”

Reporter: “So on Facebook or YouTube, or something like this?”

In one filmed discussion about digging up material on political opponents, Mr Nix said they could “send some girls around to the candidate’s house”, adding that Ukrainian girls “are very beautiful, I find that works very well”.

In another he said: “We’ll offer a large amount of money to the candidate, to finance his campaign in exchange for land for instance, we’ll have the whole thing recorded, we’ll blank out the face of our guy and we post it on the Internet.”

Offering bribes to public officials is an offence under both the UK Bribery Act and the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Cambridge Analytica operates in the UK and is registered in the United States.

The meetings also included Mark Turnbull, the managing director of CA Political Global, and the company’s chief data officer, Dr Alex Tayler.

Mr Turnbull was filmed describing how the company has “relationships and partnerships with specialist organisations” to gather dirt on the opposition.

In one meeting he said: “... we just put information into the bloodstream of the internet, and then, and then watch it grow, give it a little push every now and again… like a remote control. It has to happen without anyone thinking, ‘that’s propaganda’, because the moment you think ‘that’s propaganda’, the next question is, ‘who’s put that out?’”.

The firm was recently suspended from the social network site Facebook amid claims it passed personal data from Facebook apps without the consent of the individuals.

Whistleblower Chris Wylie, a former research director at Cambridge Analytica, told Channel 4 News a so-called data grab had been carried out on more than 50 million profiles in 2014.

January 2018 at the Berkeley Hotel:

Mr Nix: “Send some girls around to the candidate’s house, we have lots of history of things.”

...

Reporter: “For example you’re saying when you’re using the girls to introduce to the local fellow and you’re using the girls for this, like the seduction, they’re not local girls? Not Sri Lankan girls?”

Mr Nix: “I wouldn’t have thought so no, we’ll bring some, I mean it was just an idea, I’m just saying, we could bring some Ukrainians in on holiday with us you know, you know what I’m saying.”

Reporter: “They are very beautiful Ukrainian girls.”

Mr Nix: “They are very beautiful, I find that works very well.”

…

Mr Nix: “And the answers are hypothetical and that’s really important is, is please don’t pay too much attention to what I’m saying because I’m just giving you examples of what can be done and what, what has been done. The right solution will be made for the right, for your problem.”

Reports in The Observer suggested that the information was used to target political advertising in the 2016 US presidential election.

Cambridge Analytica played a key role in mapping out the behaviour of voters in the run-up to the 2016 US election and was also used during the EU referendum campaign earlier that year.

On Monday, the UK's Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham confirmed she will apply for a warrant to search computers and servers used by the firm to examine its activities.

It comes amid concerns at Westminster over the firm's activities.

Prime Minister Theresa May's official spokesman called on Facebook and Cambridge Analytica to co-operate fully with the investigation by the data watchdog into the alleged use of data from users of the social media giant.

Tonight, a Cambridge Analytica spokesman said: “We entirely refute any allegation that Cambridge Analytica or any of its affiliates use entrapment, bribes, or so-called “honey-traps” for any purpose whatsoever…”

They said: “Cambridge Analytica does not use untrue material for any purpose.”

And they insisted that opposition research and intelligence gathering, the use of subcontractors, working discreetly with clients and the use of encrypted communications are all common practice and legitimate.

The clips form Part Two of Channel 4 News’ series called ‘Data, Democracy and Dirty Tricks’.

Part One featured an exclusive television interview with Mr Wylie, who revealed the company was set up at the instigation of former Breitbart executive director Steve Bannon with the financial backing of billionaire Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah.