On the trail of influence campaign money, from Israel to Qatar

Hand-delivered cash envelopes and Bulgarian shell companies… For over a year, investigators have been working at a complex task to untangle the financial flows involved in the so-called “foreign interference” case. In the case, with its many ramifications, the shadows of Qatar and Israeli companies loom large. Two lobbyists were indicted in 2023, the mysterious Jean-Pierre Duthion and Qatar specialist and Islamologist Nabil Ennasri.

They are suspected of bribing BFM-TV journalist Rachid M’Barki and now ex-Green MP Hubert Julien-Laferrière, who are also under investigation. Determining the sums paid and how they were channeled is crucial. Neither Ennasri’s lawyer, Nabil El Ouchikli, nor Duthion’s, Robin Binsard, were available to answer our questions.

At the heart of the system, Duthion had very few bank accounts in France, probably using his brother’s account as a reserve and very often settling his affairs in cash. “As I don’t have a real bank account, I use ‘friends’ as bankers. This allows me to have an overdraft. I call someone, they release a sum to me, which I repay later,” explained Duthion, who worked as a fixer in Syria, in a hearing.

A significant proportion of Duthion’s “orders” came, according to his statements, from contacts in Israel, the brothers Jonathan-Simon Sellem and Samuel Sellem, two French-Israeli communications specialists. The campaigns took the shape of dubious stories presented by M’Barki on BFM-TV: An operation of Bahraini origin in December 2022 aimed to denigrate the former attorney general of Qatar, as well as a strange campaign relating to yachting companies in Monaco and targeting European sanctions against Russia.

Most of the campaigns orchestrated from Israel were, said Duthion, actually sponsored by Percepto, a major lobbying firm already identified in 2023 by an investigation by The World and Forbidden Stories over a smear campaign targeting the Red Cross on behalf of the Burkinabe authorities. “It’s always the same thing. Jonathan calls me and says they’re going to call me,” explained Duthion, who recounted that he then would receive a phone call from a certain “Nick Steinberg”: “He asks me specific questions about my timing, we speak in English, and he also asks me about pricing.”

A trio of Bulgarian companies

Duthion’s statements to the investigators nevertheless raised questions. He referred to Percepto as the sponsor of campaigns targeting the former attorney general of Qatar, Ali Bin Fetais Al-Marri, or relating to Russian yachts in Monaco, which had been linked by the The World and Forbidden Stories investigation to Team Jorge, another influential company based in Israel.

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