17 February 2023
– How a K-POP artist made us go down the CMG rabbit hole
February 17, 2023
For the past year, Eliminalia has been operating under the name “Communication Media Group Ltd” and created no less than 600 fake news sites to manipulate Google search results to ensure that inconvenient information about corruption and malpractices is de-ranked and not found by regular readers.
This shows that Eliminalia is still a key player in the field of disinformation. A true Story Killer.
Flooding search engines with bogus articles has the effect to de-index De-index: to remove a website or a part of a website from the index (= list of contents) of a search engine so that it does not appear as a result of searches. pages and make non-desired content sink in the ranking of the results.
A year ago, January 2022, Qurium stumbled upon a number of fake news sites that were, and still are, used to flood Google with fake content. All these “flooding websites” had something in common: they were registered in the name of “Douglas Williams” from “Communication Media Group” (CMG), registered in Nevis – is a well known tax haven (zero income tax) and a popular jurisdiction for offshore companies.
The modus operandi of CMG is very similar to the “dark methods” used by Eliminalia that Qurium disclosed in April 2021. Our public release of a series of investigations illustrating the malicious practices and methods of Eliminalia, were picked up by investigative media around the world, and Rest of World did an excellent follow-up investigation on Eliminalia. With the massive amount of proof that was disclosed, we honestly thought that Eliminalia would be forced to stop its practices.
We could not have been more wrong.
In June 2022, while our research on CMG was ongoing, we were contacted by Forbidden Stories who had read our work on Eliminalia and how online reputation management companies affects disinformation.
Eight months later, we are releasing Episode XIII of our series on online reputation management as a way to silence investigative reporting. The report discloses how we could link 600 fake news sites operated by the CMG to the yet another setup of Eliminalia.
As a part of Story Killers, we release these findings with the expectation that this time Eliminalia, a notorious “Story Killer”, is once and for all exposed and make accountable.
Welcome to “How a K-POP artist made us go down the CMG rabbit hole”. The investigation is divided into two parts. While the first part investigates the ownership of CMG and its link to Eliminalia, the second part focuses on the bogus websites being used to let Google de-rank undesired content.
Part 1 – Who is behind the Communication Media Group?
Part 2- Analysis of the articles
Articles on Eliminalia by Story Killer partners
Forbidden Stories: The Gravediggers: How Eliminalia, a Spanish reputation management firm, buries the truth
Washington Post: Leaked files reveal reputation-management firm’s deceptive tactics
Knack (Belgium): #StoryKillers: hoe een Spaans bedrijf voor reputatiemanagement uw online verleden uitwist
The Guardian: The Spanish firm that uses dubious methods to ‘erase your past’ from the internet
OCCRP:
- Eliminalia: A Reputation Laundromat for Criminals
- Figures Behind Eliminalia Also Run Surrogacy Businesses Accused of Baby Trafficking
El Pais (Spain): Una firma española limpia en la red la imagen de corruptos, abusadores y narcos de 54 países
Le Monde (France):
- Eliminalia, le nettoyeur du Web aux clients peu recommandables
- Eliminalia, a Spanish reputation management firm burying the truth for disreputable clients
iStories (Russia): Борцы с компроматом: как испанская Еliminalia отмывала репутацию клиентов с помощью фейков и угроз
Proceso (Mexico): Las artimañas de Eliminalia para limpiar la imagen de políticos, empresarios y criminales
Armando (Venezuela): Eliminalia: su nombre lo dice todo
Zeit (Germany)
- Eliminalia: Die Spurenlöscher (part 1)
- Eliminalia: Die Spurenlöscher (part 2)
Le Soir (Belgium): Story Killers: les fossoyeurs Eliminalia, l’agence d’e-réputation qui enterre la vérité
Investigative Reporting Project Italy: I segreti di Eliminalia, la “lavanderia” della reputazione online
El Espectador (Colombia) Socios del paramilitarismo pagan por borrar su pasado de internet
RTS (Switzerland)
- Comment une banque suisse blanchit son nom sur internet
- Un célèbre clown condamné en Suisse efface son passé sur le web
- Eliminalia, “un tueur à gages numérique” pour effacer ses traces en ligne
Folha de Sao Paulo (Brazil) Empresa tenta manipular busca do Google e cria fake news para lavar reputação de clientes
More media
[July, 2023] El CLIP Clean Slate: how felons are erasing compromising news online