Some of the US law enforcement-seized Internet domains, allegedly used to secure Russia’s preferred outcome in the US presidential election, were paid for using the Lithuanian virtual currency platform CoinGate, according to a publicly released affidavit by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
US officials say that Russia is interested in Republican Donald Trump winning the November election.
The document also says that some of the so-called “Doppelganger” domains were used to impersonate media outlets such as Der Spiegel, Bild, Reuters, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, and the Baltic news website Delfi.
“(…) the Doppelganger campaign had begun using the following domains to target American audiences: Election Watch (electionwatch.live), Spicy Conspiracy (spicyconspiracy.info), 50 States of Lie (50statesoflie.com), and Dragonfly Times (uschina.press),” the affidavit submitted to a Pennsylvania court reads.
“(…) the Goodbye persona leased Electionwatch.live, 50statesoflie.com, and uschina.press on February 23, 2023, using cryptocurrency transferred using CoinGate, a Lithuanian cryptocurrency payment processor.”
According to the document, “the FBI’s investigation revealed that Doppelganger leased numerous cybersquatted domains from US companies Namecheap, NameSilo, and GoDaddy using four online personas”.
“All four personas leased domains impersonating Der Spiegel, three personas leased domains impersonating Bild and T-Online, and two personas leased domains impersonating Reuters, Delfi, and Sueddeutsche Zeitung.”
The LNK TV channel was the first Lithuanian media outlet to report on Thursday about the use of the Lithuanian cryptocurrency payment platform and the Delfi brand in this matter.
CoinGate states on its website that it was founded in 2014 and is owned by Decentralized, a Vilnius-based company that was known as Virtualios Valiutos (Virtual Currencies) until 2020.
Decentralized says that it established a subsidiary, CoinGate LLC, in the US in 2021.
US Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday announced the seizure of 32 Internet domains, which he said were used by the Russian government “to engage in a covert campaign to interfere and influence the outcome of our country’s elections.”
On Wednesday, the United States also indicted two employees of Russia’s state-funded news outlet RT and imposed sanctions on its editor-in-chief and her deputy. Washington accused them of attempting to influence November’s US presidential election.
US officials have repeatedly warned of efforts by foreign powers to meddle in the upcoming US election, and Washington has accused Moscow of seeking to influence US elections dating back to the 2016 contest between Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Source: BNS