Court papers link Exxon to climate hacking ring for first time

By Lesley Clark | 01/27/2025 06:36 AM EST

A man charged with conspiring to steal information from climate advocates alleged that Exxon and one of its lobbying firms were involved with the hacking campaign.

An Exxon service station sign.

Exxon and other energy companies are being sued by municipalities for damages related to climate change. Mark Humphrey/AP

An Israeli man charged with hacking indicated in court briefs filed in London that a sprawling criminal case stemming from stolen information from climate advocates occurred allegedly at the behest of Exxon Mobil and the lobbying firm DCI Group.

Neither company has been accused of wrongdoing by U.S. authorities, and both have said they were not involved in the alleged hacking scheme.

The development in court last week marks the first time that Exxon and DCI, which it has used as a lobbying firm, have been publicly linked to what prosecutors describe as a yearslong hacking campaign to steal information from environmental activists who have helped states and cities sue energy companies for contributing to climate change. The municipalities are seeking billions of dollars from oil companies, including Exxon, for damages related to flooding and other impacts.

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The revelation was included in a 49-page brief filed by an attorney for Amit Forlit, an Israeli citizen who was arrested in April at Heathrow airport for his role in the alleged hacking scheme. The brief, which opposes U.S. efforts to extradite Forlit from the United Kingdom, said the hacking “is alleged to have been commissioned by DCI Group, a lobbying firm representing Exxon Mobil, one of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies.”

The U.S. government is seeking Forlit’s extradition as part of its investigation into a worldwide hacking ring that operated from 2012 to 2019. The government refers in court documents only to a “D.C. lobbying firm” that acted “on behalf of one of the world’s largest oil and gas corporations, centered in Irving, Texas.”

Efforts to extradite Forlit come about a year after his alleged associate, Israeli private eye Aviram Azari, was sentenced to nearly seven years in federal prison for his role in a hacking operation that targeted climate activists and others. Court records allege that Azari received a hacking target list from Forlit, who received it from a “DC lobbying firm.”

Documents stolen by Azari and his ring of hackers were cited by Exxon in court as the company battled an array of climate lawsuits that cities, counties and states filed against the oil and gas industry.

The Department of Justice declined to comment for this story.

Some climate activists whose email and social media accounts were infiltrated by the team of India-based hackers that worked at Azari’s direction said they were surprised to hear that Exxon and DCI were named in court records.

“Perpetrators are rarely caught in hacking cases, so we feel fortunate that people are being held to account for these crimes apparently committed on behalf of Exxon by surrogates all the way from Washington to Israel to India and back,” said Kert Davies, who was director of the Climate Investigations Center at the time of the hacking and is now at the Center for Climate Integrity, which supports climate litigation against energy companies.

DCI officials have said no one at the company has ever been questioned about the case. Craig Stevens, a partner at the company, said in an email to POLITICO’s E&E News that “allegations of DCI’s involvement with hacking supposedly occurring nearly a decade ago are false.”

He added that all DCI employees and consultants are directed to comply with the law.

“Meanwhile, radical anti-oil activists and their donors are peddling conspiracy theories to distract from their own anti-U.S. energy activities,” Stevens said.

An Exxon spokesperson said the company was not involved in or aware of any hacking activities.

“If there was any hacking involved, we condemn it in the strongest possible terms,” the spokesperson said in an email.

Forlit is fighting extradition to the U.S. for a variety of reasons, including an allegation that he’s being prosecuted to “advance the politically-motivated cause of pursuing ExxonMobil.”

His attorney, Rachel Scott, argued that his prosecution is “but one piece within a complex matrix of ongoing litigation on climate issues in the United States, which can only sensibly be seen as politically motivated.”

The U.S. government, which is not involved in the climate lawsuits against the oil and gas companies, dismissed the argument that the charges against Forlit are politically motivated, writing in its own brief that he faces prosecution “for straight-forward criminal allegations that he orchestrated the hacking of persons for money.”

“That there may be a wider political context (as there are with many offences) does not begin to establish the bar” to prevent extradition, states the brief. It also notes that Forlit is accused of being involved in plans to steal information related to “Argentinian debt relief.”

The Wall Street Journal reported in October 2024 that investigators were looking into whether Forlit oversaw the theft of emails from Argentine government officials while working on behalf of a hedge fund that sued the country.

Reuters reported on the climate hacking allegations last year, prompting then-Senate Budget Chair Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) to urge the Department of Justice to “take a good, long look at Exxon and its fellow fossil fuel flunkies.”

The court documents filed by Forlit last week said a New York grand jury in November 2022 returned an indictment charging Forlit with conspiracy to commit computer hacking, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud. The charges carry maximum prison sentences of five to 20 years.

The hacking attempts directed at climate activists began soon after a pair of investigative news reports in 2015 revealed that Exxon privately knew about climate change in the 1970s but publicly denied the scientific consensus for decades.

Environmentalists were tipped off to the hacking after a reporter called to ask about an email that detailed a private meeting at the Rockefeller Family Fund headquarters in January 2016. The meeting was mentioned in a Wall Street Journal article several months later, and the email was printed a day later in the Washington Free Beacon. Exxon itself later cited the news articles in court documents.