Fake news fears after media sites publish anti-UAE articles by ‘stolen identity’ writer

Campaign by network of mystery accounts established in 2017 appears to have revived

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A self-described writer and activist, who appears to have concocted an identity on social media, has published a series of articles critical of the UAE and Saudi Arabia, as well as western foreign policy.

In a pattern of activity modelled on other campaigns directed at foreign policy experts and opinion formers, a series of articles appeared under the name Marcus Salles, who according to a Twitter account biography is based in the UK.

However searches of the electoral roll and professional websites in Britain and elsewhere failed to establish either a residential record for Marcus Salles or any verifiable trace of an expert operating in the UK who conformed to his description.

Asia Times, a long-established Asia-Pacific focused news site, told The National on Wednesday it had removed an article from Marcus Salles from publication while it made further checks.

“It was inadvertently published while we were fact-checking certain details,” said Patrick Dunne, the managing director. “We have taken it down until we can verify all information.”

The article, which focused on the 1MDB funding scandal that revolved around the Holywood movie, Wolf of Wall Street, and dogged the former Malaysian government, described the author as an established commentator on regional politics.

“Marcus Salles is a political analyst from Portsmouth, England, with a specialisation in politics in the Middle East diaspora,” it said. “He holds a political science doctorate in modern liberalism and conservatism, emphasizing the human rights and political connections constrained to a regional situation. He currently works as an activist and syndicated columnist.”

A similar biography appeared last month on an article on the widely followed US foreign policy newsblog, Lobelog. The piece was a critically slanted examination of UAE diplomatic exchanges with Russia and China.

As Lobelog has a following among US foreign policy experts – it has been named site of the month in the Foreign Service and has taken contributions from former diplomats and CIA staff – the piece sought to make the point that warmer ties were being forged at the expense of the Washington relationship.

It is not the only time that the site has provided a platform for pieces that make points critical of the UAE or its ally Saudi Arabia. Among its popular posts on Wednesday was an article part-written by  Khalid Al Jaber, a Doha-based newspaper editor.

The National approached Lobelog for comment but had not received a response at the time of publication.  Due diligence checks on contributor identity are known to vary from publication.

Research by this newspaper indicated that Marcus Salles online identity can be traced back through several iterations to the verified account of the Brazilian christian preacher and singer Marcus Salles. A now-defunct Twitter account @prmarcusalles with more than 100,000 followers appears to have been hacked in 2017. At this time tweeting about Saudi Arabia and the UAE began for the first time and the photograph on the biography at that time was the same one now used by @salleswrites, which has promoted his current work.

Social media activity by the Brazilian Marcus Salles was transferred to the Instagram account @prmarcussalles and Facebook, where there is no Middle East focused posts.

Much of the fabricated Marcus Salles work has been published over more than two years on the open blogging platform Medium. Many of the themes of the articles also appear on a fake news operation on a bogus website named Manchester Weekly.  The National reported last year how its content was promoted by dozens of social media accounts that made contact with prominent politicians, researchers and journalists.

An investigation by The National has found no trace of the Manchester Weekly publication in the city nor of a person who claims to be its political editor, Carmelo Cruz. Updated details by Carmelo Cruz establishes new journalist credentials with links to the International Policy Digest and the International Centre for Journalists but name searches on those sites draw a blank.

The Twitter account under Cruz name was created in 2015 claims that he hails from Manchester but again residential, academic and professional checks have turned up a blank.  Despite the exposure of his fake identity, the Twitter account and Medium account for Manchester Weekly continue to operate.

Similarly there is no trace on several publicly available registers of the Twitter user Juan Catheline who is described as a lawyer and regularly posts anti-UAE tweets, even though the fake identity exposed two years ago.