One-star review: A stolen year

This week I'm joined by my colleague Eva Weisman, who has, for more than a year now, been

reporting on a remarkable story about Blackmail and Revenge. When a story starts with a man whose life has become a storm, he's a committed pro-Palestinian activist and he starts wondering whether all the strange things that have been happening to him, the things that have been going wrong, might be related to that. So Eva's here with me now because there are a few things that we need to say before we

“dive into this story, including Eva, I think, why we can't use his name and his voice.”

Hi. Yes.

I should first say Ali is not his real name, we're having to protect his identity

and we've also removed details that might make some people in the story identifiable, mostly that's because it's ongoing and police are involved. And tell me how did you come to this story? So my first encounter with Ali and what happened to him started in June 2024, his business was taking a hit and he was a prominent voice in the gars of peace marches, which caught

my interest because I'd read about the online censorship of activists and also because some of the things he was accused of resonated with me in uncomfortable ways.

“So I think I'll just hand over to you and let you tell Ali story.”

People marching for peace and gars of the game are common sight in 2023. Images of brutality were filtering out of gars of June, Israel's relentless bombing campaign.

The United Nations says nearly a million Palestinians have fled their homes in the gars of

strip. Gars has had months to run health in the streets as at least 211 people have been killed in the past 24 hours. In gars of itself hospitals are overrun with the injured and the dead. Each week newspapers were filled with botos of death and destruction.

Welcome back of it, growing concerns over the trajectory of the war as real-peerously signalling it will not slow down its offensive at gars of the world health organisation says almost all the hospitals in the gars of strip have now stopped functioning. I was very vocal about Palestine. I was very vocal about being pro the Palestinian cause and everything they were enduring

and endured. Ali, a mid-laged son of Middle Eastern parents took part in the protests and was vocal about the cause, online and in real life were a quickly found community.

“Although I think to have a community of what's at group members joining all the time and for”

people to meet at the protest every week and to be together, that was a nice thing for people to be part of. He owned a small restaurant and had recently been expanding his business, setting up a restaurant in central London and with COVID and saw in prices it's not been easy but he's managed it.

What my business from nothing and we built a fucking proud of a global ground like that we represent my diaspora across the world and I can be proud of my baby that I built. These are busy times growing a business, organizing marches and rebuilding itself in this life after a breakup. In some ways, Ali's life began to be increasingly defined by his pro-Palestinian stance

who was unabashed in making his views clear in a professional capacity while that community behind the protests were becoming more like friends. It was the peak time of the pro-Palestinian movement in London with the protests. I was an average supporter of going to the protests and I remember some of the mention that it was a guy's birthday and people were going there for drinks after the protests.

I remember heading there and it was towards the end of the night when I was kind of, it wasn't like late but I was kind of looking to wrap up and go, I met her. I'd say she's very charming and I felt there was some vibe between us that night. I went to her place and we were intimate and that was kind of the start of our guest's dating.

they were on the rocks.

They fought, noisyly and split up, tearily and got back together twice.

She explained the struggle of missing her family in Palestine and the way traumatic experiences as a child continued to affect her. But Ali, fresh out of a difficult relationship, it was too much to handle so quickly.

“I remember tools the end I was just, I'm done.”

Leila became pregnant with their greed, have an abortion and Ali was keen to move on and focus on his work and his activism. As the conflicting guards are deep and unsculated, Ali spent his Saturdays protesting and the press he'd read about pro-Palestinian activists having their online account censored. In 2023, human rights watch reported on systemic online censorship, how meta had been silencing

voices and support Palestine.

In 2024, the French newspaper Le Mond reported on a telegram group organised to troll

and docks people spreading pro-Palestinian messages. All this peaked Ali's anxiety. I know people have their following to being cut exponentially, like loads of followers have been removed, they've reached their bits, stories or engagement is completely like reduced. I'm not someone big-time, these people are way bigger reaches, mine and all that stuff,

but again you're paranoid. unusual things had been happening in his flat. Ali had new windows installed, which made his flat seem a little brighter. But days after the window fitters had left, he discovered certain things missing. The old Samsung phone, collections of spare change, he called the police.

He told them about the windows and that he'd hosted dinner parties for his community

of pro-Palestinian activists, that people had been coming in and out of his house. And then it early summer, an email arrived. Hi, we've been watching you for some time. We know that you watched it pour no websites. We know that you have got a girl pregnant.

We know that you've got a cookbook deal. We know that you legally employ staff at your business, we know that you take cash payments and don't declare it to HMRC. The message was from somebody calling themselves an ethical hacker. They told him that unless he shut down his business as social media, they'd destroy him.

“I think the next day, there's a dick pick of mine that gets sent to me and it says, "Tic-tock,”

that's all it says, tick-tock, tick-tock, and a picture of my penis." So, this was all of my old phone, so this is years before, years before. And we'd like sent intimate messages to each other. And I remember seeing that and thinking fuck. And he wonders who's behind it.

And again, it fed into like the Zionist thing coming after me to expose me, due to my stand with Palestine. It was then that Layla, his recent text calls. The next day, she calls me Miss Cool, Miss Cool, Miss Cool, I answer the phone. Why on earth have you sent an email to my work?

I was like, "What?" I haven't sent you anything. Why have you sent an email to my work? The subject line says, "Pregnancy, what the fuck?" I don't know what you're talking about.

I said, "Check the email because I haven't sent you anything." And she said, "Something along the lines of the firewall has blocked the email or the IT team have blocked it, but they can see the subject line. They can see it's from Ali and I was like, "Well, that's not me."

“And then she starts calming down like, "What is it?”

What is it? Why is it why, why is it why am I being sent something?" And then she goes, "Did you receive anything? Did you receive anything?" And I just said, "No," I said, "I don't know what you're talking about."

Every day saw another threat. One email read simply, having fun. On May 22nd, Layla called again in a panic saying two emails had been sent to her workplace revealing her pregnancy. The email is being sent in his name.

He was getting security alerts about password changes, new two-factor authentication requests on his Yahoo account says Gmail Outlook. Over a matter of weeks, there were hundreds of calls from friends, clients, colleagues, and the managers of his restaurant complex, saying they'd received another email, containing explicit messages between Ali and dates, details of business expenses, the warning that

Ali's mother received an email congratulating her on a new grandchild.

And his restaurant continued to be targeted. Their scheduling and till-systems had been edited, people's names were mispelled. The menu had been changed, and prices, and opening times, the settings had been altered, so staff could only accept cash. Local councils where he had kitchens received alerts.

“They both got emails to say there's rats in the kitchen you need to expect that close”

the premises down immediately, so we then had to deal with that. At the end of May, Ali woke to find somebody had hacked into his restaurant's website and changed the homepage. There, beneath an unflattering photo of him, lists of their cash takings. Individuals at his restaurant were targeted and threatened.

At that point, I felt really, really like despair and low, and there was this moment, I thought this is how on why people would probably commit suicide when they're under this level of like, cyber attack, and you don't really know how and where it's coming from, and everything you've built and stood for with like values and integrity, just like ruined.

And then silence. I just couldn't sleep as well. I remember just like, not sleeping. Within days.

I got my first like one star guru review, and it was in Google, it was like anti-Semitic,

homophobic, staff, staff, don't come here, and then it was due hating business, found hairs in my food, also one star. This really rattled me again. This is when I first came across Ali's story. The story I thought I was going to tell was whether Ali's Palestinian activism had caused

his restaurant to suffer, whether he was being targeted for that activism.

“I remember telling my friend, he was a bit of an IT guy, and he half an hour later was”

like, "Bro, this is what has been put on some Facebook groups," and it was like this "Cart and pace, paragraph that was shocked around his different Facebook groups." So, we're far right. It's really group saying, "We die under Ali's, and we were shocked to say that we found the staff, homophobic, anti-Semitic, and anti-Jew, please join us in leaving one star review

to fight against this, anti-Semitic hate." And I remember looking at who wrote that, and again, it was this Facebook, like a dud, fucking account, a bought account. At the time, I didn't know that, and I was obsessed with who this guy is, you get lost in, who is this guy?"

Ali contacted Google to see if the reviews could be removed, but without much luck, and the one star reviews that kept coming, and in under a week, there were over 100.

“I think it was recounted, 116-1 star Google reviews had come in.”

Ali has a screenshot on his phone from the time, a glut of notification after notification, coming in of his restaurant getting one star reviews. Here's on my food, they said, "Stuff will racist, one star." Ali denied that he or anyone working for him was anti-Semitic, the claims were lies. They were based out in Tel Aviv and all sorts of places, but it was like, "Right,

a fucking, another business who hates us, let's get our own back." At the time, I was interested in the power of anonymous reviews at a time of instability in the hospitality industry. That summer, 2024, Ali posted a statement on social media saying he'd been hacked, but lies were being spread and having a profound impact on his business, and then his friends

supporters, strangers, they showed up. It went probably way more viral than I thought it could of. People resharing people than putting like five star reviews on my Google to show solidarity

and support and people reporting the one star reviews and all this like, amazing stuff.

But the day after friends commented underneath the post, lots of them received an email. The emails were from the hacker. In contained details of Ali's alleged illegal activity and screenshots of explicit messages, including a link to a YouTube channel that's been created. It was made up solid of videos of Ali urinate.

A friend of Ali's told me that he thought he was going mad. It was around this time when Leyla received another email to her work that Ali realised he was spiraling. I just remember at this point my head couldn't cope anymore and it was like, "I had a breakdown.

I couldn't, I didn't know what to think or do," or even believe anymore, it was like, "I broke and I remember ringing my brother and I was like, can you collect me?"

happening with his mum.

“He'd reached the end of what he could cope with.”

So the actual weekend that he came home, my other son, rang me, he said, "Oh mum,

Ali's coming home for a few days, and I was always excited.

I'm lovely, lovely, and they came through the door, and my first reaction was their father was died." It took Ali a long time to confide in his family, especially as mother. He was so distressed, and he couldn't get out words out, because he was sobbing. And I said, "Ali, whatever it is, mummy loves you unconditionally.

We'll get through it. I can't imagine what has happened to me, can you be the way you're presenting yourself to me?" Don't worry, we'll get through it. You think it's bad, but there's always a solution to a problem.

Just sit and tell mummy what it is. It was heartbreaking to see him so broken, and as a mum, helpless. I was there for him, like a strength to get him through it, as was his brother.

“We all struggled, because we just, like, we listened, but what could we do?”

Ali's mum sat and listened, as he told the story of what the hacker had done. I remember just collapsing, you know, in our arms, I did feel dead inside. I did feel like there was just nothing. I just saw him broken, he wasn't eating. And now I was protected and cocooned by my mum and my brother and my family now.

Shit went even further south. Having been caught up with what had been happening, Ali's mum was now on hand. I was meticulous and record-keeping. So everything, every phone call, every email, every discussion, I locked with the date. So everything we recorded, every phone call, we updated the crime reference, and then we

realised the crime reference wasn't the right number. So we didn't know where all the these updates were going. And we felt the police weren't taking it seriously. The overall police case and dealings with them have been disappointing.

Things continued and the police who had first contacted when his belongings weren't missing

weren't stepping up. Ali mentioned how unhelpful the police were being to his cousin, who introduced him to Nick, a private investigator. He spoke to them over Zoom. I just felt like I'm with the right people he goes.

I want you to start from start to finish and he says, "I want all the details."

“What's in all that was his term, and I remember two hours in, he just goes like, "I need”

to stop you, Ali." If I hear you say the hacker one more time, I'm going to slap you. He's like, "It's her." I've been a journalist for a long time, but I tend to write about culture rather than crime.

And I was unprepared when I started reporting this story. How much it would come to take over my life? I talked about it, and my children, I messaged sources, minutes after doing a wedding speech. I regularly dreamed about the protagonist.

Though we've changed people's names and removed some details, the unease, that's real. The facts and threats made in the long shadow of a war in Gaza. The way distant conflict can influence identity, and be used as a tool of manipulation. The way it provides a disturbing snapshot of an unusual moment, that's all real. I'm Jewish, and unlike many of spent the last three years I'm picking the stories I was

taught about Israel. From my Jewish identity, at a time when antisemitism is rising, and when that rise is being politicized. One day, I opened the Instagram to a voice message. You make me sick, honestly.

You make me sick. People like you make me sick. Saying I was destroying society from within. You're influencing the people of this country to do the worst things. We know your game, 'kay?

'Cause you are from the synagogue of Satan, and we know.

It wasn't the first time I'd experienced antisemitism, of course, but this message bothered

me more than previous ones. Sadly because of the man's voice quite gentle in my ear, and the way he repeatedly used my name. Now, what's interesting to me, Eva, is your disposition to the profane.

His message was to be the first of hundreds that week.

Many of them comments under memes featuring my face. When these scum are expelled from civilised society, then we can continue what our ancestors started, and what they have worked so hard to destroy. Once it. Another route.

We need to find this person in real life. Another simply. Gas. Jews. There was a feeling suddenly of being on quicksand, and so this story has taken on a special

haunting resonance for me, in a way I'd never quite expected, but it's not about me as

about Ali and the story behind those one-star reviews, one that involves blackmail, revenge, the limits of police power, at a single missing shoe, and a whole year stolen. There's just so many layers to the story. The year leading up to those one-star reviews had been a catalog of life miseries for Ali. She was a friend of a friend, or I'd known nothing about her.

He met later at that dinner in the winter of 2023, following a protest. The relationship was volatile.

“I think there was certain times where you just every time you kind of got a bit close,”

it was like a pullaway, and this real kind of jekyll and hide, but also Tom and Jerry vibe. It was just so draining. Layla was finding the gas of war difficult, as was Ali, and Ali was stressed. Things were going missing, a certain measured paranoia seemed settled in, as he noticed

odd things happening on his phone. I remember one friend emailed me about a charity catering for a charity thing, like email disappeared from the face of the earth, and I was racking my brains. I was like, "I know this person sent me this email." His laptop would suddenly run out of charge, people were struggling to contact him on

WhatsApp. I had photos deleted, I had followers and followed, I had WhatsApp people blocked, this is just like little blips happening. Your teeners' friends have their followings online plummet, and he's read about activists being targeted, but it wasn't just his digital footprint being targeted.

“I remember I had to go to a wedding, and my friends' wedding, and my best pair of shoes,”

I had them out to wear, and for whatever reason I didn't bother wearing them, and I left them wherever. I don't think it matched the outfit, or I just didn't wear them, and when I came back from the wedding, I just remember looking down and seeing that there was just like one shoe of my best pair of shoes tied in my room, and like, I could only find one fucking

shoe, and I was like, "What?" We've all way laid things, that momentary lapse, where the brain steps out of its usual rhythm, but for early, this had been happening a lot. I just remember feeling so cold, it was just like, "What?" But also no, no, no, someone's not going to fucking steal a shoe.

It didn't encourage me to have a look around my room, and at that point, I remember opening my wardrobe, and there was quite a lot missing, jumpers, jackets, jeans. It felt as though there was a low ringing in the air, attention drifted through all aspects of Ali's life, unable to shake his discomfort, or suspicion that he was being targeted for his activism.

He called the police again. When the police ended, I was sharing with them what had happened, and obviously they're

“like, you could see their reaction, it wasn't laughter, but it was almost like, "What?”

Everyone in the room is confused, and I'm second guessing myself."

It was alongside this, Ali was struggling with his relationship with Layla, towards the end of March, 2024. He'd had enough. I remember to all the end, I was just, I'm done, that was here, that was the straw that broke the camel's back, and there were a few straws, and that was the last occasion it was.

She had an unbelievable outburst where she was like, forcing me to kiss her, and I just didn't want to, because like, we'd already had like, you know, we'd been, we'd already been on the rocks, and she went a bit mad, I remember feeling very scared in the room. Ali cried himself to sleep that night, but it felt like there was hope too.

The next day, in April, 2024, Ali left for a consultancy job in Europe, and away from

Layla, but the message just didn't stop. She still didn't get it, her saying, I love you fiercely, Ali, and I'll do whatever it takes, and I was just like, this is not love.

“We're now post France, I come back, and I just remember she was insisting on meeting, and”

then she tells me her periods late, and I just fell sick. Layla was pregnant, and said it was his. I think quite early on, she could see that I wasn't going to be a fucking idiot about things.

I was there to be like, look, if abortion is on the cards, I can't force you, but if

I can, I don't know, support or be there, I will, but at the same time, I don't want to be with you, and it was like, early stages of my life being hacked. I didn't know who the perpetrator was, now I, I wanted to get as far away from this female as possible. She phoned Ali constantly, he had made his position clear, he'd like her to get an abortion,

but he would support her.

“You need to pay and book the morning after pill, and you need to book hospital appointment”

and pay for it, and this was quite early on, so I remember I walked with her to disappointment,

and I never forget, we got to the door, I wanted to, like, understand what was going on.

Is it even mine, is it like what's happening here, and I remember, she made me wait outside, she was like, no, no, no, you're not coming in, and I remember feeling what, and again, I look back now, it's just another form of controlling the narrative. As weeks passed, Layla's mood was increasingly charged. In England, Scotland and Wales, women can only take the abortion pill at home within 10 weeks

of pregnancy. Ali felt like time was running out. She was alluding to like, "We're done now, let's get this wrapped up, but I couldn't trust or fucking anything that was coming out of her mouth. Everything was choppy, choppy, and changing, and everything."

By logically, we were running out of time, I was just fucking hell, we're nearly there, 'cause at this stage again, I just want it to know, so I could just get on with my life. He'd been out drinking with a friend when suddenly he was getting bombarded with messages.

“And I remember her constantly being like, "Who are you with? Who are you with? Who are you with?”

Where are you? Where are you? And at this stage, I'm not giving up anything. 'Cause everything I did's give her before was ammunition against me, so I'm not gonna fucking tell you shit." Ali was insistent, he wanted her out of his life. And I was asking her, "Do you want to do it at yours? Do you want to do it at mine again?" Like, "I look back now, I'm like, "What was I doing? Do you want to do it?"

"Do you want to do it at a hotel?" This is a final curtain now, and she was like, "Yeah." Relief swept Ali, he bought her a hot water bottle, but she wanted reassurance, something to show he wouldn't abandon her after the abortion. It got to a point where I had to sign something to say, "I wouldn't go anywhere for X-Mount of Weeks."

Dear Layla, this is my personal guarantee that I will be by your side throughout the abortion. She doesn't take the pill. Two days later, an official hacker reveals himself in my inbox, and this is a real start of the story. The email is from an email domain called EthicalHacker998A@ProtonMe. Nick is in his 50s. X-Military, X-LoronForcement, bald, charismatic, his company specialises in

cyber intelligence and cyber security. Businesses hire them to test their internal systems as actual EthicalHacker's. But Ali's was not a typical hacking case. For one thing, the hacker wasn't hacking him. They were accessing his accounts, and it quickly worked out. From the single stolen Samsung phone tracking him on Google Maps, social media and WhatsApp, a picture began to emerge.

him it had been installed with software that scrapes its data, then self-destructs.

Nick compiled a report. It described how Ali felt he'd been the victim of what Ideem to be coercive and controlling behaviour with an ex-partner. Ali's mum had put together records of all their interactions in incidents, realising how unlike Ali at once for things to go missing. He treated himself for his 40th birthday to these hand-made shoes.

Which I said, "You're ridiculous paying that for them, you're mad!" He wanted to treat himself. Then one went missing like, "How does that happen?"

And so he was telling me all snippets of how the relationship he distanced himself.

He knew this relationship was going nowhere, with her behaviours, and what she'd put in through, and so this was an outpouring you know, while he was telling me. They put together a timeline of events, logging IP addresses to identify where the user had

“accessed the internet. So things happened, you'll have to forgive me. I can't remember which account it was.”

Things happened on one of Ali's accounts. That was Somali's house. From his IP address. And Ali wasn't there. So I'd go back to Ali saying, "Right, I've identified this, this date time, where were you?" You know, and everyone, it was coming back to that one individual.

He drew up a concise statement so that Ali could present their findings to the police.

On 27th April, 2024, I understand Ali reported numerous items missing from his flat to the police, one of which was his old Samsung mobile phone. As the image is sent, an account successed from the original stolen mobile phone. I felt this linked these two offenses. This was not a sophisticated attack, but it is in fact the actions of someone with a personal

grudge against Ali. The IP data indicated Ali's ex-girlfriend, Leila, to be the offender. The degree of malice directed against Ali has caused me to be concerned for Ali's personal safety. After reading the report, Ali looked back at his texts with Leila. They're not there because everything's been deleted by her. All the tracks have been covered, and do you know what's still there? I've still got it now, it's like a message from her saying

she loves me. Suddenly things started to come into focus.

“You remember one time when Leila said her mum was being targeted,”

getting phone calls from random numbers? She went into my browser history after she said, "Have you googled me?" And then she like, again, like, had a big, "Who are about that? Oh, that's great. They must have everything now." Could see quite a lot of things. I can't even explain to you how this felt, but it was almost like she was showing me how her slash the hacker has got the info. It was like,

she was showing me, and then I remember saying to her, like, "How the fuck do you know all this?" And she just had this fucking weird smirk on her face. Using the information gathered by Nick. Ali and his mum went back to the police, but you found them slow and frustrating despite his pleas. I need to show you this spreadsheet. This is complex. There's layers to this. There's evidence

already pointing to her. There's things I need to share with you. There are things that need to be actions very, very soon because I have a shelf life like IP addresses. After a certain amount of time, typically between six to 18 months, IP data is no longer recoverable. At the time Ali had this meeting, over a year had passed since the harassment had begun. To this day, they still have his laptop. Those one police officer though that Ali felt great for

four. When police came to us for that, after he'd reported those odd initial thefts,

“he told them he'd been dating a woman who he thought was unstable. And I'll never forget,”

as a police woman left, she was like, "Have you heard of Claire's law?" Insulfured in 2009, 36-year-old Claire Wood was murdered by an abusive ex-boyfriend who had a history of violence against women. Following a campaign by her father, in 2014, England and Wales formally rolled out Claire's law. Also known as the domestic violence disclosure

has any previous history of violence or abuse. In May, Ali's mother made an application

“to the police on his behalf. Then about a month after that, they called her back,”

recommending a secure line. By this time he was so fearful, he was using a selection of burner phones. And in the meeting, he was crying so much, he felt like he was floating above

himself looking down at the scene. Afterwards, his mother remembers. He said they'd put him on a

9-9-9 watch list, so it feels he's in trouble. Or in a dangerous place, they will go out to him immediately.

“And he said, "Mum, that's all I can tell you."”

A source later revealed to us that Ali was not Layla's only victim. When Layla out like this, it might feel obvious, but Ali still can't shake the sense it might be

connected to his activism. In some ways, he's not wrong. When Ali first started to tell me

his story. Unpeeling the years of an onion, it revealed itself to be a chronicle of harassment

“that spoke immediately to the Fibra moment we find ourselves in of displaced tensions and geopolitical”

anxieties and unfinished paths of justice. There was also a portrait of the competing powers of an internet in flux. Ali used it to bolster his political causes, his blackmailer used it to attack. By the winter of 2024, the harassment seemed to have stopped. The question of why him lingered. If it was Layla, this level of revenge for his rejection of their brief relationship seemed outsized, unhinged. Had he wronged her in a way he didn't realise, had he been correct

if only obliquely to feel that he was being targeted for his activism? Was there relationship an example of geopolitics in miniature? Ali's experience while shocking is not uncommon. In 2021, 41% of US adults reported that they'd experienced online harassment, with rates significantly higher for women, journalists, activists and LGBTQ+ people. Since then, generative AI has escalated this even further, enabling automated harassment that's scale. Ali wondered what role gender played

in his case, and about the way structures of justice for online crimes are evolving fast slower than the crimes themselves. Me, I felt blinded by a modern horror story, and how easy it is to ruin a life. Nick, Ali's private investigator, advised him not to be interviewed by the observer. Still, he understood Ali's imposter talk. He needs to take control of his life, he said, "But it's a gamble." He told him, "Be prepared because this isn't the end."

The Observer