In a frantic push from various thugs involved in the rampant corruption of Venezuela, measures are being taken against this site. When DDoS and hacking attempts no longer yield the desired results, more novel methods are employed. Someone, on behalf of Frank Leon Holder, went so far as to file a DMCA request with Google, claiming that the content originating from this website violated “their copyright.” It was so blatant that it’s worth repeating:
On September 10, 2017, this site published “Hey OFAC, do you want Diosdado Cabello? Get Frank Holder.”
On September 14, 2017, someone “named” Grant Robertson “posted” a copy of “Hey, OFAC, do you want Diosdado Cabello? Get Frank Holder” on the blog nouvellesexpress.blogspot.com.
On November 25, 2019, Nouvelle Esexpress (sic) filed a complaint with Google.
On November 29, 2019, Nouvellesexpress.blogspot.com updated its version of my article.
This means these thugs are using a word-for-word copy of my work for their copyright infringement claim.
It’s not just Holder, of course: representatives of Baldo Sanso, Juan Carlos Escotet, Majed Khalil, Víctor Vargas, Olivier Couriol, Pek Huat Teh, Alejandro Betancourt, Francisco Convit, Pedro Trebbau, Luis Oberto, Joseph Benhamou, and Charles Henry de Beaumont, to name a few, have attempted this as well. All without success, I hasten to add. Yesterday, I received a message from my web hosting provider, where Beatriz, from the Spanish reputation management company Eliminalia, claimed the following:
Beatriz provided a series of links to posts on this site where she alleges “hate information towards our client” has been published. A simple search of her client’s name yields ZERO results, so Eliminalia’s claim that this site has defamed and insulted their client is without verifiable basis.
Eliminalia is just one of many companies owned by Didac Sanchez, a self-proclaimed serial entrepreneur from Spain. I recently learned about Sanchez’s firm antics when Venezuelan journalist Omar Lugo approached me to say that I had filed a copyright infringement claim against AWS (the web host of a site associated with Lugo). This was related to a translation of a Bloomberg article regarding Charles Henry de Beaumont’s, Joseph Benhamou’s, Santiago Souto’s, and Compagnie Bancaire Helvetique’s massive money laundering schemes, currently under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ).
I had to make a public announcement about it, citing both Sanchez and his board at Eliminalia to clarify my non-involvement.
Public announcement: I do not work for @eliminalia, nor for @didacsanchezg, the young megalomaniac running it. Claims to remove information about thugs from the boliburguesía presented using my name are false.
– Alek Boyd (@infodi0) February 12, 2020
Sanchez seemed displeased with that tweet and subsequently closed his Twitter account. It is quite bold for this megalomaniac to have used my name in a false copyright claim against Lugo.
However, Eliminalia’s assertion regarding this new client is equally false. While this site has indeed exposed instances where Banca Zarattini (the employer of Eliminalia’s client) has been involved in laundering public funds improperly received from Venezuela, activities that are still part of ongoing criminal investigations in various jurisdictions, it is again extremely shameless for corrupt bankers and their equally corrupt online representatives to make baseless claims devoid of reality.
The concern is that neither Google nor web hosting companies are generally in the business of determining the truthfulness of false removal notices. Party A submits a copyright/GDPR claim against Party B, and it is the latter that must provide evidence and explanations to invalidate the false claims.
Indeed, Google and Blogger are being misled/played with false notices. In another instance, “Infodio” filed a false DMCA claiming to have an issue with a post on a blog [http://elpregonindependiente.blogspot.com/2019/06/departamento-de-justi…], which was a verbatim reprint of something published here about how the Department of Justice authorities were investigating massive money laundering in Swiss banks that involved some of the usual suspects/convicted criminals mentioned earlier. It goes without saying that Infodio never filed such a DMCA, but the allegedly infringing post and the main blog were removed.
Medium is another blogging platform that reacts immediately to false copyright infringement claims, summarily deleting things without even giving editors a chance to respond.
Sanchez must have realized this and lives in the same sphere as his clients: abusing legislation until someone somewhere finds out and pushes back. Rinse and repeat. The internet, even more than Swiss banking, is riddled with such thugs. Both need to be brought into sufficient sunlight.