The observer.
Hello, it's Basha Cummings here.
I was the editor of Sweet Bobby.
And I'm here because I want to play you a story that was first told to me by my colleague Eva Wiseman.
It starts with a mislaid phone and a missing shoe, and it quickly consumes both her life and the man to whom it all happened.
A man that we're calling Ali.
If you want to hear more stories like it, you can find it on our weekly narrative series, The Slow Newscast.
But for now, I'm going to hand over to Eva.
So 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.
People marching for peace in Gaza became a common sight in 2023.
Images of brutality were filtering out of Gaza during Israel's relentless bombing campaign.
The United Nations says nearly a million Palestinians have fled their homes in the Gaza Strip.
Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry says at least 241 people have been killed in the past 24 hours.
In Gaza itself, hospitals are overrun with the injured and the dead.
Each week, newspapers were filled with photos of death and destruction.
Welcome back amid growing concerns over the trajectory of the war Israel appears to be signalling it will not slow down its offensive in Gaza.
The World Health Organisation says almost all the hospitals in the Gaza 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 middle-aged son of Middle Eastern parents, took part in the protests and was vocal about the cause, online and in real life, where he quickly found community.
So I think to have a community, a WhatsApp 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 owns a small restaurant and had recently been expanding his business, setting up a restaurant in central London.
And with COVID and soaring prices, it's not been easy, but he's managed it.
I've built my business from nothing and we've built a fucking, I'm proud of a global brand like that.
We represent my diaspora across the world and I couldn't be proud of my baby that I built.
These are busy times, growing a business, organising marches, rebuilding himself and his life after a breakup.
In some ways, Ali's life began to be increasingly defined by his pro-Palestinian stance.
He 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 avid supporter of going to the protests and I remember someone had mentioned 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, I guess, us dating.
Leila was a Palestinian banker and while the relationship began well, within a few months they were on the rocks.
They fought noisily 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.
For Ali, fresh out of a difficult relationship, it was too much to handle so quickly.
I remember towards the end I was just, I'm done.
Leila became pregnant, but they agreed to have an abortion and Ali was keen to move on and focus on his work and his activism.
As the conflict in Gaza deepened and escalated, Ali spent his Saturdays protesting.
In the press, he'd read about pro-Palestinian activists having their online accounts censored.
In 2023, Human Rights Watch reported on systemic online censorship, how Meta had been silencing voices in support of Palestine.
And in 2024, the French newspaper Le Monde
Reported on a telegram group organised to troll and dox people spreading pro-Palestinian messages.
All this piqued Ali's anxiety.
I know people have their followings have been cut exponentially, like loads of followers have been removed.
Their reach, be it stories or engagement, is completely reduced.
I'm not someone big time.
These people are way bigger reaches than 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-Palestine activists, that people had been coming in and out of his house.
And then in early summer, an email arrived.
Hi, we've been watching you for some time.
We know that you watch these porno websites.
We know that you have got a girl pregnant.
We know that you've got a cookbook deal.
We know that you illegally 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's social media, they'd destroy him.
I think the next day there's a dick pic of mine that gets sent to me and it says, TikTok, TikTok, that's all it says.
TikTok, TikTok.
And a picture of my penis.
So this was all off 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, 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, missed call, missed call, missed call, missed call.
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 me 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?
Like, what is it?
Why is why is why?
Why is 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, On May 22nd, Leila called again in a panic, saying two emails had been sent to her workplace, revealing her pregnancy.
Emails were being sent in his name.
He was getting security alerts about password changes, new two-factor authentication requests on his Yahoo accounts, his 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 he fucks Jewish women for Palestine.
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 misspelled, 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, were 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 and 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, like just like ruined.
And then silence.
I just couldn't sleep as well.
I remember just like not sleeping.
I got my first like one star Google review and it was in Google.
It was like anti-Semitic, homophobic stuff.
Don't come here.
And then it was Jew 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, who was a bit of an IT guy, and he half an hour later was like, Bro, this is what is being put on some Facebook groups.
And it was like this...
Cart and pace paragraph that was shopped around these different facebook groups that were far right israeli groups saying we die in the alleys and we were shocked to say that we found the staff homophobic anti-semitic and anti-jew
Please join us in leaving a 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 bot 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.
In the one-star reviews, they kept coming.
And in under a week, there were over 100.
I think it was, we counted 116 one-star Google reviews have 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.
Hairs on my food, they said.
Staff were 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, fuck him.
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, that 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 have.
People resharing people, then 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 a post, lots of them received an email.
The emails were from the hacker and contained details of Ali's alleged illegal activity and screenshots of explicit messages, including a link to a YouTube channel that had been created.
It was made up solely of videos of Ali urinating.
A friend of Ali's told me that he thought he was going mad.
It was around this time, when Leila received another email to her work, that Ali realised he was spiralling.
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?
It was in June, following months of turmoil and torment, that Ali finally shared what had been 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 has died.
It took Ali a long time to confide in his family, especially his mother.
He was so distressed and he couldn't get 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 make 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 his 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 her 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 in record keeping.
So everything, every phone call, every email, every discussion, I logged 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 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 he'd first contacted when his belongings went 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.
Warts and 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 gonna 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 to 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 like many have spent the last three years unpicking the stories I was taught about Israel from my Jewish identity at a time when anti-Semitism is rising, and when that rise is being politicised.
One day, I opened 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, okay?
Because you are from the synagogue of Satan.
We know.
It wasn't the first time I'd experienced antisemitism, of course, but this message bothered me more than previous ones.
Partly 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, Ava, okay, is your disposition to the profane.
Part of me also wondered, perhaps, whether I was being warned away from this story.
His message was to be the first of hundreds that week, many of them comments and memes featuring my face.
One said...
Another wrote, We need to find this person in real life.
Another simply, Gus 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, it's about Ali and the story behind those one-star reviews.
One that involves blackmail, revenge, the limits of police power, that single missing shoe, and a whole year
There's just so many layers to the story.
The year leading up to those one-star reviews had been a catalogue of life miseries for Ali.
She was a friend of a friend.
I'd known nothing about her.
He met Leila at that dinner in the winter of 2023, following a protest.
The relationship was volatile.
I think there were certain times where you just, every time you kind of got a bit close, it was like a pull away.
And this real kind of Jekyll and Hyde, but also Tom and Jerry vibe.
It was just so draining.
Layla was finding the Gaza war difficult, as was Ali, and Ali was stressed.
Things were going missing.
A certain measured paranoia soon 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 the 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 unfollowed.
I had WhatsApp people blocked.
This is just like little blips happening.
He'd seen his friends have their followings online plummet, and he'd 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 friend's 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 waylaid things, that momentary lapse where the brain steps out of its usual rhythm.
But for Ali, 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 did then 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, a tension that 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 entered 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 Leila.
Towards the end of March 2024, he'd had enough.
I remember towards the end, I was just, I'm done.
That was, yeah, 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 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.
And what was lovely is I was getting out of there.
I had a consultancy job in France.
The next day, in April 2024, Ali left for a consultancy job in Europe and away from Leila.
But the messages 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 insistent on meeting and then she tells me her period's late and I just felt sick.
Leila 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 want it to get as far away from this female as possible.
She phoned Ali constantly.
He'd 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 a hospital appointment and pay for it.
And this was quite early on.
So I remember I walked with her to this appointment and I never...
Forget we
We got to the door i wanted to like understand what was going on
Is is it even mine
Is it like what
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, Leila'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.
Biologically, we were running out of time.
I was just, fucking hell, we're nearly there because at this stage again, I just wanted 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?
Who are you with?
Where are you?
Where are you?
And at this stage, I'm not giving her anything because everything I did give her before was ammunition against me.
So I'm not going to 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 the 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 amount of weeks.
Dear Leila, 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 the real start of the story.
The email is from an email domain called ethicalhacker9988 at protonmeet.
Nick is in his 50s, ex-military, ex-law enforcement, bald, charismatic.
His company specialises in cyber intelligence and cyber security.
Businesses hire them to test their internal systems as actual ethical hackers.
But Ali's was not a typical hacking case.
For one thing, the hacker wasn't hacking him.
They were accessing his accounts, Nick quickly worked out, from the single stolen Samsung phone, tracking him on Google Maps, social media and WhatsApp.
A picture began to emerge.
In April, on the day Ali had left his laptop at Leila's flat mid-fight, an IT consultant told 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 I deemed to be coercive and controlling behavior with an ex-partner.
Ali's mum had put together records of all their interactions and incidents, realizing how unlike Ali it was for things to go missing.
He treated himself for his 40th birthday to these handmade 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 him 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 from Ali'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?
No, 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 images sent and accounts accessed were from the original stolen mobile phone, I felt this linked these two offences.
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.
He remembered 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 hoo-ha 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 he 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 actioned 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.
There was one police officer though that Ali felt grateful for.
When police came to his flat, 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 the policewoman left, she was like, have you heard of Claire's law?
In Salford 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 Clare's Law, also known as the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme.
This is a police policy giving people the right to know if their partner or ex has any previous history of violence or abuse.
In May, Ali's mother made an application to the police on his behalf.
And 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 999 watch list so if he 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 Leila's only victim.
When laid 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 year as if an onion,
It revealed itself to be a chronicle of harassment that spoke immediately to the febrile moment we find ourselves in of displaced tensions and geopolitical anxieties and unfinished paths of justice.
It 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 Leila, 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 their 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 plus people.
Since then, generative AI has escalated this even further, enabling automated harassment at scale.
Ali wondered what role gender played in his case, and about the way structures of justice for online crimes are evolving far 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 impulse to 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.
