My name is Benjamin Rachinger. I am nobody and that’s the way I’ve always liked it. Having been born severely deaf and growing up wearing hearing aids, I gravitated to computing and reading from a young age. It was an escape from what could sometimes be a harsh world.
As I grew up and went through schooling I found that the history of my country was stirring to read. NZ is one of the last geographical landmasses to have been discovered and colonised by the British Empire. There was internecine warfare between Maori (the indigenous people of NZ of whom I racially belong) and other Maori long before Britain came here to colonise. There was warfare between the British Army and Maori when the Maori rose against the landgrabs and cultural genocide that was taking place. We lost. It culminated in the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. The treaty was a binding agreement between the Crown and the Maori signatories where the Crown promised to respect Maori sovereignty and treat Maori as equals. This has sadly not been the case and many Maori are in prisons, asylums and on the streets in this day and age. Just another Colonial story.
Why is this bit of history pertinent to this story?
Cameron Slater is a far-right blogger, a fervent Christian man, the son of an Ex-National Party (Right wing political party) President and a man who believes that Whites are superior. A hunter of Animals and Men. Someone who called a recently deceased young man a “feral” on his blog. Ostensibly this was the reason a hacker named “Rawshark” hacked into Mr Slaters Gmail, Twitter and Facebook accounts and fed this data to Mr Nicky Hager and journalists at the New Zealand Herald. This resulted in a book called “Dirty Politics” by Mr Hager, a internationally respected investigative journalist. The book had many points but what it showed was that money, business, hacking and political corruption was becoming the norm in NZ.
Mr Slaters blog is called “Whale Oil Beef Hooked” (www.whaleoil.co.nz). It has recently won the Canon “Best Blog” award alongside other awards for “Best Blog”, even subsequent to “Dirty Politics” being published. Many sane and rational people have asked the question: How bad is it behind the veil? Who is doing what? How high does it go?
This is what I will be covering in a series of blog posts here. I came as close as it is possible to come to these “Dirty Politics” operators and have rigourously documented every single conversation, email and Threema (Swiss encrypted messaging platform used by spooks, politicians and journalists) messages.
Today, you will see what happens behind closed doors, in encrypted messages, in bars and park benches. You will make your own mind up about my motives. You won’t be able to ignore the evidence.
I first came to the attention of Mr Slater when I read a tweet from him saying that his website, www.whaleoil.co.nz, was under distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack in March of 2014. I tweeted back at him and asked what protections he had in place and gave some general advice. He asked me to email his website administrator/security man. This person is Regan Cunliffe of ‘Throng’. Regans wife, Rachel, designed the Whaleoil website. I didn’t have any spare time to help further so I did not email Regan and we left it at that.
2014 was a General Election year. Elections take place every 3 years in New Zealand. In 2014 we had a lot of upsets to the process via the presence of Mr Kim Dotcom funding a political party (InternetMana). InternetMana was ostensibly a strong crypto-anarchist party with great people as candidates that had joined with a Maori Socialist Party to get into Parliament. I became worried that people in New Zealand did not know of Kim Dotcoms past. I then decided that I would make a set of videos about each of the political parties in New Zealand. I entitled the series “Smoke and Mirrors”. My first video was on Kim Dotcom.
The video is here on YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VARd8pMIvCQ
I messaged Mr Slater and linked him to my video and asked what he thought. I did this because he is a political operator and I wanted his opinion going forward with the rest of my videos. Mr Slater said he was interested in posting the video to WhaleOil and asked me to write a bit about myself. A screenshot of my email reply to him is below.
Mr Slater then linked to the video on Whaleoil.
This created a lot of buzz and talk. Whaleoil is said to be the most read blog in New Zealand so this was good exposure for the videos. WhaleOil commenters were overwhemingly positive and many called me a good representation for the future of my generation (LOL).
I then made and uploaded my second ‘Smoke and Mirrors’ video which was about the National Party (Governing party) and John Key (Prime Minister).
This video is viewable on Youtube here — https://youtu.be/e7UvJXAKMtU
This video covered many things that were largely heretofore unknown about the current National Party President and I was very surprised Mr Slater published it. It created a feeling in me that Mr Slater was fair and if someone was dodgy, he would out them. No matter the Party.
As I was to find out next, this is not the case.
Having gotten the videos published by Mr Slater on his blog and accepted his request on LinkedIn to be connected I began to slowly form a chitchat relationship with Mr Slater. He wondered what I did for a living and I told him that I was IT consulting with a social media focus for a few companies. He was interested in my thoughts on his ‘Freed’ media vehicle he was establishing with Tony Lentino and Regan Cunliffe (tripartite shareholding in the vehicle). I sent him my analysis of the NZ media scene which I place here for your viewing.
I was introduced to Regan Cunliffe via email and first discovered Mr Slaters close ties to Israel.
I was one foot in the door. Little did I know exactly what was behind this door.
Mr Hagers book “Dirty Politics” came out on 13th of August in 2014. I was out of the country in Australia on a holiday for 5 days when I first heard the whispers that there was a book that would be revealing Government wrongdoing. I streamed the book launch at Unity and was amazed at just what was happening. Excerpts from the book that were published that evening appeared to show that Mr Slater had been hacked (at the time I had initially tweeted him back about the DDoS) and his personal communications had been leaked to Mr Hager. I was bewildered and, I must admit, immediately wishing I did not have my videos on Mr Slaters blog.
I messaged Mr Slater on Twitter to ask him what was going on? Was it true? He was in Israel on a paid trip (Israel funded) and did not respond straight away. When he did, it was to complain about the hack.
Some people had been posting what they alleged was Mr Slaters home address. This got my back up because NO MATTER what someone has done.. Why endanger their family? Their children? I was dumbfounded at what was happening! Had we collectively lost our ability for critical thought? For strategic planning? There was an Election coming in September. Things had just taken a drastic turn.
Mr R. Cunliffe replied to my emails after a few days.
Mr Cunliffe has never demonstrated any knowledge of “Dirty Politics” and his email is only included for context in the build-up to talking about Freed and what I learned in that process.
Mr Slater quickly asked me if I knew anything about the hack and where Mr Hager may have gotten his data from. I can only surmise that this was because I have some knowledge of the hacking scene. Apparently this is in short supply.
Out of my own curiosity I began to investigate the possibilities for who the hacker could be. Shortly after this the Twitter handle @Whaledump popped up. Ostensibly this handle was the hacker themselves Rawshark. This account started to drop personal information, alongside more leaks, about Mr Slater and his alleged co-conspirators. I was interested to note that the first person it followed was @KimDotcom. The account made many challenges that their Operational Security was 100% tight and they would never be found.
My curiosity now fully aroused, I began to have conversations with Mr Slater about who Rawshark could be. After some investigating Mr Slater asked me to speak to the Police task-force who were working the Rawshark hack case. I demurred as I did not have any clear and present evidence about the identity of Rawshark.
I watched with interest what happened on Election Night 2014. I wholly expected the National Government to be hammered in the results because reading the “Dirty Politics” showed me a side to the Government we had not previously seen. The Governments response to the book and the leaks was heavily interesting too.. They didn't deny the content of the book and a Mr Jason Ede, a employee of the Prime Ministers office, had gone to ground in hiding after his role in feeding Government attack lines to Mr Slater was revealed. Misuse of the NZ Security Intelligence Service was revealed also. How deep did it go?
The National Government was returned to power with an INCREASED majority despite the book.
The date was September 20. Two days later my parents were to answer a knock on their door. They looked through their peephole to see a plainclothes policeman holding up his badge. They were asked by this policeman where I was and that they wanted to speak to me ASAP. I did not live with my parents so I was dismayed to receive a call from them telling me the Police had been by.
How deep does the rabbit hole go? Do the New Zealand Police answer to Mr Slater? We will take a look at that in the next parts and also cover the introductions I had to the Freed group and what I discovered there. Not to mention the ‘Israel Connection’.
We left off the story with the cops knocking on my parents door.
I rang the Policeman who had left his card and enquired as to just exactly what he thought he was doing coming to my parents house and enquiring after me. I was very, very angry. My parents are Right-Wing voters who support the National Government and were looking askance at me now that cops were coming to their house. My parents are quiet people who don’t wish for any extra stress as they head into their 60s. The cop said that they had been “monitoring my twitter feed” and also that “Cameron Slater says you have inside knowledge of the Rawshark hack”. I politely replied that I would come down to the local Police Station and be interviewed.
This policeman, a Detective Senior Sergeant in the Criminal Investigation Bureau (C.I.B.), instructed me that he did not want me coming down to the Police Station. Would I meet him at a cafe for a conversation? I replied that I would. I did this against the advice of everyone I knew. I did this because I thought the Police could be trusted to look out for the well-being of the citizens of New Zealand. I made plans to meet him the next day.
Back in late August, Whale and I had been exchanging Threema messages about the possible ID of “Rawshark”. Whale requested that I get in contact with a “trusted friend”. These screenshots below show the buildup to this contact.
By this point I was wondering — Who is Tony? Where’s Springhill? Who’s this outside help from Poland?
Tomas? Did I know any Tomas? I had only a first name and I knew of no Tomas with hacking skills.
Nobody had any evidence of Bradbury and Harre connection to the Rawshark hack. I kept my eyes open and made contact with Tomas on Threema. It was very interesting to me that Mr Slater said the Israelis were working this ‘case’ too.
Tomas requested the personal email address of a lot of people. It is not for me to say why he wanted these email addresses. I did not give any email addresses other than publicly available ones. I received this reply from Tomas.
By this stage I wanted to know who Tomas was. For my own safety at the very minimum. I was becoming increasingly aware that potentially illegal activities were taking place. I asked Tomas who he was really.
The plot had thickened considerably. Just who exactly was ‘Tony’? What was Tomasz relationship to Cam? Was everyone hacking each other except me?
I was soon to find out that ‘Tomas’ is actually Tomasz Grygoruk. A convicted and jailed black-hat hacker who works for Tony Lentino of Instra.
This is a link to a NZ Herald article about Mr Grygoruk — http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10737391
Having made an introduction to ‘Tomas’ and been asked for email addresses of people believed to be involved in the ‘Rawshark’ hack, things started to get very interesting.
This is ‘Tomas’ seeing if I can, or anyone I know, get access to a Joomla site that was tied to who these people alleged was ‘Rawshark’. I did no cracking and left it.
Around this time there were the WINZ shootings. I was interested to see if Mr Slater was going to do a piece about it so I sent him a Threema message.
I was truly beginning to see who I was dealing with.
As I had shown that I was prepared to speak with a Blackhat and do some digging, I was told that a Mr Tony Lentino wanted to meet me.
At the same time as this was happening, my Police handler in the Undercover Informants program was sending me messages like this:
I was still unsure as to who exactly ‘Tomas’ was at this point. The Police were happy to have me go deep undercover without any training. Mr Hager had been raided by this point and I was very worried that any information i had given the Police was used for raiding his house.
At this stage, I was meeting my Police handler at least once a week. On park benches and in cafes. It was like something out of a movie.
My Police handler informed me that Mr Hager had been raided before I received the message above. I leaked this information to a journalist as securely as possible. I felt that raiding a journalist for writing a book was a step towards a fascist state.
I was going to be proven right.
At this stage I was an undercover Police asset in both the investigation into Rawshark and the ongoing look at Mr Slater. I had no training and no awareness of the dangers I was facing. The Undercover Agent handler was taking extreme precautions before we met to make sure we were both not followed and he was never in uniform. I believed in doing my duty as a citizen of New Zealand and helping the Police to solve crimes. A family member is in the NZ Police so I have always respected them because of this family member.
I began to have discussions with Mr Slater about meeting Mr Lentino about the possibility of a ‘job’. It was never discussed at that point as to what the job would actually be.
Mr Slater had made it clear that he believed there was a conspiracy to have him commit suicide over the results of the hack of his accounts.
Mr Slater also believed that there was a possibility of others being involved.
We have the first mention of the Headhunters, an organised crime gang that is prominent in NZ. How did Mr Slater know Mr Blomfield owed the Headhunters money?
At this time I went down to Wellington to see a family member and met Mr Slater in real life for the first time. He was facing an inquiry into his “Dirty Politics” alleged involvement and I wanted to see what he was like in the flesh. Subsequent to our meeting in Library Bar, I recieved this message.
I was “in” with Tony.
Where would this go?
This part is wholly about the “Instra job” I was being offered as all the other madness was proceeding.
Mr Slater put me into contact with the CEO of Instra, Desleigh Jameson.
I was given a fair idea of what the ‘job’ I was being hired for was.
Initially I had to meet Jameson at a residence for an initial interview. I passed that initial test.
I was invited out to the Lentino estate in Springhill. Tony Lentino, ex-CEO of MEGA and multi-millionaire wanted me out at his estate. I had some transport issues but because I valued the opportunity to pitch to a tech millionaire I got it solved.
Tony's estate is quite something. He has an amazing private jet. Mr Lentino went out of his way to show me around.
Me freaking out slightly at #datjetlife
That’s Mr Lentino to the right. The meeting took over four hours and myself and Mr Lentino got along very well.
He was proud to tell me that ‘Tomas’ was actually Tomasz Grygoruk. Mr Lentino had kept Mr Grygoruks newspaper clippings of when he was jailed for blackhat hacking offences — http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10737391
Mr Lentino was effusive about my skills and potential added value. He gave the thumbs up to his CEO. Jameson then put me into direct and clear contact with Mr Gryogruk.
I began to have conversations with Tomasz about joining the Instra team and working directly with Mr Lentino.
Tomasz has a great Skype picture.
Tomasz and myself had many conversations over the next few days and I was sent extra information pertaining to the job I was about to begin.
Alongside this set of events, I had received word that the Identity of “Rawshark” was being spoken about in the Press Gallery and also by persons that Mr Slater had spoken to. I sent out the now infamous tweet “I am Rawshark” in a show of solidarity for whom this person was believed to be. They had recently had a baby. She was days old at this point.
After that tweet, things started to go downhill with Instra. Jameson called me and told me that the job had never existed. She said that Instra was being sold and always had been. She said that Tony wasn’t hiring anymore and they would get back to me. Mr Slater did some digging on behalf and was very angry to learn that the “job never existed”. I had spent over $500 on this interview process and gained nothing. I thought I would hear from Jameson again.
She never contacted me again.
Now begins that start of Mr Slater and my journey to the conspiracy to hack ‘The Standard’ blog for politically damaging information to use in Parliament.
The Standard is a blog that is nominally aligned with the NZ Labour Party. The sysadmin is a man named Lynne Prentice. Mr Prentice and Mr Slater have a long history of rigourous debate and mud slinging amongst themselves and as per conversations I’ve had with Mr Slater…
He really does not like Mr Prentice.
The first time I ever got an idea of Mr Slater, Mr Matthew Hooton and Mr David Farrars dislike for The Standard was when I received this email as a forward from Mr Slater.
Why were Mr Hooton and Mr Farrar so keen to see who the authors on The Standard are? Why did they include Mr Slater in this email? Why would Mr Slater send that email to me?
Full email header? This proves to techies that the email is real and was forwarded to me from Mr Slater. Link to Pastebin raw data here:
Unlike what Mr Hooton derogatorily claims on Twitter.
What did “without hacking of course” really mean? Why send this email to a hacker? Why deny the emails existence and then defame ruthlessly the ‘hacker’? Was Mr Hooton lying when he said he didn’t know anything about me?
Why.
