The superspreaders behind top COVID-19 conspiracy theories

As the coronavirus spread across the globe, so too did speculation about its origins. Perhaps the virus escaped from a lab. Maybe it was engineered as a bioweapon.

Legitimate questions about the virus created perfect conditions for conspiracy theories. In the absence of knowledge, guesswork and propaganda flourished.

College professors with no evidence or training in virology were touted as experts. Anonymous social media users posed as high-level intelligence officials. And from China to Iran to Russia to the United States, governments amplified claims for their own motives.

The Associated Press collaborated with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab on a nine-month investigation to identify the people and organizations behind some of the most viral misinformation about the origins of the coronavirus.

Their claims were explosive. Their evidence was weak. These are the superspreaders.

FRANCIS BOYLE

WHO HE IS: A Harvard trained law professor at the University of Illinois, Boyle drafted a 1989 law banning biological weapons and has advised the nation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Palestinian Authority.

Boyle has no academic degree in virology or biology but is a longstanding critic of research on pathogens. He has claimed Israeli intelligence was involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; that SARS, the swine flu and Ebola have been genetically modified; and that West Nile virus and Lyme disease escaped from a U.S. biowarfare lab. He has also claimed that Microsoft founder Bill Gates “was involved” in the spread of Zika.

COVID CLAIM: Boyle says the coronavirus is a genetically engineered bioweapon that escaped from a high-level lab in Wuhan, China. He maintains it shows signs of nanotechnological tinkering and the insertion of proteins from HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus. He alleges that U.S. researchers helped create it, and that thousands of doctors, scientists, and elected leaders are conspiring to hide the truth.

Boyle promoted his claim in an email to a list of news organizations and personal contacts on Jan. 24, 2020. That same day, he was interviewed on a podcast called “Geopolitics and Empire.” That podcast was cited by a little-known Indian website, GreatGameIndia, and went viral, with Boyle’s comments picked up and featured in Iranian-state TV, Russian state media, and fringe websites in the U.S. and around the world. He’s since repeated his claims on Alex Jones’ show Infowars.

EVIDENCE? Boyle bases his argument on circumstantial evidence: the presence of a Biosafety Level 4 lab in Wuhan, the fact that other viruses have escaped from other labs in the past, and his belief that governments around the world are engaged in a secret arms race over biological weapons.

Biosafety Level 4 labs – or BSL4 labs – have the highest level of biosafety precautions.

“It seemed to me that obviously, this came out of the Wuhan BSL 4,” Boyle told The Associated Press, dismissing the accepted explanation that the virus emerged from the Wuhan market as “completely preposterous.”

A World Heath Organization team concluded it was extremely unlikely the virus escaped from the Wuhan lab, and other experts have said the virus shows no signs of genetic manipulation.

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GREATGAMEINDIA

WHAT IT IS: A website that was an early promoter of the theory that the coronavirus was engineered.

Its Jan. 26, 2020, story on “Coronavirus bioweapon-How China Stole the Coronavirus From Canada and Weaponized It” was picked up by far-right financial blog Zero Hedge and shared to thousands of social media users before it was promoted by conservative website RedStateWatcher and received more than 6 million engagements.

COVID CLAIM: GreatGameIndia claims that the virus, which has now killed more than 2 million people worldwide, was first found in the lungs of a Saudi man and then sent to labs in the Netherlands and then Canada, where it was stolen by Chinese scientists. The article relies in part on speculation from Dany Shoham, a virologist and former lieutenant colonel in Israeli military intelligence.

Shoham was quoted discussing the possibility that COVID is linked to bioweapon research in a Jan. 26, 2020, article in the conservative U.S. newspaper The Washington Times. In that article, Shoham was quoted saying there was no evidence to support the idea that the virus has escaped from a lab, but GreatGameIndia did not include that context in its piece.

“We do stand by our report,” said website co-founder Shelley Kasli wrote in an email. “In fact, recently Canadians released documents which corroborated our findings with Chinese scientists… A lot of information is still classified.”

EVIDENCE? The coronavirus most likely first appeared in humans after jumping from an animal, a World Health Organization panel announced this month, saying an alternate theory that the virus leaked from a Chinese lab was unlikely.

America’s top scientists have likewise concluded the virus is of natural origin, citing clues in its genome and its similarity to SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome. Vincent Racaniello, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Columbia University, who has been studying the virus since its genome was first recorded, has said it is clear that the virus was not engineered or accidentally released.

“It is something that is clearly selected in nature,” Racaniello said. “There are two examples where the sequence tells us that humans had no hand in making this virus because they would not have known to do these things.”

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THE CENTRE FOR RESEARCH ON GLOBALIZATION

WHAT IT IS: The Montreal-based center publishes articles on global politics and policy, including a healthy dose of conspiracy theories on vaccines and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It’s led by Michel Chossudovsky, a professor emeritus of economics at the University of Ottawa and a conspiracy theorist who has argued the U.S. military can control the weather.

The center publishes authors from around the world — many of whom have advanced baseless claims about the origins of the outbreak. In February, for instance, the center published an interview with Igor Nikulin suggesting the coronavirus was a U.S. bioweapon created to target Chinese people.

The center’s website, globalresearch.ca., “has become deeply enmeshed in Russia’s broader disinformation and propaganda ecosystem” by peddling anti-U.S. conspiracy theories, according to a 2020 U.S. State Department report which found that seven of its supposed writers do not even exist but were created by Russian military intelligence.

COVID CLAIM: While the center has published several articles about the virus, one suggesting it originated in the U.S. caught the attention of top Chinese officials.

On March 12, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian retweeted an article published by the center titled: “China’s Coronavirus: A Shocking Update. Did The Virus Originate in the US?”

“This article is very much important to each and every one of us,” he posted in English on Twitter. “Please read and retweet it. COVID-19: Further Evidence that the Virus Originated in the US.”

He also tweeted: “It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation.”

The story by Larry Romanoff, a regular author at the center, cites several debunked theories, including one that members of the U.S. military brought the virus to China during the Military World Games in fall 2019. Romanoff concludes that it has now “been proven” that the virus originated from outside of China, despite scientific consensus that it did.

EVIDENCE? The World Health Organization has concluded that the coronavirus emerged in China, where the first cases and deaths were reported. No evidence has surfaced to suggest the virus was imported into China by the U.S.

Chossudovsky and Romanoff did not respond to repeated messages seeking comment. Romanoff’s biography lists him as a visiting professor at Fudan University in Shanghai, but he is not listed among the university’s faculty. The university did not respond to an email asking about Romanoff’s employment.

Romanoff’s original article was taken down in the spring, but Zhao’s tweet remains up.

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IGOR NIKULIN

WHO IS HE? A four-time failed political candidate, Nikulin is prominently quoted in Russian state media and fringe publications in the west as a biologist and former weapons inspector in Iraq who served on a U.N. commission on biological and chemical weapons in the 1990s.

COVID CLAIM: Nikulin argues the U.S. created the virus and used it to attack China. He first voiced the belief in a Jan. 20, 2020, story by Zvezda, a state media outlet tied to the Russian military. He appeared on Russian state TV at least 18 times between Jan. 27, 2020, and late April of that year.

Once the virus reached the U.S., Nikulin changed his theory, saying “globalists” were using the virus to depopulate the earth.

Nikulin has expressed support for weaponizing misinformation to hurt the U.S. in the past. On his website, he suggests claiming the U.S. created HIV as a way to weaken America from within. Russian intelligence mounted a similar 1980s disinformation campaign dubbed “Operation INFEKTION.”

“If you prove and declare… that the virus was bred in American laboratories, the American economy will collapse under the onslaught of billions of lawsuits by millions of AIDS carriers around the world,” Nikulin wrote on his website.

EVIDENCE? Nikulin offered no evidence to support his assertions, and there are reasons to doubt his veracity.

Former U.N. weapons inspector Richard Butler, for whom Nikulin claims to have worked, said he had no memory of Nikulin, and that his story sounded “sloppily fabricated, and not credible.”

No U.N. records could be found to confirm his employment.

In an exchange with the AP over Facebook, Nikulin insisted his claims and background are accurate, though he said some records from U.N. work were destroyed in an American bombing during the Iraq invasion.

When told that Butler didn’t know him, Nikulin responded “This is his opinion.”

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GREG RUBINI

WHO HE IS: Greg Rubini is the name of an internet conspiracy theorist who claims to have high-level contacts in intelligence and listed his location on Twitter as “classified,” until he was kicked off the platform. His posts have been retweeted thousands of times by supporters of QAnon, a conspiracy theory centered on the baseless belief that Trump is waging a secret campaign against enemies in the “deep state” and a secret sect of satanic pedophiles and cannibals.

COVID CLAIM: Rubini has tweeted that Dr. Anthony Fauci created the coronavirus and that it was used as a bioweapon to reduce the world’s population and undermine Trump.

EVIDENCE? Rubini’s doesn’t appear to be the intelligence insider that he pretends to be.

Buzzfeed attempted to track down Rubini last year and determined it is the alias of a 61-year-old Italian man who has worked in marketing and music promotions. A previous version of his Twitter bio indicates he is a fan of classic rock and the films of Stanley Kubrick.

Attempts to reach Rubini online and through business contacts were unsuccessful.

Rubini has bristled at efforts to verify his claims. When a social media user asked: “My question to you @GregRubini is, ‘Where and what is your proof?’ Rubini responded curtly: “And my question is: why should I give it to you?”

Twitter suspended Rubini’s account in November 2020 for repeated violations of its policies.

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KEVIN BARRETT

WHO HE IS: A former lecturer on Islam at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Barrett left the university amid criticism for his claims that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were orchestrated by people linked to the U.S. and Israeli governments.

Barrett calls himself “a professional conspiracy theorist, for want of a better term” and has argued government conspiracies were behind the 2004 Madrid bombing, the 2005 London bombing, the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting.

COVID CLAIM: Barrett said he is “80%” sure coronavirus was created by elements within the U.S. government as a bioweapon and used to attack China.

Iran was a secondary target, he has argued. Writing for Iran’s PressTV, he said the early outbreak in that country “suggests that the Americans and/or their partners the Israelis… may have deliberately attacked Iran.”

Barrett further detailed his views during an interview with the AP.

“It seemed fairly obvious to me that the first hypothesis one would look at when something as extraordinary as this COVID pandemic hits, is that it would be a US bio-war strike,” he said.

EVIDENCE? Barrett cited reports that the US warned its allies in November 2019 about a dangerous virus emerging from China. Barrett said that’s long before authorities in China knew about the severity of the outbreak.

Official sources have denied issuing any warning. If the U.S. did know about the virus that soon, it was likely thanks to intelligence sources within China, which may have known about the virus as early as November 2019, according to former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

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LUC MONTAGNIER

WHO HE IS: Montagnier is a world-renowned virologist who won the Nobel prize in 2008 for discovering HIV.

COVID CLAIM: During an April interview with the French news channel CNews, Montagnier claimed that the coronavirus did not originate in nature and was manipulated. Montagnier said that in the process of making the vaccine for AIDS, someone took the genetic material and added it to the coronavirus. Montagnier cites a retracted paper published in January from Indian scientists who had said they had found sequences of HIV in the coronavirus. AP made multiple unsuccessful attempts to contact Montagnier.

EVIDENCE: Experts who have looked at the genome sequence of the virus have said it has no HIV-1 sequences. In January, Indian scientists published a paper on bioRXIV, a repository for scientific papers that have not yet been peer-reviewed or published in a traditional scientific journal. The paper said that the scientists had found “uncanny similarity of unique inserts” in COVID-19 and HIV. Social media users picked up the paper as proof that the virus was engineered. As soon as it was published, the scientific community widely debunked the paper on social media. It was later withdrawn.

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SUPREME LEADER ALI KHAMENEI and HOSSEIN SALAMI

WHO THEY ARE: Khamenei is the second and current Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He has the final say on all matters of state, including the economy, military and health divisions.

Since being elected to office in 1981, Khamenei has maintained his skeptical view of the U.S. as Iran’s foremost enemy. The tensions between the two countries boiled over in 2018 when Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear deal and reimposed crippling sanctions. At the time, Khamenei remarked, “I said from the first day: Don’t trust America.”

Hossein Salami was appointed by Khamenei as commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in April 2019. He leads the country’s paramilitary force that oversees Iran’s ballistic missile program and responds to threats from both inside and outside the country.

COVID CLAIM: Salami declared on March 5, 2020, that Iran was engaged in a fight against a virus that might be the product of an American biological attack. On those grounds, Salami ordered a Ground Force Biological Defense Maneuver to test the country’s ability to combat a biological attack. Beginning March 16, the Ground Force, in close collaboration with the Health Ministry, began holding nationwide biodefense drills.

Khamenei was among the first and most powerful world leaders to suggest the coronavirus could be a biological weapon created by the U.S. During his annual address on March 22 to millions of Iranians for the Persian New Year, Khamenei questioned why the U.S. would offer aid to countries like Iran if they themselves were suffering and accused of making the virus.

Khamenei went on to refuse U.S. assistance, saying “possibly (U.S.) medicine is a way to spread the virus more.” Last month, he refused to accept coronavirus vaccines manufactured in Britain and the U.S., calling them “forbidden.” The Iranian Mission to the United Nations in New York did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

EVIDENCE: There is no evidence that the U.S. created the virus or used it as a weapon to attack Iran.

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