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N.J. firm made misleading websites in names of multiple Canadians and an alleged CRA scammer
N.J. firm made misleading websites in names of multiple Canadians and an alleged CRA scammer

CBC

time09-05-2025

  • Business
  • CBC

N.J. firm made misleading websites in names of multiple Canadians and an alleged CRA scammer

If his Google Scholar profile is to be believed, Louis Arriola is a prolific scientist, having contributed to more than 700 scholarly articles about a wide range of unrelated disciplines from economics to advanced nanotechnology. According to the profile, he contributed to a PhD dissertation on the automotive industry before he turned nine years old. While the papers appear to be real, Arriola's contribution to the research is questionable. His name does not appear on the original publication in the 20 most recent entries on his profile and a university professor credited on more than 100 of the papers confirmed Arriola was not involved. An investigation by CBC's The Fifth Estate has found that Arriola is among more than 100 people, including multiple Canadians, with a similar pattern of spam and false web content surrounding them. Website registration records, online advertising data and connections between fake social media profiles indicate that pattern points to a New Jersey reputation management firm called David Rosenberg of Lakewood, N.J., who operates advertises on his LinkedIn page that he can "delete online negative info fast," and that "by creating new and relevant content," his company is able to push negative online information "further down the search results in Google, Yahoo and Bing." A LinkedIn post from Rosenberg states that only seven per cent of people go beyond the first page of search results. "This meant that for reputation management, if we pushed down a negative to the third page," he wrote, "almost no one would see it." In Arriola's case, looking beyond the first page of results and searching public records databases shows a long history of legal troubles. An affidavit from an employee of the Canada Revenue Agency, submitted to Federal Court in 2020, says that Arriola was the operator of a "paper company" with "no real business activity" involved in a tax "scheme" that saw the agency pay out $63 million in what it called "illegitimate" refunds. Arriola also was convicted in 2009 in California for a telecom-related fraud and has been named in civil lawsuits in multiple U.S. states that were pursuing him and companies he controlled for money that was loaned and allegedly never paid back. His Google Scholar profile is one part of an interconnected cloud of misleading and spam websites. Blog posts about him link to an artist profile advertising stock images as his "work," as well as accounts at video sharing platforms and a website containing his name — — which has connections to Rosenberg of The Fifth Estate has attempted to contact Arriola in multiple ways over the past two years but has received no response. For this story, contact was attempted via a LinkedIn profile that was recently active. A good deal of the information about Arriola available online is true, making it difficult to separate fact from fiction. For instance, on his IMDB profile, he is listed as executive producer for the 2019 film Rambo: Last Blood, a fact supported by the appearance of his name in the end credits of the film. "The whole point here is to confuse people, confuse people about the truth in relation to this particular person," said Ahmed Al-Rawi, director of The Disinformation Project at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C. "As consumers of information, as readers, as users of the internet, the expectation is to factually understand the world around us," Al-Rawi said. "If what we are ending up reading about is fake, we will have the wrong impression about what is around us, about the world, about the people we think we know." IP address connections was made available online by a server with a specific IP address, like a street address for the internet. The Fifth Estate sent a message to a phone number associated with David Rosenberg of asking if he was in control of the approximately 140 websites hosted at the same address as Within a week, all but 19 of those 140 sites, including Arriola's, were scattered to a variety of new IP addresses. Many had been at that original IP address for multiple years. Website registration records show that 14 of the 140 sites previously listed Rosenberg as registrant or administrator. Those records were made anonymous in 2018, around the same time that Rosenberg's name was removed from his own website — Many of the websites at the IP address followed a similar pattern, with the first and last name of the person the website was about in the URL. A phone call to the number associated with Rosenberg was answered by a man who declined to identify himself. "I think you have the wrong number," he said during the 25-second call and hung up. A lawyer claiming to represent Rosenberg contacted The Fifth Estate, noting that he was in possession of questions sent via text message to that same phone number. Since that phone call, neither the lawyer nor Rosenberg have responded to subsequent questions or correspondence. On the internet, "you can make up things and create a facade, create a whole world in order to mislead people or create a certain type of reality," Al-Rawi said. Artist profiles emerge online In 2023, Dr. David Gerber, a gynecologist in midtown Toronto, was stated to have"engaged in disgraceful, dishonourable or unprofessional conduct with respect to 10 patients" by Ontario's physician regulator. As the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario was investigating patient complaints about Gerber and pursuing action against him, artist profiles in his name began appearing online. They claimed to show photographs, created by him, some even offering to sell the pictures at a specific price. However, the works were not his, and appear to be part of a network of internet content created by Rosenberg. A number of the photos on Gerber's art profile also appear on a blog at — a website that was hosted at the IP address linked to Rosenberg. "After investigation, Dr. Gerber has learned that [a search engine optimization firm] in the U.S. who he retained from mid-2022 until August 2023, had without his knowledge, authorization or consent, created the sites," a lawyer for Gerber said in response to questions. "Mr. Rosenberg was recommended to Dr. Gerber by a friend," the lawyer added in a subsequent email, stating that the physician "knew nothing of Mr. Rosenberg or any of his businesses prior to this referral." While was taken down following initial questions about it to Gerber, the site appears to have been reactivated when it was moved away from the Rosenberg-connected IP address. "Mr. Rosenberg is no longer responding to Dr. Gerber's communications to him," Gerber's lawyer said. "In respect of the websites and web pages and posts," he said, "they all constitute a form of impersonation, of which Dr. Gerber is the subject." "Dr. Gerber is not," he added, responsible for "any website mill or the publication of disinformation" or "the use of spam or false and misleading content." Other Canadians who had websites at that address include a Calgary orthodontist who admitted to taking payment for treatments and then not completing them and two finance professionals who ran into issues with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. A communications firm contacted The Fifth Estate regarding questions to those financiers, Marc Bistricer and Paul Zogala of Murchinson Ltd. In regard to Rosenberg and they said that "we have checked our vendor invoices during the time period you suggested and neither Murchinson nor the individuals in question ever hired this firm." They declined to respond to further questions. Bistricer, Zogala and Gerber each have profiles on the art sharing website Those profiles include "work" that is not their own and links to a variety of spam social media profiles. Behance users can post their own work, and follow the work of other artists they are interested in. Bistricer, Zogala and Gerber's work is followed by a nearly identical list of more than 50 accounts. Their shared followers include five accounts that are variations on the name Mark Tompkins, as well as accounts for Jay Grieg, J. Grieg and Jason Allen Grieg. Twelve of their shared followers are individuals who themselves had websites at the IP address The Fifth Estate asked Rosenberg about.

Does it make sense to revoke Buffy Sainte-Marie's Juno Awards and Polaris Prizes?
Does it make sense to revoke Buffy Sainte-Marie's Juno Awards and Polaris Prizes?

CBC

time11-03-2025

  • Entertainment
  • CBC

Does it make sense to revoke Buffy Sainte-Marie's Juno Awards and Polaris Prizes?

Social Sharing The Juno Awards and the Polaris Music Prize have announced that they are rescinding the honours Buffy Sainte-Marie won from their organizations over her career. The decisions were made in light of her recent acknowledgement that she is an American citizen. The Fifth Estate called into question whether the music icon's claims of Indigenous ancestry are true. Marek Tyler is a nêhiyaw and Scottish musician, educator and entrepreneur. Kim Wheeler is an Anishinabe/Mohawk writer and producer. Today on Commotion, Tyler and Wheeler join host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to share their reaction to the award news, and whether it signals a greater hope for systemic change in the Canadian entertainment industry. We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player. WATCH | Today's episode on YouTube: Elamin: Marek, what was your reaction when you heard the news about Buffy being stripped of the Junos and the Polaris Prize? Marek: My reaction? It was shrapnel. And what I mean by "shrapnel" is, for more than 100 years our identity has been systematically attacked…. I think about those families whose identities are constantly being questioned when they walk into a Walmart, when they go to the dentist, and when they go through security wherever they're at. And so for every newly-outed Indigenous person, I think there's shrapnel in the community, a feeling of betrayal at this level, because those scars of identity that we're still living with? They're new. That's where it leaves me. So when I think about that piece, then I go, okay, well, let's think about systemic change, not symbolic actions. The trophies and awards that we receive for these accomplishments, they're symbols of success. But what is required, in my opinion, is systemic change. So yes, someone's symbol has been removed from them. But really what I'm thinking about now is to protect future generations so that they don't endure this shrapnel that we see in [our] community. That we right now require systemic change, and that, for me, is Indigenous-led conversations so that these organizations, who have antiquated policy, can make better, more informed decisions…. So yes, shrapnel, absolutely. But these symbolic actions need to be grounded in systemic change. Elamin: Marek, I appreciate the image of shrapnel and the ways that it evokes a radiating hurt. I think you're trying to get at two different ideas: the idea of the story about Buffy being a story about ancestry coming into question, and the story of what that does to identity. Ancestry and identity are related, but they are two different things. And I think the idea of the questioning of Buffy's ancestry ending up introducing a whole terrain of doubt for people who are sort of trying to figure out their identity, I'm very sensitive to that. Kim, you're a Polaris Prize jury member, but you were not on the jury when Buffy's album Power in the Blood won in 2015. How are you feeling about that decision from Polaris to rescind Buffy's prize? Kim: Well, I understand why they're doing it. The rules are you have to be Canadian, and she isn't. I don't know if she ever actually claimed to be Canadian, or if anybody ever asked if she was, if anybody ever asked to see her passport. We all just, when Buffy said that she was from Piapot, those were her people, we all just took it at face value. I think it's the right thing to do, to rescind it based on her being an American citizen. I think that they've sidestepped the issue that she is being accused of being a "pretendian." And I say "accused" because I think I'm still on the fence. I'm still confused. I mean, you have to go through the seven stages of grief, right? And people are still dealing with that. There are people who are still angry. There are people who are still in denial. There are people who have totally come to accept it. So when we talk about should we take the prize away based on her citizenship? Yes. I really like what Marek said, that these are new conversations. These are conversations that we haven't had to have before, because our people have not been in the position to win these major awards. So when we have to have these conversations — and yes, they have to be Indigenous-led — we are all still doing this for the first time.

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