Digital Forensic Research Lab is reporting that a sophisticated foreign influence operation, initially uncovered in France, extended its tactics to the New York City mayoral race. Resident Senior Fellow Emerson Brooking explained that this marks an early glimpse into how foreign interference is adapting and reaching American shores.
DFRLab said France’s foreign interference watchdog, Viginum, released a technical report on June 11 detailing “Rokh Solis,” an influence operation. It said this operation smeared three left-wing mayoral candidates ahead of March’s French municipal elections. The investigation pointed to Blackcore, an Israeli firm that advertises itself as an “elite influence, cyber, and technology company.” Blackcore reportedly controls 1,600 social media personas and built a culture war using fake voting blocs and resurrected fringe groups to target French voters.
The operation also reached New York City, with Blackcore-operated accounts amplifying posts by mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo in his race against Zohran Mamdani for the November 2025 municipal election. DFRLab noted this appears to be one of the first documented cases of a foreign actor using clandestine social media assets to try to affect a U.S. municipal election outcome. Viginum did not identify who commissioned the operation, and the FBI declined to comment.
DFRLab warned that the United States may be increasingly vulnerable to such interference. It said the White House has dismantled several institutions designed to detect foreign influence over the past 18 months, including the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s Foreign Malign Influence Center. DFRLab concluded that the U.S. will enter its 2026 midterm elections more blind to foreign influence operations than at any time since 2016.