SOFIA: A Bulgarian group of dozens of cyber activists at first clubbed together to battle Russian disinformation, but they have since found other foes — like animal abusers.
They call themselves the BG Elves, which both refers to the kind-hearted characters of Scandinavian mythology and hints at a rivalry with the Internet’s malicious trolls.
The collective of about 70 anonymous cybersecurity experts have made a name for themselves by creating problems for their adversaries.
One of their latest efforts was helping an animal rights NGO uncover evidence that led to the March arrest of a woman and a man accused of selling videos online of hundreds of animals being tortured to death.
“Our work was crucial, because for the first time a crime was solved in Bulgaria based on OSINT data, proving that our efforts can produce concrete results,” software developer Petko Petkov, the Elves’ only public face, told AFP.
OSINT refers to open-source intelligence, which is information gathered with digital investigation techniques like reverse image search and geolocation.
In the summer of 2024, the NGO alerted the cyber sleuths to videos posted on Telegram of a masked woman torturing animals. The Elves tracked her down within hours.
Using OSINT, they were also able to trace the locations where the videos of cats, rabbits and guinea pigs being tortured on camera were filmed by her accomplice.
The videos sparked widespread protests in Bulgaria, and prompted the government to propose emergency legislation.


Set up in 2023 in response to pro-Kremlin disinformation flooding Bulgaria, the group first zeroed in on the key players involved in the campaigns.
“There were about 10 of us in a chat group, we refined the concept, then put out a call for volunteers,” Petkov told AFP about the group’s founding.
They have grown significantly since and include experts in cybersecurity, social engineering and databases.
“We are not hackers, we are researchers,” said Petkov, 37, who moved from central Bulgaria to Kyiv shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Dedicated to activism, the Elves try to fight the deluge of disinformation by disseminating “counter-propaganda that makes people think,” he said.
“We noticed that a (disinfo) narrative... takes some time to reach people. Our idea was to flood the space with humor and irony before the propaganda takes hold,” said Petkov.
Recently, they launched a viral meme campaign targeting the main false claims about Bulgaria’s accession to the eurozone, distributing the content through profiles embedded within major disinformation networks.
In March, BG Elves supported a Romanian journalist in an investigation that exposed a Russia-linked disinformation and propaganda network funded through online advertising.


In the wake of the recent arrests, Bulgaria proposed a bill in parliament, which allows for higher prison terms of up to 10 years for torturing animals.
Nearly 300 people have been convicted of such offenses in the last five years, but few end up in prison.
Petya Altimirska, president of the animal welfare association CAAI, who had reached out to the Elves for help in the abuse case, has since received numerous reports of “even more serious” cases, adding that the cyber sleuths are already “on it.”
While the group was praised for exposing the animal abuse, it has also faced criticism and numerous threats for its provocative approach and alleged political bias.

PARIS: Nations will be under pressure to deliver more than just rhetoric at a UN oceans summit in France next week, including much-needed funds to better protect the world’s overexploited and polluted seas.
The third UN Ocean Conference (UNOC) seeks to build global unity and raise money for marine conservation even as nations disagree over deep-sea mining, plastic trash and overfishing.
On Sunday, hosts France are expecting about 70 heads of state and government to arrive in Nice for a pre-conference opening ceremony, including Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Oceans are “in a state of emergency” and the June 9 to 13 meeting “will not be just another routine gathering,” said UN under-secretary-general Li Junhua.
“There’s still time to change our course if we act collectively,” he told reporters.
Most countries are expected to send ministers or lower-level delegates to the summit, which does not carry the weight of a climate COP or UN treaty negotiation or make legally binding decisions.
The United States under President Donald Trump — whose recent push to fast-track seabed mining in international waters sparked global outrage — is unlikely to send a delegation at all.
France has promised the summit will do for ocean conservation what the Paris Agreement did for global climate action.
Nations present are expected to adopt a “Nice Declaration“: a statement of support for greater ocean protection, coupled with voluntary additional commitments by individual governments.
Greenpeace has slammed the text — which was agreed after months of negotiation — as “weak” and said it risked making Nice “a meaningless talking shop.”
Pacific leaders are expected to turn out in force and demand, in particular, concrete financial commitments from governments.
“The message is clear: voluntary pledges are not enough,” Ralph Regenvanu, environment minister for Vanuatu, told reporters.
The summit will also host business leaders, international donors and ocean activists, while a science convention beforehand is expected to draw 2,000 ocean experts.
France has set a high bar of securing by Nice the 60 ratifications needed to enact a landmark treaty to protect marine habitats outside national jurisdiction.
So far, only 28 countries and the European Union have done so. Olivier Poivre d’Arvor, France’s oceans envoy, says that without the numbers the conference “will be a failure.”
Bringing the high seas treaty into force is seen as crucial to meeting the globally-agreed target of protecting 30 percent of oceans by 2030.
The summit could also prove influential on other higher-level negotiations in the months ahead and provide “a temperature check in terms of ambition,” said Megan Randles, head of Greenpeace’s delegation at the Nice conference.
In July the International Seabed Authority will deliberate over a long-awaited mining code for the deep oceans, one that Trump has skirted despite major ecological concerns.
That comes in the face of growing calls for governments to support an international moratorium on seabed mining, something France and roughly 30 other countries have already backed.
And in August, nations will again seek to finalize a binding global treaty to tackle plastic trash after previous negotiation rounds collapsed.
Countries and civil society groups are likely to use the Nice meeting to try to shore up support ahead of these proceedings, close observers said.
Nations meeting at UN conferences have struggled recently to find consensus and much-needed finance to combat climate change and other environmental threats.
Oceans are the least funded of all the UN’s sustainable development goals but it wasn’t clear if Nice would shift the status quo, said Angelique Pouponneau, a lead negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States.
“With so many competing crises and distractions on the global agenda, it’s hard to be confident that the level of ambition needed will actually show up,” Pouponneau told AFP.
Costa Rica, which is co-hosting the conference with France, said public and private commitments of $100 billion with “clear timelines, budgets and accountability mechanisms” could be expected.
“This is what is different this time around — zero rhetoric, maximum results,” Maritza Chan Valverde, Costa Rica’s permanent representative to the UN, told reporters.
Pepe Clarke, oceans practice leader from WWF, told AFP there was “an understandable level of skepticism about conferences.”
But he said Nice must be “a turning point... because to date the actions have fallen far short of what’s needed to sustain a healthy ocean into the future.”