Joel Zamel

Joel Zamel (born 1986) is an Australian-Israeli inventor and entrepreneur. He owns and operates several private intelligence and political analysis agencies that offer services for forecasting simulations, wargaming, influence operations, social media campaigns, private investment brokering, and election‑campaign strategy. These agencies include the Joel Zamel Investment Group (JZIG), the geostrategic consultancy Wikistrat, and Psy-Group, a now‑defunct private intelligence firm that shut down after it was revealed to be under investigation by Robert Mueller.

Early life and education Joel Zamel was born in 1986 in Australia. He is the son of Gary Zamel, a wealthy Australian mining engineer and businessman.

Career Zamel is the founder of several private intelligence and political analysis agencies, including the geostrategic consultancy firm Wikistrat and the Philippines-based private intelligence agency WhiteKnight. Zamel gained widespread visibility and public attention during Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigation in 2018, when The New York Times reported on his dealings with Donald Trump's electoral campaign. He has established various social media influence companies in Eastern Europe and Asia, and has formed a close advisory team of former government officials who served in senior positions in the U.S., U.K., and Middle Eastern governments.

In 2015, Zamel's Wikistrat spent a week running scenarios, called the "Cyber Mercenaries project," on how a U.S. election-interference campaign could be carried out by Russian cyber actors. These were later reported to Donald Trump Jr. in 2016. and Jared Kushner.

After the 2016 Trump election win, Zamel's company, Psy Group, formed a partnership with Cambridge Analytica to jointly bid for contracts with the American government. In December 2016, George Nader purchased a presentation from WhiteKnight that demonstrated the impact of social media campaigns on Donald Trump's electoral victory.

The meeting with Trump was later scrutinized by Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigation and subsequently led to investigations into his links to Trump officials, which continued after the Mueller investigation finished. Zamel's meetings with Saudi officials were also scrutinized by Mueller.

In February 2019, federal agents detained Zamel at a Washington airport, and he appeared before a grand jury to give evidence to Robert Mueller about his links to George Nader. Zamel also had contact with Michael Flynn.

On April 5, 2019, the Senate Intelligence Committee sent a letter to Walter Soriano, the owner of USG Security Limited, based in Britain, for his communication with Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, Psy-Group, Wikistrat, Black Cube, and Orbis Business Intelligence (a firm co-founded by Christopher Steele). Soriano has links to Oleg Deripaska.

Zamel's firms have completed work for Oleg V. Deripaska and Dmitry Rybolovlev. Mukasey, a former law partner of Rudy Giuliani, also represented President Donald Trump.

Beliefs

Zamel believes Bitcoin is a "truth machine protected by a fortress of misconceptions."

Zamel believes in information operations as an underutilized tool for countering extremist ideologies. He believes "dictators are beating the West when it comes to sophisticated information operations." He has advocated for "exploiting the frequent protest movements in Iran and the ever-present disgust with the regime through covert on-the-ground and digital support".