# Mark Dougan Former Palm Beach County, Florida deputy sheriff turned Moscow-based disinformation operator — the human hub behind one of the largest known networks of fake American "local news" websites laundering Kremlin propaganda. A naturalized figure of the [[Russia]] foreign-influence apparatus, Dougan illustrates how a single fugitive with a grievance and generative-AI tools can manufacture disinformation at industrial scale. ## From Florida deputy to Moscow fugitive - Served as a deputy sheriff in Palm Beach County, Florida. After leaving the force he waged a years-long harassment and impersonation campaign against the local sheriff's office. - His documented impersonations included posing as a county commissioner in emails urging voters to oppose the sheriff's reelection; masquerading online as a Russian tech worker (the persona "BadVolf") to leak confidential law-enforcement information in violation of state law; and inventing a fictional New York City heiress named "Jessica" to trick a sheriff's-office adviser into divulging internal misconduct. - Under federal investigation for computer hacking and extortion, Dougan fled the United States and ultimately settled in **Moscow**, where he was granted asylum — placing him beyond U.S. jurisdiction and inside the Russian information ecosystem. ## The fake-news network - Researchers at the disinformation-tracking firm [[NewsGuard]] linked Dougan to **150–170+ fake "local news" websites** built to mimic legitimate American outlets — with names like **DC Weekly**, **New York News Daily**, **Boston Times**, and **Chicago Chronicle**. The genre is often called "pink slime": empty local-news shells used to launder propaganda under a veneer of hometown credibility. - The sites seed and amplify pro-Kremlin false narratives, concentrated on the war in Ukraine — fabricated stories about corruption by Ukrainian president [[Volodymyr Zelensky]] and his wife (including the widely circulated hoax that Olena Zelenska bought a Bugatti with U.S. aid money) and staged "whistleblower" videos alleging Ukrainian interference in U.S. politics. - Dougan's operation makes heavy use of **generative AI** — OpenAI's ChatGPT and image generator DALL-E 3 — to mass-produce articles and imagery cheaply, a force-multiplier that distinguishes his network from earlier troll-farm models. - Per NewsGuard's reporting, between September and May the network's content was cited or referenced roughly **8,000 times** and seen by **more than 37 million people across 16 languages**. Independent researchers (including Microsoft and Clemson University's Media Forensics Hub) have linked his sites to the Russian influence operation tracked as **[[Storm-1516]]** (also called CopyCop). - **GRU funding (October 2024).** The Washington Post reported documents, obtained by a European intelligence service, showing Dougan "was provided funding by an officer from the GRU" — payments to his Moscow bank account beginning April 2022 from an officer whom two European security officials identified as Yury Khoroshenky of [[GRU]] [[Unit 29155]], working under cover at the Center for Geopolitical Expertise. Dougan told the Post that "no one sends me money for anything." - **From ChatGPT to self-hosted models.** By 2025 [[Recorded Future]] found the network running self-hosted, uncensored models built on Meta's Llama 3 rather than Western commercial tools, and identified at least 200 new sites that year. The GRU reportedly helped fund the infrastructure. - **EU sanctions (December 15, 2025).** The European Union sanctioned Dougan for supporting the CopyCop/[[Storm-1516]] operation, citing his links to the GRU and the [[Center for Geopolitical Expertise]]. - Asked directly about the sites, Dougan denied involvement — "Never heard of them," he told reporters over [[WhatsApp]]. ## Why he's in this KB Dougan is a discrete, well-documented node in the [[Russia]] influence pillar and a vivid case of automated [[Disinformation]]: a study in (1) the **pink-slime fake-local-news** vector, (2) the operational use of generative AI for disinformation, and (3) the recruitment of disaffected Americans as overseas force-multipliers for Kremlin messaging. He sits alongside the [[Tenet Media Russian Influence Indictment]] as a contemporary example of Russian information operations aimed at U.S. and Western audiences, distinguished by its automation and sheer site volume rather than paid domestic influencers. ## See Also - [[Russia]] - [[Disinformation]] - [[Tenet Media Russian Influence Indictment]] - [[Storm-1516]] - [[Operation Overload]] - [[Unit 29155]] - [[NewsGuard]] - [[Center for Geopolitical Expertise]]