Image showing the Pakistan flag and former PM Imran Khan.
Credit: iStock, Reuters Photos
Fact can be stranger than fiction—days after the Pakistani Army allotted $7 million to combat disinformation and fake news, an investigative report has revealed that the Pakistani Army itself was using a fake think tank to spread anti-Imran Khan propaganda in the United States.
On December 20 last year, Pakistani broadcast channel GTV aired a segment on (supposedly) Washington DC-based think tank Beltway Grid Policy Centre's report, titled, 'Democracy Under Siege: Economic Fallout and Diplomatic Implications of Protests in Pakistan'.
Written like an academic paper, the "study", authored by one Dr Alexandra Caldwell, argued that the November 2024 protests, which lasted just a few days and were led by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party under former PM Imran Khan, increased inflation, precipitated a currency collapse, caused a loss of 0.8 per cent of GDP, and came at a cumulative loss of three trillion Pakistani rupees. Understandably perhaps, the report made the national news in the country.
This wasn't Beltway's first commentary on Imran Khan; earlier in 2024, the think tank had taken a dire view on the former Pakistan PM's bid to become the Oxford University Chancellor, a bid which was eventually discarded as per university regulations.
While the think tank continued to publish various reports—primarily on South Asian politics—things took a strange turn this year when it turned out that Beltway Grid Policy Centre, in fact, does not exist...at least in real life.
An investigative report by Drop Site News probed the supposed DC-based think tank and found many inconsistencies, to say the least.
To start with, Beltway silently came into the picture in October last year, describing itself as "a forward-thinking research institute dedicated to exploring the modern dynamics of strategy and influence" with a mission to "to illuminate the hidden tactics shaping global politics".
While that description sounds like a generic think tank-ish thing to say, a closer look revealed otherwise.
Drop Site's investigation into Beltway not only found that the supposed lobbying think tank had no physical footprint in DC, it also found that the think tank, which even listed its members on its website, did not have any employees at all.
Beltway, on its website, lists 12 staff members but suspiciously, doesn't list its executive director, president, CEO, or any other leader.
These staff members too turned out to be purely fictional, with some of their designations being reportedly lifted out of 19th century Elizabethan novels.
Most of the listed staff members, meanwhile, had no relevant experience, and Drop Site also failed to contact any of them. To make matters worse, the qualifications of one of the listed staff members—’Director of Policy Research and Impact’ Dr Eleanor Pemberton—were found to be non-existent, while a web search of her name revealed that one Eleanor Pemberton was born in 1808, and died tragically that very year.
Well, what about the photo of the team posted on Beltway’s website? A Google reverse image search revealed that the picture was a stock photo, readily available on the internet.
An archived image showing Beltway's 'About Us' page that used a stock photo.
Further, Drop Site noted another peculiarity with Beltway—while lobbying in DC is both legal and regulated, it’s considered a dirty word and lobbying firms usually stay well clear of using the term to describe themselves, often using alternatives like “government affairs” to describe their work. Beltway, meanwhile, had the word “lobbying” all over its website, something that an experienced lobbying firm in DC is unlikely to do.
The overall profile of the company, in fact, was so strange, Drop Site wrote, “The unusual nature of Beltway Grid's staffing leaves open several possibilities. The organization may be so hard at work defending the policies of the Pakistan military and criticizing former Prime Minister Imran Khan, the team simply hasn't had time to lead previous lives or respond to requests for comment. They may be early alien settlers, dropped off by drones on the coast of New Jersey, who are fans of Jane Austen and have come to study ‘the modern dynamics of lobbying.’”
If these findings weren’t evidence enough of the physical non-existence of Beltway, Drop Site noted that two of the staffers listed on the site were described as experts in ‘5th Generation Warfare’—a term related to information warfare—that has been widely used by the Pakistani Army to describe digital and hybrid warfare.
Not mincing any words, Drop Site wrote: “The fake DC think-tank Beltway Grid, whose website domain was registered on October 11 of last year, seems to be part of a covert effort to shape US policy in Pakistan’s favor by spreading disinformation online as a means of influencing mainstream discourse.”