AzimaвЂ™s accounts apparently had already been hacked. Whatever occurred at the heated meeting, Mr. вЂњI meant that once litigation is started or a prosecutor takes over, these things get a life of their own,вЂќ he testified as part of last yearвЂ™s lawsuit in London. That lawyer, Neil Gerrard, who retired last year from the firm, has disputed that account. Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi, who rules the emirate, told an associate to вЂњgo afterвЂќ Mr. But by a decade later, that relationship had soured. Azima entered into a joint business venture with the emirateвЂ™s investment fund.

The caseвЂ™s reach touches on the United States, Britain, India and Ras al Khaymah, a tiny emirate ruled by a sheikh near Dubai. Azima offers an unusually well-documented anatomy of hack-and-dump operations, showcasing their international complexity and the difficulties of identifying those who run and pay for them. вЂњYou canвЂ™t have a business that does this without a demand for it,вЂќ said Mark Califano, a former federal prosecutor who has worked in the corporate investigations industry. Gupta, who has denied any wrongdoing, remains a fugitive. hacking charges in 2015 alongside two American private investigators. The name of BellTroXвЂ™s owner, Sumit Gupta, had surfaced before, when he was indicted on U.S. Meanwhile, a cybersecurity watchdog, Citizen Lab, reported last year that an Indian company called BellTroX ran a вЂњhacking for hireвЂќ operation for hundreds of clients seeking to gather information about activists, journalists and people involved in litigation. Along with upending politics, the operations are creating challenges for law firms, news organizations and companies throughout the business world.

The tactic, called a вЂњhack and dumpвЂќ or вЂњhack and leak,вЂќ is best known for its use against Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign. In short order, the records publicly emerged in news accounts and a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against him by a little-known emirate. Several years ago, hundreds of his emails, text messages and documents were stolen and loaded onto obscure corners of the internet. Azima, an Iranian American living in Kansas City, Mo., was not accused of wrongdoing in any of those episodes but is now entangled in a mystery involving another underground industry - hacking. He popped up in the Iran-contra affair, was named in a Clinton-era fund-raising scandal and owned airlines that flew weapons into war zones. For decades, Farhad Azima navigated the shadowlands where business blends with intrigue and the limits of the law.

Contra returns hacks