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BEIJING, Jan. 4 (Xinhua) -- An new investigation has found that a 15-year-long global disinformation campaign has been using defunct organizations alongside at least 750 fake media outlets to serve Indian interests and discredit India's neighboring countries including China, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reported recently.

"It is the largest network we have exposed," the BBC quoted Alexandre Alaphilippe, executive director of EU DisinfoLab, which conducted the probe, as saying.

According to the BBC report, researchers uncovered 265 pro-Indian sites operating across 65 countries in 2019, and traced them back to a Delhi-based Indian holding company.

The investigation found that the network has a two-pronged strategy to spread influence with its focus on the European Union and the United Nations.

"In Geneva, the think-tanks and NGOs were in charge of lobbying and protesting, and taking the floor at the UNHRC (UN Human Rights Council) on behalf of accredited organisations," said the BBC report, adding that in Brussels, the focus "was on the MEPs (Members of the European Parliament), who were taken on international trips and solicited to write 'exclusive' op-eds for fake outlets like EU Chronicle, which would then be amplified using ANI."

EU DisinfoLab found "at least 13 instances" of ANI re-publishing anti-China and anti-Pakistan op-eds written by the MEPs, originally published on EU Chronicle, the BBC reported.

Ben Nimmo, a disinformation network expert, told the BBC the uncovered network was "one of the most persistent and complex operations" he had seen. Enditem