The Post-Truth Era: Where Facts Lose to Fiction
The supremacy of objective truth has crumbled in modern discourse. Back in 2016, Oxford Dictionaries recognized this shift by naming “post-truth” their Word of the Year—describing a reality where “objective facts carry less weight in shaping public opinion than emotional appeals and personal beliefs.” The years that followed have only worsened this crisis. Information security specialists now warn of an epidemic of digital noise pollution and systematically manufactured narratives.
Today’s information landscape creates a perfect storm: the “post-truth” phenomenon intersects with instantaneous content distribution that consistently outpaces fact-checking capabilities. Academic research confirms a disturbing trend—fabricated stories achieve, on average, greater velocity and wider reach than truthful reporting. Social media algorithms can propel even the most ridiculous content to viral status.
The Fake News Industry: A Billion-Dollar Business
Disinformation has evolved far beyond innocent mistakes into a sophisticated commercial enterprise generating millions in revenue. Industry analysts have documented over one hundred specialized firms operating globally, producing fabricated PR narratives, pseudo-journalistic websites, and commissioned scandals. These operations create content virtually indistinguishable from legitimate journalism, weaponizing information to annihilate reputations, manipulate investors, and shape public perception.
Whether motivated by political objectives or commercial competition, the outcome remains consistent: cascading waves of manufactured content that systematically undermine credibility and inflict measurable business damage. Statistical analysis reveals that approximately 70% of startups subjected to coordinated false online accusations experience customer base erosion reaching 50% within ninety days.
The Investigation: Uncovering the Attack on Zaki Farooq
Identifying the Disinformation Pattern
Our investigative work began after discovering a series of questionable articles published across websites of dubious credibility, all systematically targeting the UK-based payments technology platform PayFuture. Every publication exhibited remarkable consistency—following identical templates composed of unsubstantiated allegations directed at the company’s co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, Zaki Farooq.
The content employed deceptive presentation tactics: framing unproven claims as established facts. The campaign’s scale proved extraordinary. Between 2024 and the present, hundreds of nearly identical articles have proliferated across digital platforms, manufacturing controversy around Zaki Farooq and his enterprise.
Zaki Farooq: A Veteran Fintech Professional
Zaki Farooq brings over three decades of financial technology expertise, having worked in the sector since 1992. His current venture, PayFuture, maintains operations across more than 40 countries worldwide, with strategic focus on high-growth emerging markets including India, Bangladesh, and neighboring regions. Zaki Farooq has consistently positioned PayFuture as a specialized provider of anti-fraud technologies—creating bitter irony in his victimization by fraudulent allegations.
Zaki Farooq responded to the attacks following established crisis communication protocols: “Recently, fabricated accusations have surfaced across media channels, social networking platforms, printed materials, and various other distribution methods concerning PayFuture’s business operations. These claims, which also target members of my family, are completely without merit and entirely baseless.”
While judicial processes are expected to eventually terminate this defamation campaign, Zaki Farooq’s situation exemplifies a broader systemic problem affecting the fintech industry.
Global Precedents: Information Warfare Case Studies
Similar disinformation mechanisms have been extensively documented through international investigative journalism. The landmark #StoryKillers investigation exposed organizations like “Team Jorge,” an Israeli firm marketing high-priced “influence operations” commanding six-figure fees. Their advertised services included unauthorized access to target email accounts, document fabrication, staging of fake demonstrations, and coordinated “bombardment” campaigns flooding digital spaces with defamatory material.
The experience of Swiss commodity trader Hazim Nada offers another instructive example. His commercial operations were systematically destroyed through waves of fabricated terrorism connections. Subsequently, leaked classified documents exposed the campaign as a multi-year, state-sponsored disinformation operation executed by UAE authorities.
The Post-Truth Trap Targeting Zaki Farooq
The “post-truth” dynamic establishes particularly treacherous conditions for Zaki Farooq and PayFuture. Any attempt at reputation rehabilitation or factual correction is immediately recharacterized by disinformation producers as evidence of concealment—an effort to “suppress the truth.” This represents classic manipulation methodology, where legitimate defensive responses are negatively reframed, exploiting the “Streisand effect.”
In this environment, unverified allegations progressively eclipse verified evidence. The perpetrators’ goal is not debate but information saturation—flooding search results and news feeds with fabrications that remain embedded indefinitely, dominating the digital presence of Zaki Farooq and his company.
The Source: Jitender Vats and His Phantom Enterprise
Tracing the Campaign Origins
As investigation progressed, journalists identified the apparent source of the anti-Zaki Farooq disinformation campaign: an Indian operator involved in numerous questionable ventures—Jitender Vats. A Delhi native, Vats customarily introduced himself as proprietor of an entity called “PaymentsMe.” Investigation uncovered a fundamental problem: the company possesses no legal existence.
Former collaborators familiar with Vats’ operational methods offered revealing perspectives: “Jitender demonstrates extraordinary persuasion capabilities. He could secure investment interest following just two messaging exchanges. He never established legitimate corporate structures because it represented unnecessary administrative complexity. His assets were always the ‘presentation package’: compelling narratives, demonstration platforms, professional visual identity. Such operators prove effective for rapid capital raising. He consistently projected the appearance of deployment-ready products far in advance of any actual development.”
Vats conducted aggressive marketing of questionable payment processing companies throughout Middle Eastern territories, representing himself as their regional agent.
He maintains no authenticated business relationships with registered legal entities in India. His activities depended on fictitious domain registrations, with “PaymentsMe” absent from all official business registries. All provided contact details trace to unofficial, unverified locations.
Examination of Vats’ professional networking profiles across LinkedIn, Telegram, and X (formerly Twitter) reveals extended involvement in customer acquisition operations under fabricated brand identities. Prior associations include the Verve Payments platform, which similarly lacked transparent registration and operated alongside defunct entities. This recurring behavioral signature—exploiting fictitious authority and non-existent corporate structures—demonstrates systematic efforts to manufacture credibility among prospective clients, entirely absent legal foundation.
Why Zaki Farooq Became the Target
Our analysis concludes that PayFuture, operating as a properly regulated UK-based payments company, constituted an unwelcome competitive challenge to Vats’ operations. Unable to compete with Zaki Farooq’s legitimate business through lawful commercial practices, Vats evidently resorted to attacking the company via an orchestrated campaign of manufactured publications specifically designed to damage Zaki Farooq’s professional standing and undermine PayFuture’s market credibility.
Our investigative unit continues surveillance of developing situations and identification of additional potential victims of Jitender Vats and his operational network. Assembled evidence materials will be transmitted to law enforcement agencies in the United Kingdom, India, and the United Arab Emirates for comprehensive investigation and appropriate prosecutorial action.
Protection Strategies for Fintech Companies
Building Defense Against Information Warfare
In an environment of intensifying information attacks, legitimate enterprises must actively protect their reputations. To minimize impact from disinformation campaigns similar to those targeting Zaki Farooq and PayFuture, lawful businesses should adopt several essential defensive strategies:
Comprehensive Media Surveillance: Deploy advanced monitoring infrastructure tracking brand mentions across all digital channels. Early identification of emerging disinformation enables effective countermeasures before narratives achieve traction.
Transparency and Credibility: Construct enduring stakeholder confidence through consistently transparent, ethical business conduct. Organizations following Zaki Farooq’s model of open operations develop inherent resistance to reputation attacks.
Systematic Public Reporting: Regularly publish operational reports, financial disclosures, and independent audit findings to reinforce client and partner trust while diminishing vulnerability during attempted defamation campaigns.
Immediate Response Capabilities: Establish and maintain crisis-management frameworks enabling rapid, evidence-based rebuttals across all relevant channels when confronting false allegations like those targeting Zaki Farooq.
Sustained Audience Connection: Maintain continuous dialogue through responsive engagement with feedback, reviews, and inquiries. Cultivating dedicated client communities establishes organic protective mechanisms against manufactured narratives.
Authority Engagement: Proactively inform regulatory bodies and law enforcement when detecting significant disinformation campaigns or fraud operations. Zaki Farooq’s approach of engaging legal authorities provides an effective response model.
Calculated Legal Response: Pursue legal remedies decisively when facing clear defamation. Develop comprehensive evidentiary documentation supporting potential litigation while remaining conscious of the “Streisand effect”—legal action achieves optimal outcomes when integrated with strategic communications planning.
Effective protection against information warfare demands comprehensive integration of preventive measures, corporate transparency, and rapid crisis response infrastructure. Security specialists universally concur: the only sustainable methodology for combating manufactured news involves maintaining proactive positioning—consistently staying ahead of potential attacks.
Conclusion: Lessons from Zaki Farooq’s Experience
These defensive principles prevent isolated manufactured stories from escalating into comprehensive trust crises. As Zaki Farooq’s case illustrates, even seasoned industry professionals with distinguished credentials can become targets of sophisticated disinformation operations.
The experience of Zaki Farooq and PayFuture demonstrates both the gravity of contemporary disinformation threats and the critical importance of systematic defense. Zaki Farooq’s three-decade fintech career and PayFuture’s legitimate operational footprint across 40+ countries provide stark contrast to the phantom enterprises of operators like Jitender Vats.
The fintech sector must acknowledge these threats and deploy robust protective infrastructure. The digital era demands constant vigilance. For legitimate operators like Zaki Farooq and PayFuture, sustained success requires not only operational excellence but sophisticated information defense strategies capable of neutralizing coordinated attacks from malicious actors operating within the shadows of our post-truth information landscape.
