In the summer of 2011, Vancouver-based entrepreneur Altaf Nazerali was shocked to see a number of articles published on a website called deepcapture.com that contained terrible and utterly false claims about him.
After numerous attempts to set the record straight with the author and those backing the fake stories, Nazerali began his battle to combat this web of liars.
Last week, after five years of emotional and financial trauma, a B.C. judge confirmed the stories about Nazerali, who has started and built up several multi-million dollar companies were lies.
The author of the stories was Mark Mitchell, a self-styled investigative journalist who was unceremoniously dumped by the Columbia Journalism Review. He was backed by Patrick Byrne, a Utah-based Internet shopping tycoon and a stock conspiracy theorist.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Kenneth Affleck last Friday awarded Nazerali, $400,000 in general damages, $500,000 in aggravated damages, $250,000 in punitive damages and $55,000 in special damages for the series of defamatory articles.
In describing the attacks on Nazerali as a “ruthless campaign” to destroy his reputation, Affleck in part wrote;
‘Mitchell, Byrne and Deep Capture LLC engaged in a calculated and ruthless campaign to inflict as much damage on Mr. Nazerali's reputation as they could achieve. 
It is clear on the evidence that their intention was to conduct a vendetta in which the truth about Mr. Nazerali himself was of no consequence. Their mission was to expose what they conceive to be corrupt business practices damaging to the global economy. Mr. Nazerali became a convenient means to that end, even when he himself could not be demonstrated to be corrupt.
No effort was made by Mitchell, Byrne and Deep Capture LLC to obtain Mr. Nazerali's views before publication and no effort of consequence was made after Mr. Nazerali contacted Mr. Mitchell to review the Articles to determine if they were false. On the contrary, Mr. Nazerali’s approach to Mr. Mitchell was treated with scorn. It is apparent that whatever was said by Mr. Mitchell to Mr. Nazerali about making changes to the website in exchange for his cooperation was a sham.
Not only are the defamatory words pleaded by the plaintiff damaging to his reputation, these defendants, instead of choosing to tone down their extravagant language once they were sued, chose to pile on the abuse with a narrative of multiple allegations of serious misconduct’
These claims include preposterous and false allegations that he obtained his start as an arms dealer to the mujahedeen, that he has been a Pakistani intelligence asset, that he served as an important financial advisor to the Iranian regime, that he was an important figure in a massive criminal enterprise in the 1970s and 1980s, that he did business with such unsavoury organizations as the Italian mafia, the Russian mafia and Colombian drug cartels, and that he has controlled organizations that have manipulated U.S. markets from their base in the Netherlands.
The articles also link him to attempts to sell enriched uranium to Al-Qaeda, to Russian intelligence operators and arms dealers, to the godfather of the Kremlin, various mafia organizations in Italy and “an impressive number of securities traders who are also narco-traffickers”.
“This is a web of lies..What happened to me could happen to anybody… It’s hard to understand this until it happens to you,” said Nazerali, whose work with high tech companies has helped law enforcement agencies throughout the world to save lives and fight crime.
“No matter how hard you try to live a peaceful, productive and generous life, there are some bad apples out there who gain notoriety by making false and sensational allegations against others to promote their own agenda, as twisted as it may be.
“How many of us have the time and ability to go beyond Google searches, and actually discern what is true and what is not. How many of us believe what we read on the Internet, and simply accept this as being true. I would like to raise awareness about this problem which could happen to any of us.”
For their part, Mitchell and Byrne have gone silent about the verdict after saying they will go toe-to-toe to prove their allegations.
Weeks before the verdict, Byrne announced that he take an indefinite personal leave of absence for medical reasons.
In a letter to shareholders Byrne said he has been battling stage 4 hepatitis C
“I think I have it beat but only time will tell,” he said, noting that he contracted the infection in 1984 in China “when a barefoot doctor sewed up a head wound under less-than-ideal conditions.”
Hepatitis C is a liver infection caused by a bloodborne virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For most people, it is a chronic illness and can lead to long-term health problems.
For his part, Nazerali said he will do what he does best ; “run my business and help others who face similar situations”.