(Image: Zennie/Private Media)

This piece is part of a series. Find the full series here.

In case you think of Crosby Textor as simply a group of savvy pollsters with a bent for political campaigning then, as the tabloid cliche has it, you’d better think again. As Crikey’s investigation shows, C|T Group has developed its own version of a special branch that is home to former intelligence and security operatives and others who are accustomed to working in the shadows. 

They include Daniel Hoffman, a former CIA station chief and a “senior executive clandestine services officer”, as he styles himself. Hoffman became an adviser to C|T’s US operations in the middle of last year. A man of many hats, Hoffman also promotes himself as a lecturer at the US Department of Defense’s Joint Counterintelligence Training Academy, the so-called crown jewel of the defence and intelligence community. The former CIA man combines this with a role as a Fox News commentator.

C|T in the United States established an intelligence division, augmenting its work as a lobbyist for the defence and nuclear industries which benefit from Australia’s AUKUS deal.   

Across the Atlantic, in March this year, the firm took a further decisive step into the spy world with a new agency called The Apertus Alliance. The group is described by C|T as an elite network of senior intelligence professionals and business advisers that would bring “actionable insights” to clients facing “strategic challenges”.

Apertus’ founding members are French spy chief Patrick Calvar and his German counterpart Gerhard Schindler. Calvar is a former director general of the French security service, Direction générale de la sécurité intérieure (DGSI), who had previously served as director of intelligence of the French foreign intelligence service. Schindler ran the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany’s foreign intelligence service.

European spy veterans Calvar and Schindler are joined by London-based C|T employee Eugene Curley, a 25-year veteran of the UK Foreign Office. 

The true business of Apertus is only hinted at in its public statements. Apertus offers the services of intelligence, deep due diligence and asset tracing. According to Schindler the agency is an “international network of former high-ranking intelligence officers who support companies and private individuals”. Apertus deals in “complex problems” and “an increasingly complicated business environment”. Make of that what you will. 

So how did Sir Lynton Crosby AO, the darling of Australian conservatives, end up in business with the cream of Europe’s espionage community and the likes of Daniel Hoffman? And what does it tell us about the evolution of C|T?

The Apertus Alliance is the latest iteration of the C|T business model which has changed (and grown) exponentially since the 1990s and early 2000s when the group made its name as the Liberal Party’s election maestros, using its special alchemy of polling data and focus group insights to produce cut-through political messaging which would win over marginal seats. It might not have been pretty but it was effective.

The firm’s list of services includes every tool of intelligence and influence peddling up to and including intelligence gathering, bug sweeping, protective surveillance and something it calls “resilience testing”.

The extent of C|T’s reach — and influence with governments — has become the firm’s key selling point. This is encapsulated in a typically pithy C|T pitch to clients: 

“Proven methodology. Worldwide impact.

Solutions that work. Campaigns that win.

This is the C|T Way.”

As we report elsewhere in this series, when it comes to its boast of “worldwide impact”, C|T has been able to point to Australia and the UK where it has achieved the ultimate goal of having its senior figures step into the top levels of government. 

Who are C|T’s clients?

C|T’s pitch positions the firm as a unique agent of influence for corporations that operate globally.

Those clients have included:

Tobacco

The group has worked for tobacco manufacturers Philip Morris and British American Tobacco. In the UK that work was targeted at halting the introduction of plain packaging. In the United States the firm (registered as CTF Global LLC) represents the Reynolds Tobacco Company, now rebranded as RAI Services.

Alcohol

C|T has lobbied on behalf of the alcohol industry in Australia and specifically the global Diageo group, which sells some of the world’s best-known spirit and beer brands.

Glencore and ‘Project Caesar’

In 2019 it was revealed that the C|T group was behind a global campaign on behalf of the Glencore mining company. Codenamed “Project Caesar” the multimillion-dollar, multiyear project was aimed at countering environmental activists and spreading a pro-coal message.

Defence

The group’s US website proffers a glowing reference from a “major” but unnamed US defence company, citing the firm’s ability to work successfully on “high-level”, “risky” matters.

(It is not so easy to find out who C|T’s clients have been in Australia. The online federal register of lobbyists, hosted by the Attorney-General’s Office, only has public records as far back as 2020.)

The only risk to C|T’s fortune is to lose access to its friendly conservative governments — which also happen to be C|T clients — come election time. But the business model is now diverse enough to ensure C|T doesn’t live or die on its government ties alone, with the ability to pivot to corporate clients and wealthy individuals who have interests to advance and protect the world over.