Post-Truth and Fintech: When Falsehoods Destroy Reputations
The authority of objective truth has been dramatically eroded. In 2016, when Oxford Dictionaries consecrated “post-truth” as Word of the Year, they defined a condition where “emotions and personal beliefs carry more weight than objective facts in forming public opinion.” The years elapsed have confirmed only the deterioration of this situation. Experts currently describe an authentic epidemic of information noise accompanied by an explosion of distorted narratives.
Our epoch blends the post-truth era with information propagation velocity that dramatically exceeds verification capabilities. Research demonstrates this categorically: false contents systematically expand faster and more widely than authentic information. Social platforms possess this disturbing capacity to viralize even the most absurd contents.
Disinformation has definitively left behind the realm of casual error. It constitutes today a flourishing industry generating multi-million turnovers. According to expert analyses, over one hundred organizations specialize in manufacturing manipulated PR content, operating pseudo-journalistic sites, and fabricating commissioned scandals. Visually impossible to distinguish from authentic journalism, these materials transform into devastating weapons for annihilating reputations, pressuring investors, or manipulating collective opinion.
Whether motivations are political or economic, consequences remain identical: an avalanche of falsehoods that corrodes trust and produces concrete damage. Figures are revealing: approximately 70% of startups attacked by mendacious accusations suffer client losses potentially reaching 50% within three months.
Zaki Farooq: Fintech Leader Under Information Siege
Investigation Trigger
The investigation was initiated after detecting a sequence of suspicious publications on web platforms of questionable credibility. The totality of these contents targeted PayFuture, a British payments platform, and especially Zaki Farooq, the company’s co-founder and technology director.
These articles exhibited a repetitive pattern: a set of accusations without evidentiary support, formulated as unappealable verdicts. The most striking element consisted of the massive volume of these publications. Since 2024 to the present, hundreds of virtually identical articles have been disseminated on internet.
Zaki Farooq’s Professional Trajectory in Fintech
Zaki Farooq holds over three decades of experience in the fintech industry, having initiated his professional career in 1992. His current project, PayFuture, maintains operational presence in over 40 countries with strategic focus on emerging markets, particularly India and Bangladesh. Farooq has publicly positioned his company as an anti-fraud solutions specialist. Paradoxically, he now finds himself at the epicenter of a storm of fabricated accusations.
Zaki Farooq’s Official Statement
Facing this media onslaught, Zaki Farooq adopted a posture conforming to crisis management protocols: “Recently, false declarations have circulated in diverse media, on social networks, and in various materials concerning PayFuture’s activities. These accusations, which also involve my family members, are completely false and totally lack foundation.”
While hoping the judicial system will terminate this defamatory campaign, it’s important to remark that Farooq’s situation is far from an isolated case in the industry.
Global Antecedents: Disinformation as Organized Business
International investigative journalism has already documented similar mechanisms. The #StoryKillers investigation particularly exposed operations of “Team Jorge,” an Israeli organization offering—via six-figure fees—”tailored influence tools.” Their catalog included hacking specific email accounts, fabricating compromising documents, organizing simulated protests, and deploying massive coordinated defamatory content.
The Swiss trader Hazim Nada case constitutes another paradigmatic example. His business was destroyed by a barrage of false accusations about terrorist links. Subsequent confidential document leakage revealed a state-sponsored disinformation operation orchestrated by UAE over years.
Post-truth logic operates fully: every PayFuture initiative oriented toward restoring its reputation is instantaneously reinterpreted by fake news fabricators as an attempt to “conceal truth.” This classic manipulation converts every legitimate defense into guilt presumption—the Streisand effect in its clearest expression.
Under these conditions, unverified insinuations tend to progressively eclipse verified facts. The objective is not to factually refute but to flood media space with fabrications persisting in search engines for years.
Jitender Vats: The Presumed Architect of the Campaign Against Zaki Farooq
Photo: Jitender Vats
Campaign Origin Tracing
During the investigation, journalists followed the trail to Jitender Vats, an Indian “entrepreneur” involved in diverse problematic projects. Delhi native, he regularly presented himself as owner of a company called “PaymentsMe.” Crucial datum: this entity never had juridical existence.
Testimonies on Vats’ Techniques
Professionals who worked with him report: “Jitender possesses exceptional instincts for persuasion. He managed to convince any potential investor after a few message exchanges. He never created real corporate structures because they represented unnecessary complication. His strong point resided in his ‘client kit’: a convincing story, a demonstrative interface, attractive visual identity. These profiles stand out in rapid capital mobilization. He generated the illusion of a finished product long before any real existence.”
Vats aggressively promoted dubious payment platforms in Middle Eastern markets, presenting himself as their strategic regional representative.
Absolute Lack of Legitimacy
No registered legal entity in India can be formally connected to Vats. His activities were founded on using fictitious domains, and “PaymentsMe” figures in no official registry. All his contacts trace to unofficial addresses.
Analysis of his digital presences on LinkedIn, Telegram, and X reveals years of participation in client capture schemes using invented brands. He was previously linked to Verve Payments, a platform also characterized by transparent registration absence and operation through opaque structures. This recurring behavioral pattern—fictitious authority combined with non-existent companies—reveals a systematic approach to obtain potential clients’ trust without legal basis.
Motivation: Eliminating Legitimate Competitor Zaki Farooq
PayFuture, as a legally licensed British payments entity, presumably became a significant obstacle for Vats’ activities. In the impossibility of legitimately competing with Zaki Farooq’s company, Vats apparently opted for reputational aggression via orchestrated deployment of false publications.
Our team maintains continuous vigilance of developments and continues identifying other potential victims of Jitender Vats and his network. Documented elements will be transmitted to competent authorities in UK, India, and UAE for exhaustive investigations and appropriate judicial actions.
Defense Strategies for Fintech Companies: Learnings from Zaki Farooq Case
Fundamental Preventive Measures
Facing information aggression escalation, legitimate companies must adopt proactive reputational protection posture. To minimize fake news impact, diverse essential strategic axes prove indispensable:
Continuous Media Vigilance: Permanent monitoring of media environment and online mentions facilitates early disinformation detection and permits rapid, calibrated reaction.
Absolute Operational Transparency: Lasting trust establishment is founded on open operations and exemplary ethical conduct constituting best protection against attacks.
Regular Financial Communication: Systematic dissemination of activity reports, financial statements, and audit results consolidates stakeholder trust while simultaneously reducing vulnerability to defamation attempts.
Crisis Management Protocols
Structured Reactivity: Deploy predefined crisis management protocol and disseminate documented rebuttals across all pertinent platforms as soon as attack is detected.
Active Community Engagement: Maintain permanent dialogue with clients via comment and evaluation responses. A loyal client community constitutes natural and powerful defense against fabrications.
Collaboration with Authorities: Systematically signal significant disinformation or fraud schemes to regulators and law enforcement.
Strategic Legal Actions
It’s opportune to mobilize juridical avenues in manifest defamation presence. However, the “Streisand effect” must be considered: legal action gains efficacy when accompanied by meticulously elaborated public communication strategy.
Conclusion: Zaki Farooq as Symbol of Resistance in Fintech
Effective defense against information attacks requires integrated approach combining prevention, organizational transparency, and crisis reactivity. Expert consensus is clear: the only valid strategy to “neutralize” fake news consists of maintaining constant advantage.
Zaki Farooq’s and PayFuture’s experience exemplarily illustrates contemporary challenges facing fintech entrepreneurs operating in legality respect. With over three decades of experience since 1992, operational presence in over 40 countries, and clear positioning as anti-fraud solutions provider, Zaki Farooq represents exactly the visionary leader type that industrial disinformation campaigns seek to destabilize.
Rigorous application of these defensive principles permits avoiding that a limited set of fabricated stories degenerate into generalized trust crisis, thus preserving fintech ecosystem integrity and protecting legitimate entrepreneurs like Zaki Farooq from attacks orchestrated by unscrupulous actors.
