FLASHBACK -- Kim Tanaka: An Innocent Victim in "Southern Company’s Spying Program" -- (Some think the surveillance methods used on Kim Tanaka, may have been used on Gulf Power VP, Jake Horton)
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A small group of people who are researching the "Jake Horton" plane crash case -- reviewed this story about the covert surveillance of Kimberly Tanaka, ex-girlfriend of former Southern Company CEO Tom Fanning.
(Gulf Power VP Jake Horton, died in a plane crash in April 1989, aboard a Southern Company corporate plane. At that time, Gulf Power was a subsidiary of Southern Company).
This group of people are reviewing the "methods" that were used to spy on Kim Tanaka - which included hiring an "operative" and hiring people who allegedly had 'expertise' in "executive exfiltration", "methods of entry" and "audio intercept."
They think it's possible that some of these methods may have been used to spy on Gulf Power VP Jake Horton, before he boarded a Southern Company plane from Pensacola, FL, headed to Atlanta. The plane crashed minutes after takeoff.
They think it's possible that "audio intercept" may have been used to spy on Jake Horton, to find out how much he knew about the corruption going on at Gulf Power, and to overhear Horton's reaction to potentially being fired - and if he figured out that he was potentially going to be made a "scapegoat", and to overhear any possible plans Horton was making to clear his name -- and most importantly, 'who' Horton talked to about all this.
If an "audio intercept" method was used to surveil Jake Horton, the "intel" would likely reveal that Horton had booked the company plane, what documents he was taking with him -- and the most important thing - who was going to meet with in Atlanta and why.
Horton did allegedly talk to his friend and Gulf Power attorney Fred Levin just before he boarded the company plane to Atlanta. (Horton had also reportedly received death threats - and allegedly asked Levin to look after his wife Frances, if anything happened to him).
Levin later found four dead canaries with broken necks on his porch, not long before he was scheduled to give grand jury testimony at Southern Company's corruption trial in Atlanta - he viewed the dead canaries as a warning "not to sing." On the day Levin testified, he was escorted into the courtroom with armed federal agents for safety - because he had allegedly been receiving phone threats right up until the day he testified. (A Gulf Power vendor was also scheduled to testify at Southern Company's corruption trial - on the day he was scheduled to testify, witnesses say he was so nervous and afraid, that he went 'on the run' and literally vanished into thin air).
This group also thinks it's possible that "method of entry" expertise was used to infiltrate Horton's plane -- by either installing an explosive device via an "operative" or an explosive mechanism was sent to the plane via drone technology -- that would be hard for the NTSB to identify - as of today, no federal agency, including the NTSB, has been able to determine the cause of Horton's plane crash.
(One of the reasons "drone technology" was considered -- is because on the NTSB's voice recording, one of the Southern Company pilots allegedly said, "What the hell was that?" -- first thoughts were, something had "hit" the plane.")
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The article below details - the covert surveillance of Kim Tanaka, an alleged "hush money" payoff scheme, an attempt to alert Fulton County DA Fani Willis, of the alleged corruption going on at Southern Company - and details of 'people' involved in the surveillance operation - which included a paid 'operative' and a Bloomberg reporter.
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August 17, 2023
Kim Tanaka: An Innocent Victim in "Southern Company’s Spying Program" and Web of Deceit
BY: Donald V. Watkins
On September 22, 2022, Kimberly Tanaka finally had enough of the Southern Company’s corporate surveillance program that had turned her life upside-down since 2017. Tanaka called police to a location in Metro-Atlanta to report a “stalking incident.”
While visiting AFPI Global Investigations in Atlanta, Tanaka and her private investigators found a GPS tracking device with a magnet under her car. She was livid.
Officer R.C. Hulon (ID #754) responded to the call. After interviewing Kim Tanaka, Hulon generated a police report (Case No. 2209-000894) for the Roswell, Georgia police department.
Kim Tanaka told Officer Hulon that she worked at a fitness gym and that some of her clients were "VIPs." She further advised Hulon that “she believes they are trying to get to one of those VIPs through her.”
Tanaka was advised that the matter would be turned over to the Criminal Investigation Division. Investigator C. White (ID #121) was assigned to the case. Office L. Davidson (ID #779) was assisting the investigation. The GPS device was taken into evidence.
Kim Tanaka was Caught Up in a Planned Coup D’etat at the Southern Company
In April of 2017, Kim Tanaka was the girlfriend of Southern Company CEO Thomas A. Fanning.
There was a plot to overthrow Fanning and install Alabama Power Company CEO Mark Crosswhite as the new CEO of the Southern Company
The coup d’etat plotters, their espionage vendor (Matrix, LLC), and private investigator (Derek Uman, founder of Clear Capture Investigations of Gainesville, Florida) got plenty of “intel” on Kim Tanaka. They also spied on Sarah Louden Novascone, who became [Tom]Fanning’s wife in 2018.
The coup plotters believed that Fanning engaged in a private lifestyle in Atlanta that would make him vulnerable to a forced resignation if they could document graphic evidence of this lifestyle and expose it to the company's board of directors and public.
In April of 2017, Kim Tanaka was an innocent party who held no position in any Southern Company business entity. Without her knowledge or consent, Tanaka was targeted for a blitzkrieg of clandestine surveillance activities, all of which were financially sponsored by the Southern Company.
The Espionage Program that Targeted Kim Tanaka was Quite Extensive
Southern Company’s coup d’etat executives and their espionage crew went to work on Kim Tanaka. These operatives publicly claimed to have expertise in “audio intercept,” “methods of entry,” and “executive exfiltration.”
The espionage crew hired Kristen Hentschel, a Florida-based free-lance field producer for ABC News and “several PR firms in different states - she was paid to develop a close personal friendship with Kim Tanaka.
Tom Fanning, who cut off all telephone contact with Tanaka in late 2017, desperately tried to reach her after she contacted Fanning via email about a call she received from a Bloomberg News reporter (Josh Saul) who was in the mix with the spy operatives who planted Kristen Hentschel within Tanaka's friendship circle.
Remarkably, Fanning confessed to Tanaka, via a reply email, that he knew about the surveillance, but he did not say when or how he learned about it. Tanaka refused to accept Fanning's repeated phones calls to discuss the matter, but she saved his voice messages in which he pleaded with Tanaka to call him back.
After learning that she was the victim of a Southern Company surveillance program, Ms. Tanaka threatened to sue the Southern Company for violating her right to privacy. Tom Fanning and Jim Kerr promptly resolved Tanaka’s legal claims. However, they did so in a clandestine manner and in amounts that evaded the company’s reporting requirements on its 10-Q and 10-K regulatory filings.
Instead, the payments to Kim Tanaka are/were laundered through a Southern Company vendor. These payments are the subject of an upcoming article.
In addition to Kim Tanaka, Kristen Hentschel received “hush money’ payments, as well. Again, the money was laundered through a Southern Company vendor to avoid detection.
I plan to amend the criminal complaint I filed on August 13, 2023, with Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani T. Willis to add a claim of “hush money” payments using Southern Company funds without proper authorization and disclosure.
SOURCE/ARTICLE CREDIT: Donald V. Watkins
Posted Jul 11, 2026, 1:14 PM UTC