Earlier this month, a former hedge fund employee was flown from Hong Kong to London for a job interview. Around the same time, a current employee of the same Toronto hedge fund was also flown to London for interviews. The company courting them was fake. Its website was fake. There were no jobs to be had, and the woman who set up the interviews was not a recruiter but an agent working for an Israeli private investigative firm.

This was not an episode of “Homeland” or the latest “Mission: Impossible” installment. Interviews and court papers show that these deceptions were part of a sophisticated and expensive investigative operation. The objective, according to one filing, was to gather proprietary information held by the hedge fund. The agent worked for Black Cube.

Until 10 days ago, Black Cube, a private investigation firm established in 2010 by former intelligence analysts from the Israeli Defense Forces, was largely unknown in the United States. Many lawyers said they had never heard of the firm, which is not licensed in New York.

But Black Cube was thrust into the spotlight last week when The New Yorker revealed that the producer Harvey Weinstein had hired the firm to look into the background of the actress Rose McGowan, who was writing a book about her experiences with him, including a claim that he had sexually assaulted her.