The first employee of Russia’s infamous troll factory to reveal his identity has emerged to describe how the agency riled social media users in the U.S. in the lead up to last year’s presidential elections.

The St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency is thought to have launched a massive social media campaign to stoke racial and ideological tensions during the 2016 U.S. campaign.

In an interview with opposition-leaning television channel Dozhd TV Thursday, former troll Alan Baskayev lifted the curtain on everyday life at the agency.

“Like everyone, I needed the money,” he says, adding that his monthly salary was 50,000 rubles ($860), well above the city’s average.

“I decided it was an excellent bargain, considering that the conscience played no part in it at all.”

Baskayev said he worked at the agency’s “foreign department” between November 2014 and April 2015, a month after business outlet RBC’s massive investigation said the troll farm's campaign began.

Oligarch restaurateur Yevgeny Prigozhin who reportedly owns the troll factory was “our guy who gives us money,” Baskayev says, unable to pinpoint what his official position at the troll farm was.

Baskayev said his task was to enegage online forums that in one way or another involved politics. “You type ‘politics’ in the Google forum, the entire first page and possibly the second page is all yours. You could also type ‘politics forum U.S.’ and the first two pages are yours.”