The story has the elements of a corporate thriller: a cast that includes former French spies and military men, a cycling champion, Greenpeace advocates and a dogged judge whose investigation takes him from a sports doping laboratory outside Paris to a Moroccan jail and some top French corporations. Like installments in a serial novel, revelations have been seeping out since March. And while the climax is months away, the story provides a glimpse into the shadowy business of gathering what corporations call strategic intelligence. 'For most companies, on a daily basis there are many more things going on than can possibly be handed off to the police,' said Christian Harbulot, director of the Ecole de Guerre Economique, or School of Economic Warfare, in Paris. The companies they turn to include corporate security giants like Kroll and what Harbulot terms 'small operators' as various as former intelligence agents and computer hackers. The case unfolding in France involves a mix of computer hackers and some of the country's biggest companies, including Electricite de France, the world's largest operator of nuclear power plants, and Vivendi, the media and telecommunications giant. According to a file compiled by the investigating judge, Thomas Cassuto, investigators stumbled on to the case in the wake of a doping scandal at the Tour de France in 2006. An American cyclist, Floyd Landis, was stripped of his title that summer after testing positive for elevated levels of testosterone. In November 2006, the French anti-doping agency filed a complaint claiming that confidential documents related to Landis' drug tests had been stolen and sent to the news media and other labs. The documents had been altered in what lab officials said appeared to have been an effort to discredit them by casting doubt on the handling of test samples. Investigators concluded that one such e-mail message had been sent from a computer using the same Internet protocol address as Arnie Baker, Landis' coach. A search of computers in the lab in Chatenay-Malabry, a suburb of Paris, turned up a Trojan horse, a program that allowed an outsider to remotely download files. No evidence has surfaced to connect Landis or Baker to the hacking, and each has denied any involvement. They did, however, use the documents in their unsuccessful effort to overturn Landis' cycling ban. The trail, picked up by a special unit of the French interior ministry, led to a computer specialist named Alain Quiros, who was eventually caught in Mohammedia, Morocco. Under questioning, Quiros initially denied any knowledge of the theft but later admitted that he had been paid $2,800 to $4,000 to break into the testing lab's computers. He identified Thierry Lorho, head of Kargus Consultants, a corporate intelligence company in Paris, as being behind the computer attack. Then things got complicated. As the authorities delved into Quiros' computer, they found a copy of the hard drive of Yannick Jadot, the former campaign director of Greenpeace France, as well as that of Frederik-Karel Canoy, a lawyer and shareholder advocate. Lorho, a former French intelligence agent, told French officials that another man, Jean-Francois Dominguez, had paid him for the lab reports. Both men are being investigated. Lorho also admitted that he had collected data on Greenpeace on behalf of Electricite de France, which wanted information on antinuclear campaigners. Lorho said that his contacts at Electricite de France, were 'perfectly aware' of the hacking. Electricite de France has denied any knowledge of the theft and has portrayed itself as a victim of illegal acts by Kargus Consultants. But Cassuto, who took over the investigation in April 2008, declared Electricite de France, an 'assisted witness,' one step short of being under formal investigation. Alexis Gublin, a lawyer representing the company, said it was cooperating with the inquiry. Through their lawyers, Quiros, Dominguez and Lorho declined to comment. Spying by corporations is not new. In the mid-1960s, General Motors used private detectives to dig up information on Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate, when he began to criticize the auto industry's safety record. In the last two years, some of the biggest companies in Germany, including Deutsche Telekom and Deutsche Bank, have been caught overstepping the line regarding surveillance. The investigation into Electricite de France, which is 85 percent owned by the French government, has touched a nerve in France, whose intelligence agents bombed and sank the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in 1985 in Auckland, New Zealand, killing a photographer. But no evidence suggests that the French government was aware of or involved in the hacking. In an interview with an intelligence Web site, Lerenseignement.com, Lorho said he assumed 'full responsibility' for hacking the Greenpeace computer, but he added that 'I would like to see EDF, which sponsored the operation, take responsibility for its part.' On April 10, Electricite de France said that it had ended its relationship with Kargus Consultants and had temporarily removed two security employees who had been dealing with the firm. The two -- Pierre-Paul Francois, a site protection engineer and former police officer, and his superior, Pascal Durieux, a security manager and former French Navy admiral -- are under investigation by Cassuto. Each maintains his innocence. Electricite de France defended its need to monitor advocacy groups. 'It's important to know, for example, if this or that group is in the radical extreme or if it is above board,' Jean-Marc Sabathe, the company's security director, said in an April interview with Le Monde. 'But we have no need to pay hackers to find out.' Meanwhile, the investigation continues. In the doping lab case, Dominguez, who has been described in the French media as a photographer with links to French intelligence, told investigators that he had acted only as a middleman, passing data he received from Kargus to another man, who has not been found. Cassuto summoned Landis and Baker to Paris in May for questioning, but neither appeared for the hearing. Landis did not respond to requests for comment through Team Ouch, his new cycle racing squad. But he told Cycling News in November 2006, when rumors of the hacking surfaced, that 'any claims attributing these actions to me or my defense team are baseless, untrue, irresponsible and another example of the character assassination that I have faced.' In a recent e-mail message, Baker denied any involvement in the hacking. Since 2002, Canoy, the shareholder advocate, has filed 13 lawsuits against Vivendi, which has filed two countersuits, Antoine Lefort, a spokesman for Vivendi, said. Harbulot, the specialist in economic intelligence, said the most curious thing about the case was why a company like Electricite de France would get involved with 'these kinds of people.' 'All of EDF's security needs should be taken care of by the state, because it's strategically important,' he said. 