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Lutfi has denied attempting to make money from his relationship with Spears, but rumours persist that he has sold photographs and plans to write a book about her.
Maxim reporter Michael Joseph Gross worked undercover among Spears' paparazzi followers and has insisted that Lutfi was in touch with the X17 agency.
He said: "The media frenzy was significantly aided and abetted and intensified after Sam Lutfi came on the scene. There's one paparazzi agency that's emerged as having the inside track on Britney all the time - they're the ones who know where she is, where she's going... It's called X17.
"One of the owners of X17 told me that last year she began getting messages from lots of people with funny names; we know that Sam, in the past, has used a lot of pseudonyms.
"After that she said one day out of the blue, Sam Lutfi called and introduced himself by name, then he started calling more and more often."
He added: "By the time I was with the paparazzi, they were sitting there getting text messages from him at regular intervals telling them where she was, where she was going to go."
It was reported last month that Spears works with photographers in order to stage the footage that she wants covered.
