The U.S. government said Monday that it has issued fresh financial sanctions against five individuals and a corporate entity associated with spyware-making consortium Intellexa, months after the government sanctioned its founder.
In its latest statement, the U.S. Treasury said it sanctioned the five people, including senior Intellexa executives and associates, who are alleged to be involved in the sale of Intellexa’s phone spyware, dubbed Predator, to authoritarian governments.
Predator can be used to hack into fully patched phones nearly invisibly, allowing the organization that deployed the spyware to obtain complete access to the target’s device, including their private messages and real-time location. The Treasury said the spyware has been used to target U.S. government officials, journalists, and opposition politicians.
The sanctions include Felix Bitzios, who owns an Intellexa consortium company that the Treasury says was used to supply Predator spyware to an unnamed foreign government; Merom Harpaz and Panagiota Karaoli, who hold senior positions in Intellexa’s corporate structure, according to the Treasury; and Andrea Nicola Constantino Hermes Gambazzi, who the Treasury says was involved in processing transactions for companies within Intellexa’s consortium.
The Treasury added that the Aliada Group, a company based in the British Virgin Islands and a member of the Intellexa group of companies, was also sanctioned for enabling tens of millions of dollars in transactions for the spyware-making consortium.
A senior U.S. government official told reporters during a background call on Monday that the latest round of sanctions were part of the government’s ongoing effort to target the commercial spyware industry. The U.S. official said the government was tracking money flows and movements to determine what entities might be trying to avoid or circumvent the sanctions. (Reporters agreed not to quote the government official by name.)
U.S. government-imposed sanctions make it illegal for U.S. individuals or businesses to transact with a sanctioned entity, such as paying for access to spyware.
This latest round of government sanctions land months after the Treasury sanctioned Intellexa’s founder Tal Dilian for his role in creating and selling the Predator spyware.
Intellexa founder Tal Dilian could not be reached for comment prior to publication.
The U.S. government official said it was “methodically building out our approach” to the sanctions imposed on spyware makers, including the recent decision by the U.S. State Department to restrict individuals involved in the misuse of commercial spyware from applying for U.S. visas. The U.S. official said during the media call Monday that the government had information that spyware executives said they were “concerned” about the sanctions imposed by the government.
In March, TechCrunch spoke with several people in the spyware industry — including a former spyware executive — who expressed worry about their own involvement in spyware and the possible repercussions they might face, following the sanctions imposed against Dilian.
