The US government has launched a new round of sanctions against commercial spyware makers and their organizations.
In a press release published by the U.S. Treasury Department, the U.S. government outlined further punishments for Intellexa executives, associates and organizations that were part of the consortium.
In March 2024, the US government sanctioned Intellexa Consortium, a company that developed and sold the notorious Predator spyware. The group consists of Intellexa SA (Greece), Intellexa Limited (Ireland), Cytrox AD (North Macedonia), Cytrox Holdings ZRT (Hungary), and Thalestris Limited (Ireland).
Executives and companies
Predator is a commercial spyware program that grants access to data stored and transmitted from targeted devices, such as smartphones. It is a powerful malware that operates without any interaction with the victim and was reportedly often sold to authoritarian governments that targeted political opponents, dissidents, journalists, human rights activists and the like.
The US government also sanctioned the group's founder, Tal Jonathan Dilian, as well as Sara Aleksandra Fayssal Hamou, a specialist in offshoring companies who provides management services. This week, five new individuals and another company were added to the list.
The individuals are Felix Bitzios (owner of a company that supplied Predator to an unidentified foreign country), Merom Harpaz and Panagiota Karaoli (senior executives of the consortium), Andrea Nicola Constantino Hermes Gambazzi (the beneficial owner of Thalestris Limited and Intellexa Limited, members of the Intellexa Consortium) and Artemis Artemiou (Artemiou) (CEO and member of the board of directors of Cytrox Holdings Zartkoruen Mukodo Reszvenytarsasag).
Among the sanctioned entities is now Aliada Group, a British Virgin Islands-based company and member of the Intellexa Consortium. The Treasury says this arrangement allowed “tens of millions of dollars in transactions involving the network.”
“The United States will not tolerate the reckless spread of disruptive technologies that threaten our national security and undermine the privacy and civil liberties of our citizens,” said Acting Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Bradley T. Smith. “We will continue to hold accountable those who seek to enable the proliferation of exploitative technologies, while encouraging the responsible development of technologies that conform to international standards.”
