The United States is designating two individuals and five entities associated with the Intellexa Consortium for their role in developing, operating, and distributing commercial spyware technology that had been misused to target Americans, including U.S. Government officials, journalists, and policy experts.
Based in Greece, the Intellexa Consortium is a collective of international, decentralized companies that offer commercial spyware and surveillance tools to enable targeted and mass surveillance campaigns. Packaged under the brand-name “Predator” spyware, it is a suite of tools that can infiltrate a range of electronic devices. It can be used to harvest data, geolocation tracking, and enable access to a variety of applications and personal information on the infected devices.
Intellexa Consortium’s customer base is global. Already, the Predator spyware suite has been deployed by numerous governments to facilitate repression and enable human rights abuses, including to intimidate political opponents and curb dissent, limit freedom of expression, and monitor and target activists and journalists. Even individuals within democratic governments have misused this commercial spyware to target their citizens without proper legal authorization, safeguards, and oversight.
Pursuant to Executive Order 13694, as amended by Executive Order 13757, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, designated Tal Jonathan Dilian and Sara Aleksandra Fayssal Hamou for being the key enablers of Intellexa Consortium.
Dilian, a former Israeli military officer, is Intellexa’s founder and the architect behind the Predator spyware tools. He fully or partially controls the companies associated with the Consortium.
Hamou is a corporate off-shoring specialist who has provided managerial services to the Intellexa Consortium.
In addition to the Intellexa Consortium, four companies within the Consortium were also sanctioned. They are Ireland-based Intellexa Limited; North Macedonia-based Cytrox AD; Hungary-based Cytrox Holdings ZRT; and Ireland-based Thalestris Limited.
“Today’s actions represent a tangible step forward in discouraging the misuse of commercial surveillance tools, which increasingly present a security risk to the United States and our citizens,” said Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian E. Nelson.
“The United States remains focused on establishing clear guardrails for the responsible development and use of these technologies while also ensuring the protection of human rights and civil liberties of individuals around the world.”
