Treasury Department Sanctions Spyware Consortium

(Dreamstime)

The Treasury Department on Monday announced new sanctions against five individuals and one entity associated with the Intellexa Consortium, a holding company behind the highly intrusive spyware known as Predator.

The Biden-Harris administration sanctioned Intellexa last year and in March, but said Monday more action was needed to penetrate the consortium’s “opaque web of corporate entities, which are designed to avoid accountability.”

Predator spyware lets customers hack victims’ smartphone almost invisibly and access sensitive data — including their exact location, photos, and personal messages.

Intellexa Consortium operates globally, with clients that include state-sponsored actors and governments. The technology has been used in the past to target government officials, journalists, and opposition politicians.

Those facing sanctions include Felix Bitzios, owner of an Intellexa Consortium company that the Treasury said supplied Predator spyware to an unnamed foreign government; Merom Harpaz and Panagiota Karaoli, senior officials with Intellexa; and Andrea Nicola Constantino Hermes Gambazzi, who was reportedly involved in processing transactions for companies within the consortium.

British Virgin Islands-based Aliada Group was also sanctioned for enabling tens of millions of dollars in transactions on behalf of the consortium.

Bradley T. Smith, acting undersecretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, said: “The United States will not tolerate the reckless propagation of disruptive technologies that threatens our national security and undermines the privacy and civil liberties of our citizens.

“We will continue to hold accountable those that seek to enable the proliferation of exploitative technologies, while also encouraging the responsible development of technologies that align with international standards.”