An empire founded on the illegal sale of particularly intrusive surveillance technologies, in the middle of Europe: the documents from the “Cyprus Confidential” project shed light for the first time on large sections of the financial infrastructure put in place around Intellexa and its founder , the Israeli-Cypriot Tal Dilian, of which the small island of Cyprus is the nerve center.
Intellexa is the umbrella for several discreet cyber surveillance companies, but is best known for its Predator surveillance software, which can absorb all the data from a cell phone. It is today under multiple investigations for having provided, sometimes outside of any legal framework, particularly invasive surveillance tools to authoritarian regimes (SudanVietnam, Egypt or even Madagascar, like therecently revealed Mediapart). Its software has also been used in Europe for illegal surveillance, notably targeting journalists or opposition elected officials in Greece. The group is also a major supplier of other surveillance tools, including IMSI-catchers telephone communications interceptors.
Financial statements, emails, invoices… The documents consulted by The world and its partners show that Tal Dilian did not reserve his innovations only for the technical field: he also knew how to demonstrate creativity in tax matters. Beyond the scandal of illegal wiretapping carried out using its flagship software in Greece, these files make it possible to draw up a portrait seeming to confirm the suspicions of the European prosecutor’s office, which suspects him of having engaged in large-scale tax evasion , according to media information EURACTIV.
The “Cyprus Confidential” investigation
Opaque financial center, haven for Russian money, gray zone of the cyber economy: the “Cyprus Confidential” investigation tells how Cyprus, a small Mediterranean island, allowed itself to be overwhelmed by its offshore industry, becoming the weak link in the European Union in the fight against dubious financial flows.
This investigation is based on the leak of 3.6 million confidential documents from six Cypriot financial services firms (ConnectedSky, Cypcodirect Corporate Services, DJC Accountants, Kallias & Associates, MeritKapital and MeritServus) and the i-Cyprus company register . These “leaks” were obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and the German investigative media Paper Trail Mediawith the support of Distributed Denial of Secrets, a group of activists campaigning for transparency, then shared with sixty-nine international media outlets, including The world.
The files analyzed for “Cyprus Confidential” represent only part of Intellexa’s “web”, since they do not contain the financial information of the group’s subsidiaries which develop the Predator spyware. They nevertheless made it possible to identify dozens of shell companies in several European countries as well as in Hong Kong and the British Virgin Islands. They reveal, more broadly, how Tal Dilian did everything to camouflage the nature of his activities and evade taxes, taking advantage of the passivity of Cypriot and European investigators.
Accounting firm alerts
In this vast montage, one person appears central: Sara Hamou, Tal Dilian’s companion. A lawyer specializing in the creation of companies abroad, she holds a whole series of key positions in companies selling Intellexa products or providing services. She serves on the boards of a dozen companies and is profiled in the report of the European Parliament on cyber surveillance software like “a central figure in the business network [d’Intellexa] ».
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