They surveilled politicians and journalists. The USA softens its course towards the Predator group

The US Ministry of Finance announced on Tuesday that it had withdrawn from the sanctions list several people associated with the commercial Predator spy software.

As announced in an announcement by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), three people were withdrawn from the sanctions list on Tuesday, on whom the Joe Biden administration imposed sanctions in connection with actions against people involved in selling commercial Predator surveillance software to authoritarian states. These are:

• Israeli Merom Harpaz,
• Swiss Andrea Gambazzi
• Sara Aleksandra Hamou, described by US authorities as the main partner of Israeli Predator architect Tal Dilian.

All three were associated with the Cyprus-registered Intellexa consortium owned by Dilian, an Israeli businessman and former commander of the Israel Defense Forces. Dilian himself remains under sanctions.

The reason for withdrawing sanctions against the mentioned persons was not provided in the announcement. The ministry has not yet responded to PAP's questions on this matter.

Hamou, who operates in Cyprus, was described by the US Ministry of Finance as a specialist in corporate offshoring (i.e. transferring the legal residence of companies to countries with more favorable regulations) holding managerial positions in a number of companies belonging to Dilian. According to an investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), Homou, Dilian's wife and key accomplice in building a “global surveillance empire,” handled the legalities of surveillance programs in Europe, the Middle East and Asia and the concealment of the company's actual activities.

Predator became famous primarily because of the espionage scandal in Greece in 2022, when leading politicians and journalists in the country were allegedly surveilled using the software. The program was also allegedly used by the Egyptian authorities against oppositionists and by Vietnam against American congressmen. Dilian's companies were registered in Cyprus, North Macedonia and Hungary, and traces of the software were found in at least 25 countries in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

Sanctions against Predator producers were part of a broader campaign of the Biden administration against companies in the same industry, the most famous example of which was Pegasus created by the Israeli company NSO.

From Washington Oskar Górzyński (PAP)

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