Mica for BorderlandBeat.com
Monday, April 3, 2023
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) hired spyware in 2021 that has been used thousands of times to spy on targets in Mexico, but not in the United States, The New York Times reported exclusively.
“The 2021 secret contract used the same U.S. company – designated Cleopatra Holdings – but it is the small government contractor, based in New Jersey, Riva Networks that the FBI used two years earlier to acquire Pegasus (the cell phone spying program used by several governments),” reports the Times.
The new contract was for the Landmark program to detect the location of cell phone calls in real time, manufactured by the Israeli company NSO.
Spyware used in at least one country
“Specifically it allowed the government (of the United States) to test, evaluate and even deploy spyware against selected targets in Mexico,” the newspaper reported. Under this contract, according to two people, there have been thousands of uses in at least one country, Mexico.
The NYT reports that, just last week, Joe Biden’s government announced a new public policy that prohibits agencies and other federal agencies from using spyware acquired from commercial companies. After the New York Times report was first published on Sunday night, a Biden government official informed the newspaper that the White House was not aware of this contract, and that, if it exists, it would be a violation of the aforementioned executive order.
According to the Times, Cleopatra Holdings continues to make monthly payments for this spyware to date.
In the report, he records a network of front companies, individuals signing contracts with false names and secret official documents that were hidden from public scrutiny.
The NSO was recently bought by a London-based company, Novalpina Capital, after several scandals around its Pegasus product, which was used by several governments to spy on dissidents.
White House spokespersons and the office of the director of National Intelligence declined to make statements, leaving several questions unresolved: which intelligence or public security officials knew about the contract when it was signed? Why did the contract specify Mexico as an objective?