Eavesdropping: 15 black holes studied

at last, tapping They seemed to have been created by ordinary people for…anyone, for no reason. For anyone who read the case files, it would have been a no-brainer to conclude that.

So the question naturally arises: Is that so? So here is 15 key gaps The authorities found out during their investigation into this major case. Political statements from the past few days on the part of the opposition, and not just “trying to cover it up”.

1. authorities They concluded The illegal Predator software in Greece was used to monitor about 100 politicians, Maximos executives, service personnel and even judicial officials, military personnel and even police officers, but was activated only by two Greek and two Israeli individuals (I. Lavranos, F. Bitzios, T. Dillian and Sarah Hamou), who were responsible for technical and communication systems.

No basic answer is given to the key question: for what reason must a particular person use the relevant system to monitor these people. In fact, most of them have nothing to do with any of their activities and have nothing to do with their interests.

2. Investigators in the case simply did not take into account, or account for, the two Greek businessmen accused of running the company, especially Mr Lavranos. Predator They have known some of Maximos’ employees and state officials for many years. Nor is there an indirect partnership with some of these companies, as is evident from the conclusions of the economic police after a thorough investigation in October 2023.

3. Agents investigating the case waited until the last minute to begin looking for evidence of joint surveillance “targets” (ultimately 28). Youth Program and predators. Although this clearly shows the relationship of their managers. At the same time, ADAE sent a letter to the Supreme Court Prosecutor’s Office from April 15, 2024, requesting an immediate cross-examination of the relevant facts.

No response. Finally, the compilation of the joint list was conducted by two designated private experts who visited EYP on June 17, 2024, and the main round of key person testimony was concluded. No relevant questions were asked. The court case was closed.

4. There has never been an investigation into why the Secret Service was monitoring these 28 joint targets. There has never been an investigation into why they were monitored and whether the competent prosecutor of the EYP was informed. In fact, according to the information of “Vima tis Kyriaki”, judicial officials claimed in the last 24 hours that they could have been misled, because they were not aware of these extortions. How; intercepting the conversations of these “targets” could have been achieved by the trick of including their phone numbers in unrelated case files (such as organized crime, etc.) so that they would not be noticed.

5. On May 22, 2024, the then EYP commander Panagiotis Kontoleon was called as a witness. That is, he was not asked any relevant questions to explain how this was explained before the joint surveillance control of EYP and Predator. In addition, although he vaguely mentioned that he had known an individual accused of using spyware for 15 years, he did not ask any questions about the series of meetings that allegedly took place with him during the period of hyperactivity of Predator. This will be confirmed by eyewitnesses as early as November 2022.

6. An important omission was that Mr. Kontoleon was not asked about the draft memorandum of cooperation on cybersecurity that EYP was to sign with the North Macedonian authorities. Digital traces of corrections made by Israeli Intellexa employees involved in the management of Predator were found.

7. From the end of 2022, there were testimonies: a) about the “connector” of Israeli and Greek businessmen who brought the Predator from Cyprus to Greece (Greek arms brokers), b) and about the company offices on Kifisias Avenue, including the relevant meetings c) and subsequent contacts with politicians and officials, which were also not investigated. In December 2022, he was summoned to testify and played this coherent role. But his colleagues were not checked, nor were the company offices where the meetings took place, nor were relevant questions asked of other participants in the “preliminary work” to launch the Predator in Greece.

8. Despite the fact that, starting in the fall of 2022, the names of about ten police officers assigned to the EYP (who gradually returned to the service of EL.AS after the scandal came to light) had been submitted as part of the judicial investigation and there was a clear suspicion of their alleged involvement in the joint surveillance system of the EYP and Predator, only two of them (these were two female officers) were summoned to testify. Both claimed to have known nothing about the “Predator”. However, key questions were not asked. One of them testified that she had visited the EYP branch in Agia Paraskevi three times, which was known to be the base of a group of agents working with the “Predator” managers. However, she insisted that her visits were for educational purposes and did not ask for further clarifications.

9. Other important persons were not called to testify during the investigation, such as the police officer who was responsible for managing one of the main defendants of Predator, as well as other of his close associates. Regarding the police officer involved, it is stated that he mediated the selection and subsequent deployment of police officers involved in the illegal surveillance “strike” team to the EYP from the end of 2022. He was also allegedly aware of secret meetings held by the defendant with politicians, government officials, etc. regarding illegal software. But again he was not asked about this.

10. No Intellexa employees were examined, not just those who appeared to be associated with the management of the illegal Predator software. Three Intellexa employees in Greece who allegedly went to the company’s offices in Maroussi when the scandal broke and removed computers and other equipment believed to be associated with the mobile data collection scheme were not subpoenaed.

11. 11 mobile phones (from the political, financial, journalistic, judicial fields) were “contaminated” with the Predator software, the incident occurred on the evening of January 26, 2021, and one of the “thank you” text messages contained a misleading link that seemed, judging by the numbers at the time, to have not yet thoroughly investigated the Prime Minister’s close associates, on his name day.

When he was called to testify by the Supreme Court Prosecutor’s Office a few weeks ago, he stated what was known, namely that the 11 text messages were sent through an Internet service using a prepaid card and that the sender’s details were misleading.

12The conclusions of the Supreme Court-appointed experts who cross-checked the EYP and Predator watch lists were examined for mathematical “tricks”. As a result, they initially determined that 28 of the 87 Predator targets were also legitimate surveillance targets of the EYP, indicating that 31% of the surveillance was common and suggesting a correlation between the two systems.

But considering all 15,304 provisions for the lifting of the EYP privacy rights for this particular period, they are trying to reduce this percentage to … 1%. However, they do not take into account that the list of 28 common “targets” concerns not only major politicians (such as PaSoK Chairman Nikos Androulakis). The experts cut down the 15,000 provisions of the Security Plan on the surveillance of illegal immigrants, members of night gangs, suspected spies, jihadists, etc., which are not comparable in quality.

ThirteenThe reasoning that the joint watch lists of EYP and Predator overlapped is considered to be the main axis of the case file that reduced Predator to a private case, without taking into account that most of the 28 joint surveillance cases were initially conducted by EYP for “continuous” telephone surveillance, and the second phase was conducted by Predator in close time intervals.

Something that would decisively reduce the likelihood that they would develop symptoms. Typical of the facts is that when a reporter asked the ADAE whether EYP was monitoring his phone, the Secret Service stopped intercepting his conversations and began using… illegal software.

14The investigation did not explain how EYP agents, who fell out of favor with Secret Service executives, became targets of predators.

15. The most crucial evidence effectively dispels the claim that EYP and Predator conducted random monitoring of 28 people without investigation, that 7 of them were arrested for sending misleading text messages about receiving COVID-19 vaccination (but according to real data, they received information about vaccination centers, arrival time, etc. shortly after they received normal official information from relevant government agencies).

Previously, the Personal Data Protection Authority conducted a multi-day investigation of the IDIKA (Social Security Electronic Governance) AP system and found that the relevant vaccination data of 7 “Social Security Electronic Governance” were not leaked. “Predators and EYP’s targets”. This safely concluded that the only way they were able to learn the relevant vaccination details of the monitored individuals was to obtain the relevant details from a “bridge” that seemed to exist with the EYP, which was also monitoring their individuals’ mobile phones, making it easier to capture them using other software.