The Intellexa consortium — infamous for promoting its Predator spyware and adware to repressive regimes throughout the globe — seemingly decreased its exercise after it was sanctioned by the US final yr.
However in June, cyber risk researchers with the Insikt Group reported a “resurgence” in Intellexa’s actions. The report recognized greater than a dozen nations the place Predator spyware and adware seemed to be working — together with nations with poor human rights data equivalent to Saudi Arabia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Kazakhstan— and acknowledged that the operators of Predator spyware and adware had adopted new ways to evade detection and conceal their identities.
An unlikely agency linked to key Intellexa figures has additionally sprung again to life on-line: a skincare firm known as Medovie.
Sara Hamou, who performed a central function in establishing Cyprus as a hub for Intellexa’s actions, co-founded the skincare firm. She instructed the journal The Profitable Founder that she invested “all my financial savings” in launching Medovie, which says it blends conventional Chinese language medication with superior Western analysis. The corporate operated by means of a Cypriot agency, and shortly after Intellexa and Hamou had been sanctioned, its web site went offline.
Earlier this yr, Medovie’s web site resumed operations. The corporate is now working by means of a Portuguese firm known as MDV Pores and skin Care. In line with the Portuguese company registry, MDV Pores and skin Care is owned by Sylwia Jastrzebska, a 26-year previous Polish citizen who was beforehand listed because the director of the Intellexa affiliate Cytrox. Cytrox, a sanctioned North Macedonian firm, developed Predator, Intellexa’s most infamous spyware and adware. Jastrzebska was appointed after a Czech reporter visited the house of the earlier director, a 70-year previous pensioner dwelling in a small Czech village, who instructed the journalist that she had by no means heard of the corporate.
Intellexa was based by Hamou’s ex-husband, Tal Dilian, a former commander of an elite Israeli intelligence unit, and employed different former Israeli intelligence officers to key roles within the firm. Its Predator spyware and adware permits Intellexa’s prospects to watch any info saved on, or transmitted from, a goal’s cell phone. Intellexa and its senior figures had been sanctioned twice in 2024 by the U.S., which stated its spyware and adware had been used to covertly surveil American officers, journalists, and coverage consultants.
Medovie’s privateness coverage states that it shares shoppers’ private information with different unnamed firms within the “Medovie Group” that are based mostly in Israel, Cyprus, and Switzerland.
In response to questions from ICIJ and the Portuguese publication Expresso, a spokesperson from Medovie wrote that the agency “is — and has all the time been — a skincare firm” that gives merchandise to alleviate continual pores and skin situations.
“That’s the total story,” the assertion continued. “We don’t interact in some other kind of exercise, and we don’t share private information with anybody.”
Medovie’s spokesperson didn’t reply questions from ICIJ concerning the id of the opposite firms within the Medovie Group, whether or not Hamou or Dilian are presently concerned with the agency, or why the corporate had relocated to Portugal.
Hamou, Dilian, and Jastrzebska didn’t reply to emails from ICIJ. Intellexa has not been sanctioned by the European Union: the corporate and people linked to it are in a position to stay and work freely there.
Medovie is just not Jastrzebska’s solely connection to Portugal. She additionally serves because the president of the board of a Warsaw-based firm, Douro Dynamics, which is owned by the Israeli-Portuguese businessman Amos Levy. In June 2024, Levy included a Portuguese firm known as Odyssey within the Sky and subsequently used the agency to amass a Cyprus-based firm from Dilian.
Levy obtained Portuguese citizenship after acquiring a certificates that he was a descendant of Sephardic Jews issued in 2017 by the Jewish Group of Porto, in line with paperwork obtained by Expresso.
Levy additionally owns an organization within the Czech Republic, Tamani s.r.o, that he bought from Amos Uzan, an Israeli businessman who labored in safety and communications roles for the Israeli authorities between 2003 and 2009. In 2024, one other agency that was initially owned by Uzan’s spouse, Petra, was additionally transferred to Levy by means of Tamani. Petra’s mom was the 70-year previous pensioner who was listed because the director of Intellexa affiliate Cytrox, seemingly with out her data, earlier than Jastrzebska took over the function.
Levy didn’t reply to questions from ICIJ about his connections with Dilian and Jastrzebska.
Jastrzebska is a prolific reviewer on Google, the place she has given her opinions on companies and eating places within the Czech Republic, the United Arab Emirates, and Portugal. Final yr, she left a remark at a villa owned by Levy in northern Portugal: “A real paradise,” she known as it.
