In 2018, a hacker employed by the Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel run by the notorious kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán spied on the U.S. Embassy in Mexico Metropolis with the aim of figuring out “individuals of curiosity” for the cartel to focus on and kill, in keeping with a brand new U.S. authorities watchdog report.
On Friday, the Division of Justice’s Workplace of the Inspector Basic revealed the incident as a part of a broadcast report auditing the FBI’s efforts to counter surveillance with the aim of defending “its workers, investigations, and operations.”
The report mentioned the 2018 incident occurred whereas the FBI was engaged on the investigation that might ultimately result in the arrest of El Chapo. On the time, in keeping with the report, somebody linked to his cartel tipped off the FBI that the legal group had employed a hacker.
The hacker “supplied a menu of providers associated to exploiting cell phones and different digital gadgets,” and was capable of observe individuals going out and in of the U.S. Embassy in Mexico’s capital, in keeping with the report, together with the FBI assistant authorized attaché, a federal agent who works abroad together with native legislation enforcement authorities.
By some means — the report doesn’t element precisely how — the hacker was “ready to make use of” the official’s cell phone quantity to “get hold of calls made and obtained, in addition to geolocation knowledge, related to” the official’s telephone.
In line with the FBI, the hacker additionally accessed Mexico Metropolis’s digicam system to observe the attaché by means of town and “determine individuals” who the attaché met with, learn the report.
“In line with the case agent, the cartel used that data to intimidate and, in some situations, kill potential sources or cooperating witnesses,” the report added.
When reached for remark, the FBI referred inquiries to the Division of Justice, which didn’t reply to a request for remark.
For years, Mexico has been on the bleeding fringe of surveillance and hacking capabilities, on either side of the drug warfare.
On the facet of the legislation, for greater than a decade now, a number of native and federal legislation enforcement companies in Mexico have spent thousands and thousands of {dollars} to make use of spyware and adware made by Hacking Crew and later NSO Group to go after cartels, but in addition activists and journalists.
On the legal facet, the Sinaloa cartel used encrypted telephones, that are specifically crafted gadgets designed to attenuate the danger of surveillance by stripping it of core functionalities, and by including encrypted communications applied sciences.
In line with a VICE Information investigation, Mexican cartels had been tapping a safety software program utilized by native authorities companies “to find and disappear rivals and conceal their crimes.”
Earlier in 2015, Motherboard reported that native cartels employed “a hacker brigade” to construct and handle their very own communications networks. Later in 2017, Motherboard revealed {that a} hacker working for the Sinaloa cartel helped authorities monitor down and arrest the elusive cartel’s lieutenant, Dámaso López Núñez. The hacker had initially been employed by the cartel in 2014 to attempt to hack into the high-security Altiplano Federal Penitentiary, the place El Chapo was being held on the time.
