Businessman Carlos Guerrero, leader of the company Elite By Carga pleaded guilty to having used tools to spy on Mexican governments, companies and specific people, according to a bulletin made public by the U.S. attorney’s office.
According to the information, spying software manufactured by The Hacking Team was used in Mexico to spy on politicians. Among the main applications, they include those of intercepting calls, hacking iCloud accounts and even intercepting WhatsApp messages.
Carlos Guerrero during his statement also reported that when he offered the apps he knew that in the case of government clients, they would not use it specifically for public safety purposes.
Within the investigation folder, it is also included that Elite By Carga managed to have geolocation devices and tools to intervene smartphones since 2014, so Carlos Guerrero offered hacking services in both Mexico and the United States.
Among the cases that were made moderately public, the prosecutor’s office mentioned one corresponding to a case of interception of communications to a politician who was a candidate for mayor of a municipality in the state of Morelos, the events would have occurred between 2016 and 2017.
Among the Mexican officials accused of acquiring espionage equipment include the governments of Baja California, Durango, Chihuahua, Morelos, Tabasco, Sonora and Yucatan. As expected, in both cases the Mexican governments denied having bought, despite the fact that Carlos Guerrero himself has already confessed; the main infections were performed on Android and Windows computers.
DATUM
Hacking Team is a technology company located in Milan, Italy, that specializes in selling surveillance and offensive intrusion tools to governments, law enforcement agencies. Although it has been criticized for selling its products to governments with low human rights indexes, the company says it can disable its software if it is not used ethically.
