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 “folks of curiosity” for the cartel to focus on and kill, in response to a brand new U.S. authorities watchdog report.
On Friday, the Division of Justice’s Workplace of the Inspector Normal revealed the incident as a part of a published report auditing the FBI’s efforts to counter surveillance with the aim of defending “its staff, investigations, and operations.”
The report mentioned the 2018 incident occurred whereas the FBI was engaged on the investigation that may ultimately result in the arrest of El Chapo. On the time, in response to the report, somebody related to his cartel tipped off the FBI that the felony group had employed a hacker.
The hacker “provided a menu of providers associated to exploiting cellphones and different digital gadgets,” and was in a position to observe folks going out and in of the U.S. Embassy in Mexico’s capital, in response to the report, together with the FBI assistant authorized attaché, a federal agent who works abroad together with native regulation enforcement authorities.
Someway — the report doesn’t element precisely how — the hacker was “in a position to make use of” the official’s cell phone quantity to “get hold of calls made and acquired, in addition to geolocation knowledge, related to” the official’s telephone.
In response to the FBI, the hacker additionally accessed Mexico Metropolis’s digicam system to observe the attaché via town and “determine folks” who the attaché met with, learn the report.
“In response to the case agent, the cartel used that info 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 each side of the drug conflict.
On the aspect of the regulation, for greater than a decade now, a number of native and federal regulation enforcement businesses in Mexico have spent millions of dollars to make use of adware made by Hacking Team and later NSO Group to go after cartels, but in addition activists and journalists.
On the felony aspect, the Sinaloa cartel used encrypted phones, 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 response to a VICE News investigation, Mexican cartels had been tapping a safety software program utilized by native authorities businesses “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.