A CONVICTED spyware boss hints that the Greek government was behind dozens of phone hacks

The founder of spyware maker Intellexa said he plans to appeal a Greek court’s conviction on charges that he and three other executives illegally obtained personal data as part of a mass eavesdropping campaign in the country.

The espionage scandal, sometimes referred to as the “Greek Watergate,” involved the hacking of dozens of phones belonging to senior Greek government ministers, opposition leaders, military officials, and journalists using Intellexa’s Predator spyware. The tool is capable of breaking into iPhone and Android devices to steal call logs, text messages, emails and location data, usually by tricking the target into clicking on a malicious link.

Several senior Greek government officials, including the head of Greece’s National Intelligence Agency and a top aide to Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, have resigned following revelations that several journalists’ phones had been hacked. No government official has been convicted in connection with the surveillance, and critics have accused Mitsotakis’ government of a cover-up.

Intellexa founder Tal Delian was convicted last February and sentenced to eight years in prison. He said in a statement first published by Reuters on Wednesday that he would not be a “scapegoat.”

Whether or not Dillian was a scapegoat, as he claims, this statement is the most direct suggestion yet from anyone inside Intellexa that the Mitsotakis government authorized the hacks.

“I believe that a conviction without evidence is not justice, and could be part of a cover-up or even a crime,” Dillian told Reuters. He said he was willing to share the evidence with national and international regulators.

Dillian did not respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment on his statements. The Greek Embassy in Washington, D.C., did not immediately respond when contacted by TechCrunch.

Dillian also told Reuters that surveillance technologies such as Predator are usually only sold to governments responsible for their legal use.

The US government imposed sanctions on Dillian in 2024 after discovering that a Predator plane had been used against phones owned by American officials and journalists. The sanctions make it effectively illegal for anyone to enter into a business deal with Dillian and his other sanctioned business partners.