Are former Intellexa employees connected to Greek companies?

A critical core of highly skilled Intellexa employees, laid off from August 2022 onwards, are currently providing services under the umbrella of new companies in Greece.

While there is no evidence that these companies are connected to Intellexa, the investigation revealed three strange coincidences:

1. The vast majority of the employees of one company, that is, five out of six, are former Intellexa employees.
2. All three employees – of Israeli origin – of the second company again come from Intellexa's workforce.
3. The second company collaborates with the same accounting and consulting firm that Intellexa SA collaborated with, before it went completely dormant.

Let's look at the data, remembering that strict sanctions were recently imposed by the US government.

The US imposes sanctions on Intellexa against two individuals and five entities associated with Intellexa, and that one of the main extensions of the US sanctions is that they can also include persons who do business with the legal or natural persons on whom sanctions have already been imposed. At the same time, the prosecutor's investigation into the illegal surveillance case, which has been ongoing since April 2022 and is now in the hands of the Deputy Prosecutor of the Supreme Court, Achilleas Zisi.

The story from the beginning

Predator, the spyware thanks to which Intellexa gained its controversial international reputation, has been used during the government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis to illegally monitor journalists, opposition politicians, serving ministers, businessmen, military personnel and various private individuals.

Confirmed include  individuals who were simultaneously or sequentially monitored by the National Intelligence Service through the legal method of lifting the secrecy of communications, invoking national security. Emblematic cases of the cooperation of the two monitoring methods are those of journalist Thanasis Koukakis, PASOK chairman Nikos Androulakis and business executive Artemis Seaford, who is also an American citizen.

The established  use of Predator for the illegal surveillance of American citizens and government officials by foreign states was the main reason that the US government initially decided in July 2023 to put the Greek Intellexa AE and three other legal entities affiliated with it in North Macedonia, Ireland and Hungary on the "blacklist" of the Department of Commerce.

See also: Predator Files – wiretaps: New evidence on Vietnam & Intellexa – Why Maximus is worried

The Department of Commerce's announcement  makes specific reference to the fact that commercial spyware such as that of Intellexa can be used around the world to violate human rights. It is recalled that Intellexa AE, in collaboration with KRIKEL, a company allegedly in the interests of businessman Yannis Lavranos, requested and received from the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the authoritarian regimes of Madagascar and Sudan, deviating from a relevant European directive which obliges EU member states to carry out checks before granting such export licenses, in order to prevent the use of cyber-surveillance technologies to violate the human rights of citizens of third countries.

The US sanctions did not stop there. In March 2024, the US Treasury Department imposed new sanctions, this time not only against legal entities, but also against individuals. The US targeted Intellexa founder Tal Dillian, former commander of the elite Israeli army unit Unit 81, and Sarah Alexandra Hamou, for the assistance she provided as an expert in offshore corporate structures to set up Intellexa's corporate network in Greece and internationally. The sanctions also included the flagship of the corporate group, the Irish Thalestris Limited, which held the distribution rights to Predator and operated as a holding company.

One of the key implications of the latest US sanctions is that if a third party does business with entities or individuals on whom the US has imposed sanctions, then sanctions may also be imposed on that third party. “The prohibitions include making any contribution or provision of funds, goods or services by, to or for the benefit of any designated person, or receiving any contribution or provision of funds, goods or services from any such person,” the US Treasury Department statement reads.

A company on hold

Intellexa AE seemingly closed its doors in Greece in late August 2022, at the height of the wiretapping scandal that continues to rock the Mitsotakis government to this day and long before it entered the US radar.

On August 4, 2022, an accidental government leak made it public that PASOK President Nikos Androulakis had been under surveillance by the Hellenic Security Service for several months in 2021, while he was an MEP and before he took over as party president. Coincidentally, around the same time, “unknowns” had attempted to infect his mobile phone more than once with the Predator spyware.

The revelation of the (double) targeting of Androulakis by the EYP led to a series of chain reactions in the government and Intellexa in the same month: 

• In the resignation of Grigoris Dimitriadis, secretary general and nephew of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, as well as the commander of the National Intelligence Service, Panagiotis Kontoleontas, the next day.

• The private plane, which Intellexa and Tal Dilian personally used for business and leisure, was grounded in Tel Aviv for weeks upon weeks.

• In the apparent attempt to conceal the existence of a second shareholder during the relevant period of illegal spyware surveillance.

• Finally, on the termination of the employment contracts of all employees of Intellexa SA.

Intellexa employees had stopped working from the company's offices in Hellinikon as early as April 2022, when the inside story revealed the first confirmed infection of an EU citizen with the Predator spyware, that of journalist Thanasis Koukakis.

On August 31, 2022, the company appears to be laying off all of its staff, a total of 18 people, except for the HR manager, who leaves ten days later. As told us in October 2022 , its operation was impossible after what happened in August “as there was a fear that its accounts would be frozen and it would not be possible to make payments.”

"The decision to terminate the contracts was made on a 'see-and-do' basis; there was no final decision to close the company," a former Intellexa employee told us at the time, on condition of anonymity.

In September and October, when the “storm” seemed to have subsided, Intellexa makes five new hires. Four of them involve technically qualified personnel and last only one day, without any apparent explanation. The fifth employee takes on the position of HR manager. In other words, on October 31, 2022, Intellexa employs a single executive, whose duties include human resources management – ​​in a company without people, at least not on the payroll.

IANUS Consulting Sole Proprietorship SA

On November 1, 2022, according to information we have seen, a relatively newly established company founded in May 2022 under the name IANUS MAE, main KAD "provision of IT application services" and registered office at GEMI at the address of an accounting office in Nea Ionia, hires four completely random people. These are four highly qualified former Intellexa employees; one of them was even the first Greek officially hired by Intellexa SA at the end of 2020 and according to information , he enjoys the undivided trust of his former employer. All four people hired in November 2022 by IANUS MAE had been fired from Intellexa two months ago. On December 1, 2022, another person with previous experience (one day) at Intellexa was added to the IANUS workforce.

See also: The Predator Files revelations: How Athens became a hub for Intellexa wiretapping

Based on IANUS’s recently published financial statements, the 2022 fiscal year (May 28, 2022 – December 31, 2022) closed with profits of close to 15,000 euros, its turnover was just 72,600 euros and the company’s average staff was five people. In other words, the five former Intellexa employees were the only employees of IANUS MAE in 2022. In the first two months of 2023, the number of staff increased to six people – the new hire is not related to Intellexa. This number remains stable until February 2024.

The company's share capital is 25,000 euros. As a Société Anonyme, it was supposed to pay it within two months of its establishment, but in the end, its payment is made in installments with delay, in November and December 2022, by the company's president and CEO, who is described in documents as a businessman from Cyprus. This is a person whom we have never met before in the context of our long-term journalistic investigation into the wiretapping case and it has not been possible with the means at our disposal to ascertain so far whether and what relationship he may have with other persons related to the case.

In the written questions we addressed to IANUS MAE (through its accounting firm) we request a comment from the company on the fact that five out of six of its employees are former employees of Intellexa and we ask, among other things, whether it has any direct or indirect relationship with Intellexa or other related companies and whether IANUS MAE could be considered a successor corporate structure of Intellexa AE or other related companies.

As of the publication of this article, we have not received a response.

The private equity firm ADDAPP Technologies

While IANUS MAE exclusively hires Greek former Intellexa employees, another company, ADDAPP Technologies, provides professional space to three Israeli former Intellexa employees. Until the end of February 2024, these three were its only employees, according to information brought to our attention.

ADDAPP Technologies was founded in January 2023, with the main purpose of "software system design, support and integration services" and within the first half of 2023 it had hired three Israeli highly qualified employees. Until August 31, 2022, all three appeared as employees of Intellexa. The capital of ADDAPP Technologies was set at 25,000 euros and was paid by a Greek businessman. This is a person whom we have not met before in the context of our long-term journalistic investigation into the wiretapping case and it has not been possible with the means at our disposal to ascertain so far whether and what relationship he may have with other persons related to the case. However, his business career so far has moved quite far from the field of software, since all the businesses in which he has been involved are in the field of training services, design and certification of educational programs.

The company, due to a delay in certifying the payment of its capital since March 2023, was suspended from registration by GEMI. It finally posted the certification on January 21, 2024. Based on a new post three days later, on January 24, 2024, it appears that the company has now passed into the hands of another person. Again, this is a person whom we have not met before in the context of our long-term journalistic investigation into the wiretapping case and it has not been possible with the means at our disposal to verify so far whether and what relationship he may have with other persons related to the case. The new owner of ADDAPP Technologies – like the previous one – has no previous presence in the software sector, since he appears from 2020 to the present in three companies (one of which has closed) which are active in the field of electricity production from photovoltaic systems and educational film .

We called the contact number listed by ADDAPP Technologies at GEMI. The company Business Center Offices (BCO), which provides tax domicile and professional address services with offices on Dimitriou Gounaris and Grammou streets in Marousi and in Zalokosta in the center of Athens, answered at the address listed by ADDAPP Technologies as its headquarters.

We have encountered BCO before in our reporting on the wiretapping. The first time was in the summer of 2022, when two "sister" companies of Intellexa, Apollo Technologies and Hermes Technologies (they have the same parent company), moved their headquarters from Kifissia to Dimitrios Gounaris in Maroussi.

From our conversation with BCO, it emerged that the company providing accounting services to ADDAPP Technologies is the same as the accounting and consulting company with which Intellexa has been collaborating since July 7, 2022. The reason is Interlog in Chalandri.

In a telephone conversation we had with the manager of BCO, he pointed out to us that the company is completely transparent and that what it offers is a tax domicile and a professional address to individuals and companies. Its partners include Interlog, which has brought many companies to BCO, as well as ADDAPP Technologies.

Interlog, we read on website , was founded in 1975 as an accounting firm, while today it operates as Interlog S.A. with the aim of providing high-quality services in the field of accounting, tax and consulting services to individuals, businesses and organizations. In a telephone conversation we had with the head of the company, Mr. Grispos, he replied that he was not aware that the only staff employed by ADDAPP Technologies are former employees of Intellexa and added that he could not make any comments about Intellexa.

We sent detailed questions to ADDAPP Technologies and Interlog, but as of the publication of this article we have not received any response.

What happened to the other former Intellexa employees?

On August 31, 2022, Intellexa laid off 18 employees. A few months later, it hired five new employees, four of them for one day. By the end of 2022, all 23 employees of the company were out of work. Above, we saw where eight of them were employed until the end of February 2024. What happened to the remaining 15? Four are Israelis and from the information we saw, they do not appear to be employed in Greece as employees. We were able to locate only one on Linkedin. profile states that he is in Israel and that he continues to work for the same employer in Athens since August 2021.

See also: Predator Files: A series of reports on Predator, Intellexa and wiretapping in Greece

There are 11 Greek former Intellexa employees left. One appears to have relocated to the United Arab Emirates sometime in the first half of 2023, but according to his Linkedin, his employer has remained the same since April 2022. Two others are now employed by two different Greek technology companies. The remaining eight, at the end of 2023, appeared as employees of Remote Greece, the Greek branch of the Dutch multinational HR services company of the same name. Of these, six out of the seven that we managed to locate on Linkedin, despite being active on the professional networking platform, have not made any change in their professional status and therefore appear to have been employed by the same employer from 2022 to the present.

In our email to Remote Greece, we ask, among other things, whether the company has entered into any service with Intellexa SA or with other legal and natural persons related to it and whether it in any way facilitates the operation/activity of Intellexa or related (directly or indirectly) legal and natural persons.

Remote's international communications director, Conor Murphy, answering our questions, states:

"Remote is a technology company that enables businesses to hire and pay people living in 200+ countries. To enable this, Remote maintains legal entities and relationships with service providers in various jurisdictions around the world to manage compliance, payroll, benefits, and other employment matters.".

Remote policy and applicable data do not allow us to publicly disclose information about our clients or individuals working through Remote. However, we are reviewing your inquiries and will respond as soon as possible with any additional information we can share.”

Source: insidestory.gr