wiretapping

In the end, the wiretapping seems to have been done for… nobody and for no reason, by ordinary private individuals. This conclusion follows almost effortlessly for anyone who reads the relevant case file.

And the question naturally arises: Is it so? So here it is the 15 critical gaps which are established in the investigations of the Authorities for this particular major case. And they are what cause the political statements of the last few days on the part of the opposition, and not only, for an “attempt to cover up”.

1. The authorities came to the conclusion that the illegal Predator software in Greece for monitoring approximately 100 politicians, Maximos executives, service agents and even judicial officials, military and even police officers, was activated by only two Greek and two Israeli private individuals (I. Lavranos, F Bitzios, T. Dilian and Sara Hamou), dealing with technology and communication systems.

Without giving an elementary answer to the key question: What reason would the specific persons have to monitor these persons with the system in question. When in fact most of them have nothing to do with any of their activities and serving their interests.

2. The investigators of the case did not consider at all and did not take into account that the two Greek businessmen – and especially Mr. Lavranos – who are accused of managing Predator had many years of acquaintance with some executives of Maximos, but also with government officials. Nor that there were indirect partnerships with some of them, as is evident from the conclusion of the Economic Police in October 2023, which proceeded with a thorough investigation.

3. The operatives investigating the case literally left to the last minute the search for information on the joint surveillance “targets” (which, as it turned out, were 28 in the end) of the EYP and the Predator. Although it is a clear indication of their managers’ relationships. And this while there was from April 15, 2024 a letter from ADAE to the Prosecutor’s Office of the Supreme Court to immediately proceed with the relevant cross-examination.

There was no response. Finally, the compilation of the joint list was carried out by two appointed private experts who visited the EYP on June 17, 2024 and while the main round of critical person depositions had already closed. Without being asked relevant questions. The court case was closed.

4. It was never examined why the secret services had put the 28 joint targets under surveillance. It was never investigated for what reason they were monitored and whether the competent prosecutors of the EYP were informed. In fact, according to information from “Vima tis Kyriaki”, judicial officers claim in the last 24 hours that they may have been misled, in the sense that they were not aware of these extortions. How; The interception of conversations of these “targets” may have been done by the trick of including their phone numbers in unrelated case files (eg for organized crime, etc.). So that they were not noticed.

5. The then commander of the EYP, Panagiotis Kontoleon, was called as a witness on May 22, 2024. That is, before the control of the joint EYP and Predator surveillance and therefore he was not asked any relevant question to explain how it was explained. Also, while he vaguely mentioned that he had known one of the private individuals accused of the spyware for 15 years, he did not take any questions about a series of meetings he allegedly had with him during periods of … Predator hyperactivity, as filed by witnesses as early as November 2022.

6. An important omission is that Mr. Kontoleon was not asked about the draft memorandum of cooperation that EYP was going to sign with the competent agency of North Macedonia for cyber security. There were found digital traces of the corrections made by the Israeli Intellexa employee involved in the management of the Predator.

7. While from the end of 2022 there were testimonies: a) about the “connecting” link (Greek arms broker) of Israeli and Greek businessmen who brought the Predator from Cyprus to Greece, b) as well as about the company offices on Kifissias Avenue, where they were the relevant meetings c) but also for the subsequent contacts with political figures and officials, again there was no relevant investigation. In December 2022 he was called to testify and had this coherent role. But his associates were not examined, nor was there a check on the company’s offices where the meetings took place, nor were relevant questions submitted to other participants in the “pre-work” for the activation of the Predator in Greece.

8. Although from the fall of 2022 the names of approximately 10 police officers who had been assigned to the EYP (after the revelation of the scandal they gradually returned to EL.AS services) had been submitted as part of the judicial investigation and there were clear suspicions that they participated in the system of together with EYP and Predator surveillance, only two of them (these are two female officers) were called to testify. Both claimed ignorance of the Predator. However, without being asked critical questions. One of them testified that she had visited the EYP branch in Agia Paraskevi, which had been mentioned as the base of the group of agents working with the Predator managers, three times. However, she maintained that her visits were made for educational purposes, without further clarifications being requested.

9. During the investigation, other important persons were not called to testify, such as the police-guard of one of the main defendants for the management of Predator, but also other close associates of him. For the police officer in question, there were statements, from the end of 2022, that he mediated the selection and subsequent deployment to the EYP of police officers who participated in the “shock” team of illegal surveillance. He is also alleged to have known about secret meetings that the said defendant had about the illegal software with political figures, government officials, etc. But again he was not asked about it.

10. No employees of the Intellexa company were called for examination, and not only those who appear to be related to the management of the illegal Predator software. Among others, three Greek Intellexa employees who reportedly went to the company’s offices in Maroussi when the scandal broke and removed computers and other equipment believed to be related to the mobile data-snapping scheme in question were not summoned.

11. The “contamination” of 11 mobile phones (from the political, financial, journalistic, judicial sphere) with the Predator software, which took place on the evening of January 26, 2021 with a misleading link in a “thank you” SMS that appeared to come from the number at the time, was not thoroughly investigated a close associate of the Prime Minister, on the day of his name day.

He himself, when he was summoned a few weeks ago for a deposition by the Prosecutor’s Office of the Supreme Court, stated what was already known, namely that these 11 SMS were sent via Internet services using prepaid cards and with misleading details of the sender.

12. The conclusion of the Supreme Court-appointed experts who undertook to cross-check the EYP and Predator watch lists is checked for a mathematical “trick”. Thus, they initially identify that 28 of the 87 Predator targets were also targets of legal surveillance by the EYP, which demonstrates that 31% of the surveillances are common and points to a correlation between the two systems.

But they are trying to reduce this percentage to… 1%, taking into account all 15,304 provisions of lifting the privacy of the EYP in this particular period. However, they do not take into account that the list of 28 common “targets” concerns leading political figures (such as the president of PaSoK, Nikos Androulakis) and not only. The experts proceeded with reductions with the 15,000 provisions of the EYP concerning surveillance of smugglers of illegal immigrants, members of night gangs, espionage suspects, jihadists, etc., which are not comparable in terms of quality.

13. The rationale of…coincidence for the joint surveillance list of the EYP and Predator, which is considered the main axis of the case file that reduces Predator to a private case, does not take into account that in most of these 28 cases of joint surveillance there is a “succession” of telephone surveillance initially from the EYP and in a second phase – in close time intervals – by Predator.

Something that decisively reduces the possibility that they are symptomatic. It is typical of the fact that when a journalist had addressed the ADAE to find out if the EYP was monitoring his phone, the interception of his conversations by the secret services stopped and started with the… illegal software.

14. The investigation does not explain how EYP agents who had fallen out of favor with secret service executives were targeted by the Predator.

15. The most crucial piece of evidence that effectively dispels the version of the random monitoring of the 28 by EYP and Predator and was not investigated is that seven of them were caught with a misleading SMS about their vaccination against COVID-19 (but with real data, about the vaccination center, their arrival time, etc.) shortly after they had received a normal official message from the relevant government agencies.

And this with the fact that the Personal Data Protection Authority had carried out a multi-day investigation in the systems of IDIKA (Electronic Governance of Social Security) AP where it was found that there was no leakage of the relevant vaccination data of the seven “targets” of the Predator and the EYP. Which safely leads to the conclusion that the only way they could have been informed of the relevant vaccination details of the individuals under surveillance was to have derived the relevant details from the ‘bridge’ that appears to have existed with the EYP which was also monitoring their mobiles and it made it easier to trap them with the other software.