{"id":25433,"date":"2026-02-26T15:48:26","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T15:48:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=25433"},"modified":"2026-02-26T15:48:26","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T15:48:26","slug":"spyware-maker-sentenced-to-prison-in-greece-for-wiretapping-politicians-and-journalists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=25433","title":{"rendered":"Spyware maker sentenced to prison in Greece for wiretapping politicians and journalists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A Greek court on Thursday sentenced the founder of Intellexa, a collective of spyware makers, to eight years in prison for illegal wiretapping and privacy violations, <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/balkaninsight.com\/2026\/02\/26\/greek-court-found-guilty-four-individuals-in-wiretapping-scandal\/\">according<\/a> <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ekathimerini.com\/news\/1296353\/four-businesspeople-found-guilty-in-spyware-trial\/\">to<\/a> <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/business\/finance\/greek-court-finds-four-guilty-prying-private-data-wiretapping-scandal-2026-02-26\/\">several<\/a> <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.timesofisrael.com\/israeli-spyware-maker-sentenced-to-8-years-in-greeces-predator-case\/\">reports<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Tal Dilian and three other <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/tag\/intellexa\/\">Intellexa<\/a> executives were tried for their role in a scandal dubbed \u201cGreek Watergate,\u201d which dates back to 2022. The Greek government was accused of wiretapping the phones of politicians, journalists, businesspeople, and military officials with spyware developed by Intellexa.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The other people sentenced today include Dilian\u2019s business partner Sara Aleksandra Fayssal Hamou; his former deputy administrator and shareholder of Intellexa, Felix Bitzios; and Yiannis Lavranos, who owned a company linked to Intellexa.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dilian did not respond to TechCrunch\u2019s request for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 2024, <a href=\"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2024\/03\/05\/us-sanctions-founder-of-spyware-maker-intellexa-for-targeting-americans\/\">the U.S. government sanctioned Intellexa<\/a> and several of its linked companies, Dilian, and Hamou, for their role in developing its spyware, known as Predator, used in the targeting of Americans, including government officials and journalists.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The court ordered authorities to further investigate, and stayed the sentence pending appeal.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2026\/02\/26\/spyware-maker-sentenced-to-prison-in-greece-for-wiretapping-politicians-and-journalists\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Greek court on Thursday sent&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25434,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[249],"tags":[1662,14560,6114,1798,1801,1803,14561],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25433"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}