Companies run by Israeli businessmen have sold spyware and surveillance tools to Bangladesh, despite a lack of diplomatic relations between Dhaka and Tel Aviv, a report by Haaretz revealed on Tuesday.
Israeli companies and a company run by a former Israeli Military Intelligence (IDF) commander but based in Europe sold the tools to the government in recent years. Israeli government regulations reportedly prohibit the sales of such technologies to Bangladesh, and regulations prohibit the import of Israeli products.
According to Haaretz, export records show that a SpearHead surveillance system made by the Passitora company was delivered to Dhaka in June 2022. Tal Dillian, a former chief commander in the technological unit of the IDF, owns Passitora.
Three people who were senior officers in the IDF's Intelligence Directorate told The New York Times that Dilian was forced to retire from the IDF in 2003 after an internal investigation raised suspicions that he had been involved in funds mismanagement.
In 2019, Cyprus police began investigating Dilian after he spoke to Forbes about the SpearHead system, a surveillance van he was testing in the island nation as part of a company he owned called WiSpear. The spy van, a converted GMC ambulance with millions of dollars of surveillance equipment, could access any phone within a 1-kilometer radius and read their WhatsApp messages, Facebook chats, texts, contacts, and more.
Dilian told Forbes that the companies that provide surveillance tech couldn't be held responsible for abuses.
In June 2021, the government decided to buy a surveillance vehicle from Toru Group Limited. Haaretz found that the company is registered in the British Virgin Islands, but its website does not reference the vehicle the government purchased. The company's CEO is an Israeli citizen named Assaf Elias.
Several sources informed Haaretz that the surveillance vehicle purchased by Bangladesh was provided by Dilian's company, with Elias serving as a middleman. The CEO of the Toru Group reportedly served as a middleman for other deals with Dilian as well.
Official documents from Interior Ministry shared in the report show that a high official from the National Telecommunication Monitoring Center (NTMC), which monitors citizens and has been accused of eavesdropping on opposition officials, protesters, and ordinary citizens, flew to Greece multiple times to train on the surveillance vehicle.
The report also found that an Israeli company, Prelysis sold a surveillance system that intercepts WiFi communications to Bangladesh's internal intelligence agency in 2019. The system was shipped through Cyprus, with Cypriot export records showing the deal costing about $3 million.
Prelysis is registered in Israel and Cyprus and was founded and directed by Israeli citizen Kobi Naveh. According to Haaretz, Naveh could not respond when asked whether Israel's Defense Ministry oversees his company.
Additional Cyprus export records show that in 2019 a company called Coralco Tech, based in Singapore provided equipment for the “active monitoring of mobile phones” to the Bangladesh Army. The company is owned by Israeli Eyal Almog and registered in Israel under his name.
Coralco told Haaretz that “due to the nature of its deals, the company does not comment on the identity of its clients and the products they buy. All deals involving the company are fully reported while attaining the proper licenses from the regulatory bodies, including the Israeli defense ministry. The company sells its products after an internal vetting process that considers human rights violations.”
Yet another company, U-TX Technologies, also provided surveillance equipment to Bangladesh through Cyprus in 2019 and 2021. Israeli David Heled runs the company, and at least two other Israelis are managers.
Not the first time
This isn't the first Israeli surveillance tech reported ending up in Bangladesh.
In 2021, Al Jazeera reported that Israeli-made surveillance equipment used to monitor mobile phones was bought by Bangladesh in 2018 using a Bangkok-based mediator. The technology in that deal was provided by a company called Picsix.
Picsix's website states that it “develops cutting-edge interception technology for government agencies around the world” and that former Israeli intelligence experts founded the company. According to the Israeli defense ministry, the company's headquarters are in Even Yehuda. According to LinkedIn, the CEO of Picsix is Menachem Kenan.
Cellebrite, another Israeli firm, sold surveillance tech to Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) in 2021, according to Haaretz.
Cyprus: A hub for spyware
Cyprus has become a central hub for the spyware and surveillance tech industry, with the European Parliament's Committee of Inquiry investigating the use of Pegasus and equivalent surveillance spyware in November finding that “on paper, there is a robust legal framework, including EU rules, but in practice, Cyprus is an attractive place for companies selling surveillance technologies.”
“Recent scandals have damaged the country's reputation though, and a set of new legislative initiatives tightening the legal framework for exports and improving compliance is expected to be finalized in 2023.” The report pointed to Dilian's interview with Forbes as an example of scandal in the island country, with multiple pages focusing on Dilian and his associates.
The committee's report also noted that “Cyprus seems to have a very close collaboration with Israel in the area of surveillance technologies” and that the country is home to about 29 Israeli surveillance tech companies.
Israeli spyware industry under fire
Israeli spyware and surveillance tech have been in the spotlight in recent years after scandals surrounding the use of technology from the NSO Group, Candiru, and other Israeli companies by governments around the world to target activists, politicians, and journalists.
In December, The New York Times revealed that, despite blacklisting the NSO Group in 2021, US authorities had used other Israeli spyware technologies to hack mobile phones. The Drug Enforcement Administration has deployed a tool called Graphite, made by the Israeli firm Paragon, five people familiar with the agency's operations told the Times.
In 2021, Forbes revealed that Paragon was cofounded and directed by Ehud Schneorson, former IDF Intelligence Directorate's Unit 8200's former commander and former prime minister Ehud Barak.
The Times also found that the CIA had purchased NSO's Pegasus for the government of Djibouti under the Trump administration and that the FBI had attempted to deploy Pegasus in 2020 and 2021 but eventually abandoned the idea.
In 2021, the US Commerce Department placed NSO and Candiru on a blacklist, banning American companies from doing business with them. The White House has also warned that it would fight the “illegitimate use of technology, including commercial spyware and surveillance technology, and we will stand against digital authoritarianism.”
Two senior Israeli officials and an Israeli tech company executive told the Times that stricter restrictions had been placed on Israel's cybersecurity industry to prevent further blacklisting, including a restriction on the number of countries to which the companies can sell their spyware. This has led to severe financial consequences and sent three companies into bankruptcy.
The Israeli Globes business daily reported in April that the Defense Ministry has been making it extremely difficult for spyware companies to sell software abroad, even canceling existing permits before they expire.
Amir Eshel, the outgoing director general of the Defense Ministry, told the Times that the Defense Ministry has little power over any Israeli who sets up businesses outside Israel. “It certainly disturbs me that a veteran of our intelligence and cyber units, who employs other former senior officials, operates around the world without any oversight.”