The U.S. Department of Justice revealed this Friday that a hacker working for the Sinaloa Cartel was able to obtain information from the phone of an FBI agent and access Mexico City’s video surveillance system to track and assassinate FBI informants in 2018.
The report indicates that the hacker worked for a cartel “run by El Chapo,” a clear reference to the Sinaloa Cartel and its former leader, Joaquín Guzmán, who was extradited to the United States in 2017. The document indicates that the hacker identified an assistant FBI attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City and was able to obtain records of calls made and received, as well as geolocation data, from his device. It also reveals that this individual used Mexico City’s camera system to follow the official around the city and identify the people he met with.
The report also reveals that the criminal organization used this information to intimidate and, in some cases, murder potential sources or witnesses who collaborated with the federal agency. The document does not reveal the identity of the alleged hacker, the attaché, or the victims.
The incident was revealed in an audit by the Justice Department’s Inspector General of the FBI’s efforts to mitigate the effects of “ubiquitous technical surveillance,” a term used to describe the global proliferation of cameras and the burgeoning trade in vast amounts of communications, travel, and location data.
According to information from agencies, neither the State Department nor the Justice Department have responded to questions or issued any messages. The FBI and one of El Chapo Guzmán’s lawyers have also declined to comment on the incidents. The report notes that recent technological advances “have made it easier than ever for less sophisticated nations and criminal enterprises to identify and exploit vulnerabilities in the global surveillance economy.” The same document indicates that the FBI had a strategic plan under development to mitigate these vulnerabilities and made several recommendations, including increased training for agency personnel.
Just this Tuesday, Matthew W. Allen, a special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), revealed that members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), the organization the United States has defined as the “greatest criminal drug threat,” have spied on and monitored his agency officials in Washington during the trial of Rubén Oseguera González, alias El Menchito, the son of cartel leader Nemesio Oseguera El Mencho.
Allen recounted how the criminal group retaliated against family members of informants in cases related to the CJNG. The DEA special agent asserted that they have evidence that cartel members monitor anti-narcotics unit agents in the United States and that some of these operations occurred in parallel with El Menchito’s trial.
Source: elpais
