The Biden administration on Tuesday unveiled sanctions on two individuals and five corporate entities tied to the Intellexa consortium, a network of European firms behind the sale of a widely used mobile surveillance software known as Predator.

Part of a larger crackdown: The Treasury Department action marks the latest move by the Biden administration to crack down on a shadowy ecosystem of commercial spyware vendors based in Europe whose products have been used by foreign governments against dissidents — and against U.S. citizens. In July, the White House added two European firms with ties to the Intellexa consortium to a Commerce Department blacklist.

“This action also recognizes the challenge and threat to Americans of commercial spyware misuse globally, but also particularly in Europe,” said a senior administration official, who provided a briefing to reporters ahead of the announcement on condition of anonymity.

The problem: The Intellexa consortium’s Predator spyware — which can surreptitiously extract messages, photos and location data from mobile phones — has been used to surveil foreign politicians, dissidents and journalists, and even a U.S. citizen in Europe and Africa.

The company has sprung up to fill the vacuum left by Israel’s NSO Group, a once-prolific spyware maker that has been battered by tightening domestic export controls, foreign sanctions and public scrutiny.

The impact: The sanctions will block all U.S. property owned in whole or in part by the following entities:

• Two individuals: Tal Dilian, a former Israeli general and the founder of Intellexa, and Sara Aleksandra Fayssal Hamou, a corporate off-shoring specialist, per a Treasury Department fact sheet.

• And five firms: Greece-based Intellexa S.A., Ireland-based Intellexa Limited, North Macedonian-based Cytrox AD, Hungary-based Cytrox Holdings, and Ireland based Thalestris Limited.

The official also argued the move would have symbolic value, undercutting the market for similar firms.
Intellexa consortium could not be immediately reached for comment.

The timing: The move comes ahead of the March 18 Summit for Democracy in South Korea.

At last year’s summit, the U.S. and a slew of foreign partners signed a joint statement outlining their commitment to reigning in the use of commercial surveillance tools. It followed shortly after a March 2023 executive order forbidding executive branch agencies from using spyware tied to repeated human rights abuses.