This is a well-known spyware program that allows remote access to a phone’s microphone, camera, contacts and messages. Named Predator, this malware was allegedly sold by the French company Nexa to several authoritarian regimes, including the Vietnamese government. A sale which would have brought in 5.6 million euros to Nexa, via a series of intermediaries abroad.
Like Pegasus, software from the Israeli company NSO which caused a scandal in 2021, Predator was allegedly used for a vast espionage campaign. European elected officials but also several institutions would have been the victims of this targeted surveillance, revealed Mediapart and Amnesty International. This surveillance would have taken place on the X network (formerly Twitter) and would concern at least 50 accounts belonging to 27 individuals and 23 institutions, details a report from the NGO.
French MEP Pierre Karleskind (Renaissance), chairman of the European Parliament’s fisheries committee, is notably one of the victims. “It is clearly my commitment and the position of the European Parliament against illegal fishing which is being attacked here by Vietnam. It is an attack on our democratic institutions which must be firmly condemned,” reacted the Breton elected official before adding: “this attack does not impress me. I will not weaken in my fight against illegal fishing which is emptying our oceans of fish.”
Mysterious software that pays off big
The President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola was also targeted, as was the account of the European Commission. Vietnam has been in the sights of the European Commission for years, which criticizes it for insufficient efforts to combat illegal fishing. The NGO’s report does not establish whether the targets of this espionage campaign were actually infected. MEP Pierre Karleskind assures us that no, not having clicked on the link.
The Predator software was created by the Cytrox company in North Macedonia and then distributed by Intellexa, a complex business group created by a former Israeli soldier and registered in Ireland. Intellexa then formed a partnership with the French group Nexa to market spyware in what the German weekly Der Spiegel called it “one of the most mysterious and dangerous companies in Europe”.