A Mexican drug poster hired a hacker to track the movements of a senior FBI official in Mexico City since 2018.
The report says that he used access to the city's surveillance cameras network to gather intelligence that finally led the murders of possible FBI informants, according to a general report by the recently published inspector of the Department of Justice.
The hacker also agreed to the data of the telephone activity and the geolocation of the official in what the report described as an important violation of operational security. At that time, the FBI was very involved in the case against JoaquÃn “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera, the famous former head of the Sinaloa cartel.
“The hacker could also 'see calls made and received' by the FBI official and his geolocation data in a great violation of operational security,” the report said.
According to an FBI case agent cited in the document, the hacker initially surveyed the people who entered and left the United States embassy in Mexico City before focusing on the legal attachment of the office, a key link for the Mexican police. The identity of the hacker was not revealed.
“According to the agent of the case, the poster used (information provided by the hacker) to intimidate and, in some cases, kill possible sources or cooperating witnesses,” the report said.
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The findings highlight the extent to which Mexican posters are taking advantage of advanced digital tools in their ongoing battles with US authorities.
During the Trump administration, several important posters were labeled as foreign terrorist organizations, raising the repression of the United States government against its operations to an imperative of national security. In recent years, the FBI, the DEA and the United States Army have increased their own surveillance capacity in an effort to interrupt the sinal poster and its main rival, the new generation of Jalisco.
In April, CNN reported that the CIA was evaluating its authority to use lethal force against the objectives of the poster.
With the Chapo in prison, the leadership of the poster has moved to a younger and more knowledgeable generation of technology.
“We have identified people in the posters that specialize in cryptocurrency movements,” said DEA officials previously said.
“The posters execute a multimillion -dollar global company and use sophisticated technology to improve their commercial operations,” said Derek Maltz, who served as an interim Dea administrator until May, he said. “They use last generation sophisticated surveillance techniques to identify activities of application of the law and its adversaries.”
The Inspector General's report also warns about a broader national security threat that represents the growing accessibility of surveillance technology.
“Some within the FBI and the associated agencies, such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), have described this threat as 'existential',” the report said.
The document describes the vulnerabilities “of long data” derived from what it calls “ubiquitous technical surveillance”, a term used to describe the wide availability of data that adversaries can exploit. He points out that rapid advances in consumer technology have facilitated that even less sophisticated adversaries compromise sensitive operations.
According to reports, the FBI is working on a “strategic plan” to address the security weaknesses marked in the report.
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