The espionage affair that shook Europe: eight years in prison for the Israeli founder

At the heart of the affair was the Predator spy software, marketed by the Intelxa Group, which operated from Athens and was founded by Tal Dilian. The software was used to track dozens of senior officials in Greece. Dilian, a former officer in the IDF, was sentenced to eight years in prison. Along with him, his business partner Sara Alexandra Faisal Hammo, Felix Bitzios, a former senior executive and shareholder in the group, and Giannis Lavranos, who headed a local company that was connected to the marketing of the software, were convicted. The sentence was suspended pending a decision on the appeal.

Although the cumulative total of the prescribed penalties reaches 126 years in prison, according to Greek law the upper limit for actually serving for this type of offense is eight years. The court rejected requests for a reduced sentence and noted that there may be other factors involved in the case, including intelligence personnel, and ordered the investigation materials to be transferred to the prosecutor’s office in Athens for examination of suspicion of more serious crimes, including espionage.

A legal precedent with an international echo

The affair was revealed in the summer of 2022 after Nikos Androlakis, then a member of the European Parliament and now the chairman of the Socialist party Psok, discovered that he had received a phishing message intended to infect his device with spyware. It later became clear that at least 87 people were the target of penetration attempts, including ministers, senior military officers and investigative journalists.

Some of the targets were at the same time under legal surveillance by the Greek intelligence services, which led to sharp criticism from the opposition and an extensive debate in the European Parliament on the regulation of the spy market. As mentioned, the Predator software was marketed by Intelxa, an international group that operated from Athens and was founded by Dilian. In 2024, the American government imposed sanctions on Intelexa, on Dilian and his father-in-law, claiming that the hack that was developed was also used to monitor American citizens, including journalists and executives.

Although the Greek government denied that it made illegal use of the software, the affair became one of the turning points in the European discourse on democratic accountability and oversight of offensive cyber tools. So far, no government officials have been prosecuted, and the procedure that has been going on in recent months is the only part of the case that has matured into a criminal decision.

At the same time, according to reports, the conviction constitutes a significant international precedent: this is the first known time in which founders and executives of a commercial Rogla company have been sentenced to prison following the use of technology they developed or marketed. Although the sentence is delayed until the appeal is decided, the very criminal determination puts a sharp spotlight on the legal and regulatory risks of the Israeli offensive cyber industry, and illustrates that the responsibility may apply not only to states but also to the entrepreneurs themselves.