Greek court convicts Intellexa founder Tal Dilian, three others in wiretapping scandal
Four business executives linked to the spyware developer Intellexa have been convicted by a Greek court for their involvement in the illegal wiretapping of government ministers, military officials, and journalists.
The convicted executives included Tal Dilian, the founder of Intellexa and a former commander of an elite Israeli intelligence unit; his ex-wife and business partner Sara Hamou; Intellexa executive Felix Bitzios; and Yiannis Lavranos, who owned the Greek security firm that purchased Intellexa’s Predator spyware.
The court sentenced each defendant to serve eight years in prison, suspended pending appeals. The four executives were convicted of “breaching the confidentiality of telephone communications,” the presiding judge said, as well as illegally accessing information systems.
In 2023, as part of the Cyprus Confidential investigation, ICIJ reported on Intellexa’s sale of spyware to some of the world’s most brutal regimes. Hamou, a corporate offshoring specialist, played a key role in establishing a base of operations for the company in Cyprus. Dilian, Hamou, and Bitzios were sanctioned by the U.S. government in March and September 2024, but sanctions were lifted on Hamou in late 2025.
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