Tal Dilian

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Israeli former military intelligence officer; founder of Intellexa, convicted in the Greek Predator case

Tal Dilian

Image Tal Dilian.jpg
Tal Dilian in Limassol, Cyprus, April 2020 (photograph by Yiannis Kourtoglou for Reuters, as published by ICIJ)
Nationality Israeli
Occupation Intelligence officer; spyware executive
Known for Founder of Intellexa; convicted in the Greek Predator scandal, 2026
Spouse(s) Sara Hamou (former)

Tal Dilian (טל דיליאן) is an Israeli former intelligence officer and the founder of the spyware consortium Intellexa. He is a colonel in the reserves. From 1998 to 2002 he commanded the technological unit of the Intelligence Corps, after joining it in 1994. In February 2026 an Athens court convicted him, with three others, of breaching the confidentiality of telephone communications and of illegally accessing information systems in the Greek wiretapping scandal. Each was sentenced to 126 years and eight months, capped at eight years to be served, pending appeal. In 2024 the US Treasury sanctioned the consortium he built.[1][2][3]

The army

He served in several posts at Intelligence Corps headquarters, then in the technological unit (also described as Unit 81) from 1994, and as its commander from 1998 to 2002. Forbes, interviewing him in 2019, described him as chief commander of the technological unit of the IDF Intelligence Corps. Haaretz reported that a Military Police inquiry into financial irregularities in the unit followed in 2002; his promotion was put on hold, and he left the service. The New York Times, citing three former senior officers, later wrote that he was forced to retire after an internal investigation raised suspicions of funds mismanagement. He moved into the private sale of the same class of tool. The unit is not Unit 8200. It is the technology arm of military intelligence. The staffing claim made about the spyware trade attaches to him by that route.[3][4][5]

The companies

In 2019 he founded Intellexa, a consortium selling data-gathering tools. The implant, Predator, was developed by Cytrox, inside the group. Shells have been registered in Greece, Ireland and North Macedonia. His then wife and business partner, Sara Aleksandra Hamou, was the business manager. Felix Bitzios was a shareholder. In November 2019 Cyprus police seized a van belonging to his company WiSpear, carrying intelligence equipment valued at $9 million, and in December arrested three employees. In February 2022 a court in Larnaca found the company guilty of privacy, communications and customs offences, after an investigation found it had extracted information from wireless systems it had been asked to install at Hermes airport.[1]

In March 2024 Haaretz reported that Dilian's ex-wife, Sara Hamou, was named as a director of Chaia Services Ltd, a British Virgin Islands company, on a reseller agreement attached to an anonymous complaint about an alleged spyware sale by Eric Banoun and Maria Pulera. According to that reseller agreement reported by Haaretz, whose signature her lawyer says is forged, Hamou was a Chaia director. Banoun and Pulera also called the signature a forgery, and Hamou's lawyer told TheMarker that she never signed the agreement. Haaretz said that even if her signature were authentic, "that in itself is not proof of her former husband's involvement", because Hamou had acted as a director on behalf of clients. Intellexa told TheMarker that it "does not now have, and has never had, commercial ties with Chaia Services Ltd", and Banoun called the allegations "unfounded and baseless". The same report referred to a 2019 dispute between Dilian and Banoun over Senpai Technologies.[6]

On 4 December 2025 Amnesty International’s Security Lab and partners published the “Intellexa Leaks”, including a mid-2023 training video that showed company staff connecting remotely to at least ten live customer Predator systems. A lawyer for Dilian told Haaretz that he had “not committed any crime nor operated any cyber system in Greece or anywhere else.”[7]

Greece

The scandal known as Predatorgate broke in 2022. A financial journalist, Thanasis Koukakis, and the leader of PASOK said they had been under surveillance by phone malware. Court documents said Koukakis’s phone was infected with Predator. Traces were later found on dozens of phones. ICIJ and OCCRP put the figure at 87, including the opposition leader, ministers, intelligence officers, the editor of a national newspaper, and businessmen. The head of the Greek intelligence service and the prime minister’s chief of staff were sacked. In 2024 the Supreme Court prosecutor shelved a case against the service and sent the four defendants to be tried on misdemeanour charges.[1][2]

On 26 February 2026 the Athens Misdemeanour Court convicted Dilian, Hamou, Bitzios and Giannis Lavranos, owner of the supplier Krikel. None entered a formal plea. All denied the charges. The court sent the file back for investigation of espionage, violation of state secrets, trafficking in spyware, and the role of people on the intelligence service payroll. In March 2026 Dilian told the programme MEGA Stories, in a written statement, that Intellexa sells only to authorised governments, does not conduct the surveillance itself, and that responsibility “rests with the sovereign authorities that acquire and operate them.” He was asked whether Intellexa had worked with state agencies or private individuals against at least 87 Greek targets. The opposition read the answer as an admission that the state had run it. He used it as the company’s defence.[8]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 David Kenner and Micah Reddy, Greek court convicts Intellexa founder Tal Dilian, three others in wiretapping scandal, ICIJ, 26 February 2026, accessed 22 October 2026.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Greek court finds four guilty of prying on private data, Reuters, 26 February 2026.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Thomas Brewster, A Multimillionaire Surveillance Dealer Steps Out Of The Shadows . . . And His $9 Million WhatsApp Hacking Van, Forbes, 5 August 2019.
  4. ↑ A Shady Israeli Intel Genius, His Cyber-spy Van and Million-dollar Deals, Haaretz, 31 December 2020.
  5. ↑ U.S. Blacklists Two Spyware Firms Run by an Israeli Former General, New York Times, 18 July 2023.
  6. ↑ Gur Megiddo, 'Send $3 Million or I'll Expose You': A Businessman, a Filmmaker and an Alleged Israeli Spyware Deal Gone Awry, Haaretz (English edition of a TheMarker investigation), 2 March 2024 (archived copy), accessed 22 October 2026.
  7. ↑ To Catch a Predator: Leak exposes the internal operations of Intellexa’s mercenary spyware, Amnesty International Security Lab, 4 December 2025.
  8. ↑ Convicted Spyware Dealer Links Greek Government to Surveillance Scandal, OCCRP, 13 March 2026.
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