Difference between revisions of "Eric Banoun"

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(Link Chaia Services Ltd)
(Add Companies House notes on Deterrence UK, Havoc and Amstone; fix character encoding)
 
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== 2024 export complaint and the Chaia agreement ==
 
== 2024 export complaint and the Chaia agreement ==
  
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On 2 March 2024 ''Haaretz'' published an investigation by Gur Megiddo of ''TheMarker'' into an anonymous complaint sent on 8 January 2024 to the defence export control authorities of Israel's [[Ministry of Defence (Israel)|Ministry of Defence]] and to the US authorities responsible for the International Traffic in Arms Regulations. The complaint alleged that Banoun and [[Maria Pulera]], a British-American filmmaker based in Málaga, had sold spyware without permits to a private company allegedly acting as a front for the Egyptian government, in a three-year deal worth about $42 million for a territory code-named "Lotus". Banoun was credited as a producer of Pulera's 2018 film ''Between Worlds''. Banoun and Pulera told ''TheMarker'' that the complaint had been invented by blackmailers and that some of the documents were fake, and they denied having any Egyptian client. ''Haaretz'' reported that on 7 January 2024 [[Tamer Esmat Qursha]], a US-Jordanian intermediary, had emailed Banoun demanding $3 million in a cryptocurrency wallet and threatening to expose him.<ref name="HaaretzMegiddo2024" />
+
On 2 March 2024 ''Haaretz'' published an investigation by Gur Megiddo of ''TheMarker'' into an anonymous complaint sent on 8 January 2024 to the defence export control authorities of Israel's [[Ministry of Defence (Israel)|Ministry of Defence]] and to the US authorities responsible for the International Traffic in Arms Regulations. The complaint alleged that Banoun and [[Maria Pulera]], a British-American filmmaker based in Málaga, had sold spyware without permits to a private company allegedly acting as a front for the Egyptian government, in a three-year deal worth about $42 million for a territory code-named "Lotus". Banoun was credited as a producer of Pulera's 2018 film ''Between Worlds''. Banoun and Pulera told ''TheMarker'' that the complaint had been invented by blackmailers and that some of the documents were fake, and they denied having any Egyptian client. ''Haaretz'' reported that on 7 January 2024 [[Tamer Esmat Qursha]], a US-Jordanian intermediary, had emailed Banoun demanding $3 million in a cryptocurrency wallet and threatening to expose him.<ref name="HaaretzMegiddo2024" />
  
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''TheMarker'' found that some details in the documents were corroborated by other records: shipments by Sky Drift from Málaga to Cairo in November 2023, on Qatar Airways waybills, to [[Amstone International Trading]], whose director is [[Michael Adel Botros]]; and a voice message, ostensibly from Pulera to Qursha, about a demonstration of capabilities on 13 December 2023. It said that the claim that the client was the Egyptian government "is not backed up by anything". According to the documents, the reseller was [[Deterrence UK]], whose sole director, [[Philip Matthew Gardiner]], is also a director of a UK company named [[Havoc (company)|Havoc]].<ref name="HaaretzMegiddo2024" /> [[Citizen Lab]] said in 2026 that it remained unclear from the reporting whether Intelos's AdHoc product had been sold in Egypt.<ref name="CLDiscover" />
+
''TheMarker'' found that some details in the documents were corroborated by other records: shipments by Sky Drift from Málaga to Cairo in November 2023, on Qatar Airways waybills, to [[Amstone International Trading]], whose director is [[Michael Adel Botros]]; and a voice message, ostensibly from Pulera to Qursha, about a demonstration of capabilities on 13 December 2023. It said that the claim that the client was the Egyptian government "is not backed up by anything". According to the documents, the reseller was [[Deterrence UK]], whose sole director, [[Philip Matthew Gardiner]], is also a director of a UK company named [[Havoc Inc Limited|Havoc]].<ref name="HaaretzMegiddo2024" /> Deterrence UK appears to be the company identified in the Companies House register as Deterrence UK Limited (company number 14883693), a holding company with its registered office at 26 St Margarets Green, Ipswich, United Kingdom, IP4 2BN. It was incorporated on 22 May 2023, filed dormant-company accounts for the year to 31 May 2024, and was dissolved on 20 January 2026. The register records Phil Matthew Gardiner as its only director, from 22 May 2023 until 10 April 2024.<ref name="CHDeterrenceUK">Companies House, [https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/14883693 DETERRENCE UK LIMITED (14883693): company overview], [https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/14883693/officers officers] and [https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/14883693/filing-history filing history], ''Find and update company information'', accessed 29 October 2026.</ref> Havoc appears to be Havoc Inc Limited (company number 15022144), with its registered office at Saracens House, 25 St. Margarets Green, Ipswich, England, IP4 2BN. It was incorporated on 24 July 2023 with Gardiner as its sole director and Deterrence UK Limited as its controlling shareholder, and was dissolved on 9 September 2025.<ref name="CHHavocInc">Companies House, [https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/15022144 HAVOC INC LIMITED (15022144): company overview], [https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/15022144/officers officers] and [https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/15022144/persons-with-significant-control persons with significant control], ''Find and update company information'', accessed 29 October 2026.</ref> Amstone International Trading appears to be connected to the company identified in the Companies House register as [[Amstone International Limited]] (company number 09395471), incorporated on 19 January 2015 as Aston McKinsey Limited and renamed on 2 May 2023. The register records Micheal Adel Micheal Botros, an Egyptian national resident in Qatar, as its director from 2015. The company was dissolved on 20 August 2024.<ref name="CHAmstone">Companies House, [https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/09395471 AMSTONE INTERNATIONAL LIMITED (09395471): company overview], [https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/09395471/officers officers] and [https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/09395471/filing-history filing history], ''Find and update company information'', accessed 29 October 2026.</ref> [[Citizen Lab]] said in 2026 that it remained unclear from the reporting whether Intelos's AdHoc product had been sold in Egypt.<ref name="CLDiscover" />
  
 
The reseller agreement attached to the complaint named [[Chaia Services Ltd]], a British Virgin Islands company, as the company through which the technology was sold. According to that reseller agreement reported by ''Haaretz'', whose signature her lawyer says is forged, [[Sara Hamou]], the former wife of [[Tal Dilian]], was a Chaia director. Banoun and Pulera also said her signature was a forgery, and Hamou's lawyer told ''TheMarker'' that she never signed the agreement. ''Haaretz'' said that the alleged connection between Banoun, Pulera and [[Intellexa]] rested on this one detail, "whose veracity is also in doubt", and that even an authentic signature would not prove Dilian's involvement, since 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".<ref name="HaaretzMegiddo2024" />
 
The reseller agreement attached to the complaint named [[Chaia Services Ltd]], a British Virgin Islands company, as the company through which the technology was sold. According to that reseller agreement reported by ''Haaretz'', whose signature her lawyer says is forged, [[Sara Hamou]], the former wife of [[Tal Dilian]], was a Chaia director. Banoun and Pulera also said her signature was a forgery, and Hamou's lawyer told ''TheMarker'' that she never signed the agreement. ''Haaretz'' said that the alleged connection between Banoun, Pulera and [[Intellexa]] rested on this one detail, "whose veracity is also in doubt", and that even an authentic signature would not prove Dilian's involvement, since 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".<ref name="HaaretzMegiddo2024" />

Latest revision as of 22:17, 29 October 2026

Israeli surveillance-technology entrepreneur; Circles co-founder; Discover-Tech and Intelos director

Eric Banoun

Image Eric Banoun.jpg
Eric Banoun, from his own website
Nationality Israeli
Occupation Surveillance-technology entrepreneur; investor
Known for Co-founder of Circles; director or shareholder of Discover-Tech and Intelos
Website ericbanoun.com

Eric Banoun is an Israeli surveillance-technology entrepreneur and investor. According to Haaretz, he co-founded Circles, an SS7 phone-location and interception firm that Francisco Partners bought in 2014 for $130 million and merged with NSO Group, and he was earlier vice-president of sales in the cyber division of NICE Systems.[1] Citizen Lab has named him as a co-founder of Senpai Technologies, which it describes as part of the Intellexa consortium, and reported that he was a director of Discover-Tech from soon after its 2020 founding until January 2025, and has been a shareholder and director of Intelos Ltd since its 2018 registration. Citizen Lab quotes Haaretz as describing him as "one of the pioneers of offensive cyber in Israel".[2]

Discover-Tech and Intelos

Citizen Lab's October 2026 investigation linked Discover-Tech's Controlium ad-targeting platform to the delivery of Candiru spyware and to the ADINT vendor Intelos. It found that the Discover-Tech and Intelos websites were published from the same Wix user account for a period ending around February 2026, and that Controlium logins were linked to Intelos infrastructure, including an "AD/HOC" application login. Citizen Lab also reported that Banoun had been listed as a director of Chaia Services Tech LLC, a US company dissolved in 2025, whose name resembles that of Discover-Tech's former shareholder Chaia Services Ltd.[2]

Ctech has also placed Banoun in the network around early Rayzone Group and NSO Group mediation activity involving Matan Caspi.[3]

2024 export complaint and the Chaia agreement

On 2 March 2024 Haaretz published an investigation by Gur Megiddo of TheMarker into an anonymous complaint sent on 8 January 2024 to the defence export control authorities of Israel's Ministry of Defence and to the US authorities responsible for the International Traffic in Arms Regulations. The complaint alleged that Banoun and Maria Pulera, a British-American filmmaker based in Málaga, had sold spyware without permits to a private company allegedly acting as a front for the Egyptian government, in a three-year deal worth about $42 million for a territory code-named "Lotus". Banoun was credited as a producer of Pulera's 2018 film Between Worlds. Banoun and Pulera told TheMarker that the complaint had been invented by blackmailers and that some of the documents were fake, and they denied having any Egyptian client. Haaretz reported that on 7 January 2024 Tamer Esmat Qursha, a US-Jordanian intermediary, had emailed Banoun demanding $3 million in a cryptocurrency wallet and threatening to expose him.[1]

TheMarker found that some details in the documents were corroborated by other records: shipments by Sky Drift from Málaga to Cairo in November 2023, on Qatar Airways waybills, to Amstone International Trading, whose director is Michael Adel Botros; and a voice message, ostensibly from Pulera to Qursha, about a demonstration of capabilities on 13 December 2023. It said that the claim that the client was the Egyptian government "is not backed up by anything". According to the documents, the reseller was Deterrence UK, whose sole director, Philip Matthew Gardiner, is also a director of a UK company named Havoc.[1] Deterrence UK appears to be the company identified in the Companies House register as Deterrence UK Limited (company number 14883693), a holding company with its registered office at 26 St Margarets Green, Ipswich, United Kingdom, IP4 2BN. It was incorporated on 22 May 2023, filed dormant-company accounts for the year to 31 May 2024, and was dissolved on 20 January 2026. The register records Phil Matthew Gardiner as its only director, from 22 May 2023 until 10 April 2024.[4] Havoc appears to be Havoc Inc Limited (company number 15022144), with its registered office at Saracens House, 25 St. Margarets Green, Ipswich, England, IP4 2BN. It was incorporated on 24 July 2023 with Gardiner as its sole director and Deterrence UK Limited as its controlling shareholder, and was dissolved on 9 September 2025.[5] Amstone International Trading appears to be connected to the company identified in the Companies House register as Amstone International Limited (company number 09395471), incorporated on 19 January 2015 as Aston McKinsey Limited and renamed on 2 May 2023. The register records Micheal Adel Micheal Botros, an Egyptian national resident in Qatar, as its director from 2015. The company was dissolved on 20 August 2024.[6] Citizen Lab said in 2026 that it remained unclear from the reporting whether Intelos's AdHoc product had been sold in Egypt.[2]

The reseller agreement attached to the complaint named Chaia Services Ltd, a British Virgin Islands company, as the company through which the technology was sold. According to that reseller agreement reported by Haaretz, whose signature her lawyer says is forged, Sara Hamou, the former wife of Tal Dilian, was a Chaia director. Banoun and Pulera also said her signature was a forgery, and Hamou's lawyer told TheMarker that she never signed the agreement. Haaretz said that the alleged connection between Banoun, Pulera and Intellexa rested on this one detail, "whose veracity is also in doubt", and that even an authentic signature would not prove Dilian's involvement, since 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".[1]

Banoun told TheMarker: "The allegations in this article are unfounded and baseless. The majority of the claims are based on material, most of which is fake, that was acquired fraudulently and originates with a person with a proven criminal record." No comment was received from Pulera, Qursha or Botros. The same report referred to a 2019 dispute between Banoun and Dilian over Senpai Technologies.[1]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 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.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Bill Marczak et al., How Discover-Tech Turned Targeted Ads Into a Pipeline for Zero-Click Mercenary Spyware, Citizen Lab, 15 October 2026, accessed 22 October 2026.
  3. ↑ Tomer Ganon and Hagar Ravet, The Rayzone Group's secret cyber intelligence activities revealed, Ctech, 29 December 2020.
  4. ↑ Companies House, DETERRENCE UK LIMITED (14883693): company overview, officers and filing history, Find and update company information, accessed 29 October 2026.
  5. ↑ Companies House, HAVOC INC LIMITED (15022144): company overview, officers and persons with significant control, Find and update company information, accessed 29 October 2026.
  6. ↑ Companies House, AMSTONE INTERNATIONAL LIMITED (09395471): company overview, officers and filing history, Find and update company information, accessed 29 October 2026.
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