Greece Just Sentenced a Spyware Maker to Prison—the First Country to Do It

A Verdict Years in the Making

A Greek court just did what no other country has managed: it sent the people behind a commercial spyware operation to prison.

On February 26, an Athens court found Tal Dilian, the former Israeli intelligence officer who founded the Intellexa surveillance consortium, guilty of unlawful wiretapping alongside three associates. The combined sentence: 126 years, reduced to a mandatory eight under Greek sentencing rules. It is the first criminal conviction of commercial spyware executives anywhere in the world.

The three other defendants convicted were Sara Hamou, a corporate specialist who provided managerial services to Intellexa; Felix Bitzios, the company's former deputy administrator; and Yiannis Lavranos, owner of Krikel, the firm through which the spyware was procured. All four were found guilty of unlawful access to private communication systems, privacy violations, and data law violations.

What Predator Does

Predator is spyware manufactured by Intellexa. Once installed on a target's phone, it can read messages, access the camera and microphone, track the device's location, and extract files without the owner knowing. Intellexa marketed it to governments around the world as a law enforcement and national security tool.

In Greece, Predator was turned against the country's own people.

Between 2020 and 2021, more than 90 Greeks were targeted with the spyware. The list included opposition politicians, government ministers, intelligence operatives, prosecutors, and financial journalist Thanasis Koukakis, whose phone was infected for three months.

Greece's "Watergate"

The scandal erupted in 2022 when opposition leader Nikos Androulakis and journalist Koukakis publicly alleged they had been placed under state surveillance using phone malware. Greek media dubbed it "Predatorgate," and the fallout was severe: months of parliamentary hearings, the resignation of Greece's intelligence chief, and a criminal investigation that ultimately led to the trial of Dilian and his associates.

Amnesty International called the verdict "rare accountability in the abuse of surveillance technology" and urged the court to also investigate potential espionage charges.

Why This Matters

Until now, the commercial spyware industry has operated with near total impunity. Companies like NSO Group, the makers of Pegasus, and Intellexa have faced sanctions, lawsuits, and public condemnation. None of that produced a criminal conviction for the way their tools were used.

Greece changed that.

"Nobody's going to want to bank you if you're sentenced in absentia," said John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab who has tracked Predator for years. The conviction creates a new kind of obstacle for anyone involved in the commercial spyware trade: a criminal record.

For journalists, activists, and anyone who communicates digitally, the ruling sends a message that selling tools designed to compromise phones and read private communications can carry prison time. The question is whether other countries will follow.

A Problem That Extends Far Beyond Greece

Predator's reach goes well beyond Athens. Citizen Lab research has documented the spyware targeting civil society members across multiple continents, European Parliament leadership, Taiwan's president, and even sitting U.S. senators.

The Biden administration sanctioned Intellexa in 2024. The Trump administration partially reversed those sanctions in December 2025, but the Greek conviction now creates a separate legal obstacle that no executive order can undo.

The commercial spyware market is estimated to be worth billions of dollars annually. Dozens of companies sell phone hacking and surveillance tools to governments, often with little oversight over how those tools are ultimately deployed. Until the Greek verdict, none of those companies had seen their executives face criminal consequences.

What Comes Next

The sentences are suspended pending appeal, and the defendants remain free during the process. But even if reduced or overturned, the conviction itself establishes a precedent that the spyware industry has long avoided: criminal liability for the people who build and sell these tools.

The judge in Athens also ordered prosecutors to investigate whether the surveillance campaign constituted espionage, a far more serious charge that could lead to additional indictments.

Koukakis, the journalist whose phone was infected, put it simply after the verdict: Greek citizens will not be "defenseless" against those who wield surveillance technology.

For anyone who uses a phone, sends an email, or communicates digitally, the Greek ruling represents something rare: a government holding surveillance vendors accountable rather than quietly paying for their services.