Overview

• The Inspector General’s June report confirms that a 2018 operation hired an unnamed hacker to infiltrate an FBI assistant legal attaché’s phone and Mexico City surveillance cameras.
• The hacker extracted call logs, geolocation data and live camera feeds to trace the attaché’s movements and meetings.
• Cartel operatives used the stolen intelligence to intimidate and, in some cases, kill potential informants and cooperating witnesses.
• The audit warns that advances in commercially available surveillance and hacking tools have left law enforcement vulnerable to technical espionage.
• In reaction, the FBI elevated Ubiquitous Technical Surveillance to a Tier 1 threat and convened a red team to oversee draft mitigation and training plans.