04 July 2025

If the FBI Can Use It, so Can the Sinaloa Cartel

Various law enforcement agencies love them some data bought from third party data brokers to cast a wide dragnet that would otherwise not be allowed by law.

They love insecure phone systems and communications providers who sell user data for the same reason.

It turns out that Mexican drug cartels like these things for all the same reasons, except, of course they are not constrained by things like due process:

The Sinaloa drug cartel in Mexico hacked the phone of an FBI official investigating kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán as part of a surveillance campaign “to intimidate and/or kill potential sources or cooperating witnesses,” according to a recently published report by the Justice Department.

The report, which cited an “individual connected to the cartel,” said a hacker hired by its top brass “offered a menu of services related to exploiting mobile phones and other electronic devices.” The hired hacker observed “'people of interest' for the cartel, including the FBI Assistant Legal Attache, and then was able to use the [attache's] mobile phone number to obtain calls made and received, as well as geolocation data, associated with the [attache's] phone."

“According to the FBI, the hacker also used Mexico City's camera system to follow the [attache] through the city and identify people the [attache] met with,” the heavily redacted report stated. “According to the case agent, the cartel used that information to intimidate and, in some instances, kill potential sources or cooperating witnesses.”

What happened here is a direct response of law enforcement, both in the US and worldwide, leaning on communications providers to leave back doors open.

To paraphrase E.E. "Doc" Smith, any technology that can be devised by law enforcement can also be deployed by criminal entities. 

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