Cyprus seems to have exported surveillance software at least once back in March 2018, Philenews reported on Friday when referring to the island’s possible involvement in the recent eavesdropping scandal in Greece.
Indicative are the positions of the Police expressed on December 19, 2019 as part of the judicial process requesting the detention of three persons in relation to the investigation in the notorious case of the ‘black spy van’, it added.
Legal documents have Criminal Investigations Department chief Marios Papaevryviades telling Larnaca District Court on that specific date that “WS WISPEAR SYSTEMS LTD” exported such a software early in 2018 to a still unspecified country.
The company had been granted license to export “Interception Equipment designed for the extraction of voice or data, transmitted over the air interface” from the Republic of Cyprus, the legal document added.
The police request at the time for three arrested persons in connection with the case to be detained was turned down by the district court.
Israeli national Tal Dilian’s Limassol based company WS Wispear Systems Ltd – now renamed Passitoria Ltd – was implicated in the infamous ‘spy van’ affair in Cyprus in 2019.
WS Wispear Systems Ltd had acquired Cytrox – the company that developed the Predator spyware involved in the spy scandal in Greece – in 2018.
And this seems to be the connecting thread between Cyprus and Greece where an opposition politician and a journalist illegally surveilled.
