Rafael Moreno Valle, Governor of Puebla. // Photo:. Cuartoscuro
The administration of Governor Rafael Moreno Valle poblano spied on political opponents, journalists and academics through computer viruses (exploit) and data collection software which bought the Italian company Hacking Team in April 2013.
This was revealed more than 400 gigabytes of emails and internal documents of the company -revisados and analyzed by Political Animal and B-Side which became public after he was the victim of hacking.
Ente May 2013 and June this year, the Galileo System Remote Control (Remote Control System), developed by spy software Hacking Team, served to illegally monitor opponents, especially in times of electoral competition.
According to the information contained in emails and documents, the poblano government spied the tent of Ernesto Cordero in the PAN primary election 2014, in which the continuity of Gustavo Madero was defined as a national party leader.
In addition, also spied for the electoral process in 2013 in Puebla, when mayors and Congress were renewed, and during last federal process, where we sought to monitor opponents not only in Puebla, but also in California.
The director of the Network in Defense of Digital (R3D) Rights, Luis Fernando Garcia says eavesdropping and monitoring the poblano government is “illegal” because it violates Article 16 of the Constitution, which states that “private communications are inviolable. The criminal law shall punish any act that violates the freedom and privacy of the same, except when provided voluntarily by any of the individuals involved in them. “
The article also states that only empowered to intercept private communications are “federal judicial authority, at the request of the federal authority that enforces the law or the holder of the prosecution of the corresponding state.”
The PRI federal deputy Enrique Doger Guerrero, Puebla victim of government surveillance, saying that “such practices are an offense; should pursue, investigate and punish those who commit it (…) If someone is making money from the state government is that the government agrees, the governor knows, would be very serious if you do not know what to do ” .
usurping the identity
The spy was executed through false and sending emails with attachments fake websites, even impersonating Federal exdiputados, as with the PAN Violeta Lagunes, who when interviewed said that discusses legal action for that offense.
The forged documents are loaded with viruses that allow you to take control of the team or do search for specific information on the infected computer, and even send emails from the personal accounts of the target ( targets , as they are identified in the Italian software) to infect new computers of others.
The system of espionage, acquired through the company SYM Integral Systems Inc., owned by Hugo Gadi Makotov responds to the orders of the elected federal deputy Eukid Castañón Herrera, according to sources who requested anonymity.
Which states intelligence services bought?
In 2010, the team offered Makotov campaign Moreno Valley – then candidate for governor of Puebla operating a locking strategy This system of espionage cell signal equipment PRI operators. To say the sources, the strategy did not work but it served to open the door to the company.
was implemented at the Center for Prospective Analysis (CAP), an office created in 2011 by the then Secretary General of Government, Fernando Manzanilla, as a testing center for the agenda of Puebla risks.
At the end of Manzanilla in early 2013 It was taken up by the then Secretary for Political Affairs and Civil Protection, Eukid Castañón, to transform it into the center of espionage with a team of Joaquin Arenal, a exdelegado the Center for Investigation and National Security (CISEN), Hector Arrona Hurrea, director Prospective Analysis Center, and Jose Antonio Celorio Mansi, one of the key men in this story.
This is not the first time that points to Castañón Herrera as responsible for a network of political espionage. In November 2014, the federal deputy Enrique Doeger accused him of having at your service a team of infiltration and monitoring after being robbed home management.
At that moment, “I reported that was a spy apparatus to monitor political opponents and even journalists, and now, with the information that has recently been known, it is a reality, “says Doeger.
The columnist Fernando Maldonado, who in early June this year announced that he leaked transcript of records and private conversations of the PRI Enrique Doeger legislators, Senator Blanca Alcalá and Undersecretary of Social Development, Juan Carlos Lastiri, aspiring to the candidacy for governor of Puebla in 2016 argues that among these documents there is “an information card or high priority” which states that the head of intelligence work is the local MP Eukid Castañón Herrera.
The only answer given the poblano government is the General Coordinator of Communications, Max Cortázar, and the Director General of Communications, Sagrario Conde: “There are plans to establish a position” on the alleged purchase of software and Celorio Mansi, whose name appears on the internal e Hacking Team as one operators of the Galileo system.
First a note, then another
On May 18, 2014, the exlegisladora Violeta Lagunes received an email from Miguel Abad, PAN militant who at the time was assistant Fernando Manzanilla, brother Governor Rafael Moreno Valle and who served until early 2013 the General Secretariat of Government (SGG).
Lagunes explains Miguel Abad no It was a minor character in the battle that existed at that time within the PAN, was one of two poblano only politicians who were part of the team of Ernesto Cordero. The other was Fernando Manzanilla. They faced Gustavo Madero and his group, including Rafael Moreno Valle and Eukid Castañón.
Violeta Lagunes received an email from the estrategiacordero2014@gmail.com address, containing a line of text and a link to the page cordero-oliva.org:
“Estimados, their attachment for review and legal opinion by FM, is the draft challenge. “
Lagunes was part of the legal team in Puebla group supported the aspirations of Ernesto Cordero.
When you open the link, which Violeta found was a blank page. At that time I did not know it, but an hour later learned that on entering that page had infected his computer with a hidden file that opened a backdoor to your computer equipment and your own email so that from there monitor their activities and while others send emails infection.
After having many problems with your mail, campaign coordinator in Puebla Cordero, Francisco Fraile, she informed him that from his account were being sent messages to hack other accounts .
According Lagunes, Fraile found that mail Miguel Abad was hacked a day earlier so through your account hacked the Violeta Lagunes.
When reviewing requests files exploits the government asked Moreno Valley Hacking Team is very clear that Miguel Abad was a target of Galileo spy software.
You can find two requests for files of infection as “VE_estimado_miguel_abad.docx” which were conducted in September and October 2013.
In May 2014, when internal strife of the PAN was developed, which is in the database internal e company is the request File exploit “Encuesta.docx” a text file that contains some of the results of the surveys up to measure Parametría Reform and Gustavo Madero and Ernesto Cordero.
With that file that was requested on 13 May could infect and spy team Ernesto Cordero.
Spying opponents
exploits are files that open a backdoor in the computer systems and exploit the weaknesses of the own user to settle: mailed, hidden in attachments to be installed to open and allow an intruder to extract information computer or remote devices (which writes keeping, what you see and everything that stores). The attacker can also open the microphone off the camera or remotely to monitor and spy on the victim’s will.
Between May 2013 and June 2015 the government of Puebla asked Hacking Team, under the user “UIAPUEBLA” the creation of at least 47 files exploit files disguised as Word or PowerPoint presentations to infect computer equipment and communications.
According to e analyzed , the name used in the files point to political objectives, such as:
– “Los_excesos_de_Eukid.docx” and “vulnerabilidades_Lastiri.docx” which may be attractive to political groups and even journalists
He worked files to infect computers of people close to Jorge Estefan Chidiac, today elected federal deputy, or Ignacio Davila (“Estimado_Ignacio_Davila_Mora.docx”), exvocero Mayor Eduardo Rivera.
About Here it was possible to find the sender from which were infected former municipal official: lidep.upaep@gmail.com. The attached file matches the document that was infected by Hacking Team to request poblano espionage team
-. “Estimado_Fernando_Lopez.docx” which could be directed to the PAN of the same name. In this case a false document that supplants the name of the PAN Violeta Lagunes and organization “Starting Over” was used. It is an invitation to an event where would present the PAN’s former leader Manuel Espino.
Questioned about it, Lagunes said the document was a forgery and even the signature on the document is not for the his, and further clarified that hardly could have sent the invitation because it maintains a personal dispute with Fernando Lopez, so analyze legal action by usurpation of his name
-. “Reporte_de_giras” or “Casillas_Prioritarias_PU” which were requested on the day of the election of July 2013
-. “EAI.docx” (“Enrique Agüera Ibáñez” PRI candidate for mayor of Puebla), which released a month before Election Day that year
-. “Estimado_Juan_Carlos_Lastiri.docx” disguised as an invitation from a phantom organization called “Puebla BUAP Leaders,” which includes the logos of the BUAP, and is signed by “Jose Javier Diaz Enriquez.”
In 2015, 11 files were requested exploit, nine in May, that is, in the final of the federal electoral process that defined the next legislature. Including:.
He falsified documents PRI “Nombramiento_General.docx” I -camuflado as a CEN shipping tricolor- “electoral rdmc.docx action letter”
He generated exploit on documents with destinations and also of electoral espionage purposes “Information AZUL.docx”, “Infiltrados.dox List” and “prosperous dtto7.docx beneficiaries”
Two. files using the results of the polling Consulta Mitofsky home in California, apparently to infiltrate that choice.
Purchase
On April 14 2013 through the company SYM Integral Systems Inc., Alex Velasco, one of the sales managers and monitoring Hackint Team- Italian company agreed with the representative of the government of Puebla a payment of 415 000 euros for the software intelligence, support and training to use.
The installation of the equipment and the first training was conducted by the Italian coach Marco Catino, who arrived in Mexico on May 26, and stopped work completed May 31, giving the client key GEDP (Government of the State of Puebla). The equipment was installed at the Center for Prospective Analysis.
Today the office and no one knows, although according to the official website of the state government is located at the address 14 East 1204 Home Aguayo, home of the SGG.
According to staff safety and care of buildings, the exdelegado CISEN and intelligence team member, Hector Arrona, no longer it appears there since early this year.
The columnist Fernando Maldonado reported that the office spent time at the Blue House, state property in the neighborhood of El Alto, then went to a house in the colony Bella Vista, and can now be Mexico City as the operational arm for espionage figures of national policy given the interest of Moreno Valley for fighting the PAN candidacy for President of the Republic.
The effectiveness of exploit
According to the manual -proporcionados by the Network in Defense of computer graphics Rights, monitoring objectives remains open at the discretion of the government operators but once the operation programs installed on the monitored equipment uninstalled “leaving the clean device” is closed, which prevents the tracking of traces of espionage.
“The complexity of the system Hacking Team is operating in what we call a quiet environment; It is that however much you have a virus, these programs are truly the highest level of technology and what that cause is that when inserted into the end user’s computer there is nothing to make clear the infection. This is a hundred percent focused system is not intended for the general public as an Internet virus either. This does have to be promptly directed to a target and once inserted can monitor and operate any kind of information from that computer, “says Sergio Araiza.
On September 24, 2013, Alex Velasco Hacking Team received an email from the soporteuiamx@gmail.com account, the address from which the government of Puebla operators communicate with the Italian company.
This email was asked when they would be back the exploit assets with completion .docx (Word Processor format text) because “for us the .docx option is one of the most effective with the objectives,” wrote the court files.
Velasco responded mail and he sent a copy to the address to inform celoriomansi@yahoo.com not yet had time to get back into the team line for exploits, but they were doing “everything possible” to end soon.
According to a column posted on the website Status in August 2014, Celorio Mansi “is Director of Technical Services at the Center for Prospective Analysis of the State Government of Puebla”.
Reporters, another target
“I received one of the infected emails,” says a local reporter. One of the files exploit Italians requested is a document that reproduces -the number 297- newsletter, which in December 2014 distributed media team of the State Executive Committee (NEC) of the PAN.
The newsletter reads, both in the exploit in the actual newsletter: “The President of the National Action Party in Puebla State Committee, Rep. Micalco Rafael Mendez welcomed the announcement to give the national leadership in the sense that no PAN electoral coalition with any political party for the 2015 federal election. “
Asked about Javier Ramirez Ponce, director communication in the poblano PAN, discard the file could be used to infiltrate his party, as it ensures that use other tools to their drafts and newsletters are sent in PDF version and as plain text in the mail, but in all cases were annexed institutional logos, which infected file has not. And if it was not the poblano CEN who headed the exploit , the only visible target are the reporters of political power.
In the flood of internal e-mails that were revealed after hacking the Italian company is also possible to find a file named “UDLAP.docx directory” possibly aimed at the community of this university
No state can acquire equipment for spying. NGOs
While the state government is silent on the issue, activists and rights defenders digital evidence that state governments lack the legal authority to acquire and use spy equipment.
In the case of Jalisco, after denying the acquisition of software for surveillance, state government spokesman Gonzalo Sanchez explained that the purchase was “part of the national strategy to combat kidnapping.”
However, as Sergio Araiza explains, “states have no regulations or transient somewhere local or federal law that allows them to buy technology for this style espionage, although they try to insert them as objects of security in the fight against organized crime. That is not their function, that is for the federal order. “
Luis Fernando Garcia, director of RD3, adding that only public ministries, in principle, have the legal capacity to have team like that Hacking Team offers. “No other, or the General Secretariat of Government, as in the case of Jalisco and Puebla. If any other area other than the attorney is handling the matter, would be violating the law “
He emphasizes:”. There is evidence that the government has committed crimes Moreno Valley to spy on rivals and adversaries politicians. And there are indications that he may have spied even journalists, and almost certainly not made under a court application. “
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