SANCTIONS
‘Predator’ spyware firm Intellexa resurgent after US sanctions
From spyware to skincare, companies linked to senior Intellexa figures are back online after a sanctions-induced slowdown.
The Intellexa consortium — notorious for selling its Predator spyware to repressive regimes across the globe — seemingly decreased its activity after it was sanctioned by the United States last year.
But in June, cyber threat researchers with the Insikt Group reported a “resurgence” in Intellexa’s activities. The report identified more than a dozen countries where Predator spyware appeared to be operating — including countries with poor human rights records such as Saudi Arabia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Kazakhstan — and stated that the operators of Predator spyware had adopted new tactics to evade detection and conceal their identities.
An unlikely firm linked to key Intellexa figures has also sprung back to life online: a skincare company called Medovie.
Sara Hamou, who played a central role in establishing Cyprus as a hub for Intellexa’s activities, co-founded the skincare company. She told the magazine The Successful Founder that she invested “all my savings” in launching Medovie, which says blends traditional Chinese medicine with advanced Western research. The company operated through a Cypriot firm, and soon after Intellexa and Hamou were sanctioned, its website went offline.
Earlier this year, Medovie’s website resumed operations. The company is now operating through a Portuguese company called MDV Skin Care. According to the Portuguese corporate registry, MDV Skin Care is owned by Sylwia Jastrzebska, a 26-year-old Polish citizen who was previously listed as the director of the Intellexa affiliate Cytrox. Cytrox, a sanctioned North Macedonian company, developed Predator, Intellexa’s most notorious spyware. Jastrzebska was appointed after a Czech reporter visited the home of the previous director, a 70-year-old pensioner living in a small Czech village, who told the journalist that she had never heard of the company.
Intellexa was founded by Hamou’s ex-husband, Tal Dilian, a former commander of an elite Israeli intelligence unit, and hired other former Israeli intelligence officers to key roles in the company. Its Predator spyware allows Intellexa’s customers to monitor any information stored on, or transmitted from, a target’s mobile phone. Intellexa and its senior figures were sanctioned twice in 2024 by the U.S., which said its spyware had been used to covertly surveil American officials, journalists, and policy experts.
Medovie’s privacy policy states that it shares clients’ personal data with other unnamed companies in the “Medovie Group” which are based in Israel, Cyprus, and Switzerland.
In response to questions from ICIJ and the Portuguese publication Expresso, a spokesperson from Medovie wrote that the firm “is — and has always been — a skincare company” that provides products to alleviate chronic skin conditions.
“That’s the full story,” the statement continued. “We don’t engage in any other type of activity, and we don’t share personal data with anyone.”
Medovie’s spokesperson did not answer questions from ICIJ about the identity of the other companies in the Medovie Group, whether Hamou or Dilian are currently involved with the firm, or why the company had relocated to Portugal.
Hamou, Dilian and Jastrzebska did not respond to emails from ICIJ. Intellexa has not been sanctioned by the European Union: The company and individuals linked to it are able to live and work freely there.
Medovie is not Jastrzebska’s only connection to Portugal. She also serves as the president of the board of a Warsaw-based company, Douro Dynamics, which is owned by the Israeli-Portuguese businessman Amos Levy. In June 2024, Levy incorporated a Portuguese company called Odyssey in the Sky and subsequently used the firm to acquire a Cyprus-based company from Dilian.
Levy obtained Portuguese citizenship after obtaining a certificate that he was a descendant of Sephardic Jews issued in 2017 by the Jewish Community of Porto, according to documents obtained by Expresso.
Levy also owns a company in the Czech Republic, Tamani s.r.o, that he purchased from Amos Uzan, an Israeli businessman who worked in security and communications roles for the Israeli government between 2003 and 2009. In 2024, another firm that was initially owned by Uzan’s wife, Petra, was also transferred to Levy through Tamani. Petra’s mother was the 70-year-old pensioner who was listed as the director of Intellexa affiliate Cytrox, seemingly without her knowledge, before Jastrzebska took over the role.
Levy did not respond to questions from ICIJ about his connections with Dilian and Jastrzebska.
Jastrzebska is a prolific reviewer on Google, where she has given her opinions on businesses and restaurants in the Czech Republic, the United Arab Emirates, and Portugal. Last year, she left a comment at a villa owned by Levy in northern Portugal: “A true paradise,” she called it.