Posted on 07/19/2021 9:09:03 AM PDT by george76
The hitmen came for Cecilio Pineda Birto as he swung in a hammock at a carwash, waiting for his pickup to be cleaned.
The 38-year-old freelance reporter was shot dead
...
A few hours earlier, Pineda had in a broadcast on Facebook Live accused state police and local politicians of colluding with a violent local capo known as El Tequilero.
In previous weeks, Pineda had received a string of anonymous death threats. At about the same time, his mobile phone number was selected as a possible target for surveillance by a Mexican client of the spyware company NSO Group.
A successful infection enables an NSO client to access everything on the device, including contacts, chat messages – and precise location.
...
his attackers knew exactly where to find him, even though the hammock where he lay was not visible from the street.
“People with power can do whatever they want to anyone,” said his widow, Marisol Toledo, when told Pineda had been selected for potential targeting. “If they succeeded [in infecting his phone], they would have known where he was at all times.”
...
The people who could do me harm could hire killers, but they wouldn’t know my whereabouts.”
A few weeks later he was selected as a possible target for surveillance by an NSO client.
...
software was capable of listening to calls and downloading WhatsApp messages.
...
Pineda broadcast his final report on 2 March, claiming that the state governor and elements of the state police knew exactly where Los Tequileros were hiding.
Within hours, he was dead.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
What’s up with all this recent talk about NSO spyware? Is someone looking for a market short?
another Pegasus victim?
Doubt if it is a market short as NSO is an Israeli Company and its 'Pegasus' smartphone (and elsewhere) spyware has been 'in-the-wild' for multiple years. What has produced this sudden news blitz is a new undercover operation, "The Pegasus Project", by Amnesty International and a consortium of journalists & media, to expose the scope & power of this spyware.
"At the centre of this investigation is NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware which, when surreptitiously installed on victims’ phones, allows an attacker complete access to the device’s messages, emails, media, microphone, camera, calls and contacts."
200 journalists around the world targeted with a highly-sophisticated spyware tool developed by Israeli company NSO Group that gives clients access to the entirety of a phone’s contents and can even remotely access the camera and microphone.
If we don’t do anything to stop the sale of this technology, it’s not just going to be 50,000 targets. It’s going to be 50 million targets, and it’s going to happen much more quickly than any of us expect. .. ~Edward Snowden
Killing the opposition.
Who learned from whom.
It’s like the Clinton machine sent copies of their ‘How to Neutralize the Opponents’ book to South American dictators and criminal gangs.
Seth Rich would testify to how it was done to him, if he were able to speak from the beyond.
Seth Rich did not die in an attempted robbery, Michael Hastings did not die because of a car crash, Epstein did not kill himself, Phil Haney did not commit suicide. and...
December 4, 2020, a 20-year-old campaign worker for Senator Kelly Loeffler named Harrison Deal was murdered .. vaporized.. Witnesses heard explosions over a mile away.
NSA.
Just how long do they usually take?
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