Slashdot: Sinaloa Cartel Used Phone Data and Surveillance Cameras To Find and Kill FBI Informants in 2018, DOJ Says

Sinaloa Cartel Used Phone Data and Surveillance Cameras To Find and Kill FBI Informants in 2018, DOJ Says
Published on June 29, 2025 at 03:09AM
Designated as a foreign terrorist group by multiple countries, Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel fiercely defends its transnational organized crime syndicate. "A hacker working for the Sinaloa drug cartel was able to obtain an FBI official's phone records," reports Reuters, "and use Mexico City's surveillance cameras to help track and kill the agency's informants in 2018, the U.S. Justice Department said in a report issued on Thursday." The incident was disclosed in a Justice Department Inspector General's audit of the FBI's efforts to mitigate the effects of "ubiquitous technical surveillance," a term used to describe the global proliferation of cameras and the thriving trade in vast stores of communications, travel, and location data... The report said the hacker identified an FBI assistant legal attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City and was able to use the attaché's phone number "to obtain calls made and received, as well as geolocation data." The report said the hacker also "used Mexico City's camera system to follow the (FBI official) through the city and identify people the (official) met with." The report said "the cartel used that information to intimidate and, in some instances, kill potential sources or cooperating witnesses."

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