Obscure Indian cyber firm spied on politicians, investors worldwide

A little-known Indian information technology company offered its hacking services to help clients spy on more than 10,000 email accounts over a period of seven years.

New Delhi-based BellTroX InfoTech Services targetedgovernment officials in Europe, gambling tycoons in the Bahamas,and well known investors in the United States, including privateequity giant KKR and short seller Muddy Waters, according tothree former employees, outside researchers, and a trail ofonline evidence.

Aspects of BellTroX's hacking spree aimed at Americantargets are currently under investigation by U.S. lawenforcement, five people familiar with the matter told Reuters.The U.S. Department of Justice declined to comment.

Reuters does not know the identity of BellTroX's clients. Ina telephone interview, the company's owner, Sumit Gupta,declined to disclose who had hired him and denied anywrongdoing.

Muddy Waters founder Carson Block said he was "disappointed,but not surprised, to learn that we were likely targeted forhacking by a client of BellTroX." KKR declined to comment.

Researchers at internet watchdog group Citizen Lab part of the Munk School for Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto spent more than two years mapping out the infrastructure used bythe hackers. They subsequentlyreleased a report on Tuesday saying they had "high confidence" that BellTroXemployees were behind the espionage campaign.

"This is one of the largest spy-for-hire operations everexposed," said Citizen Lab researcher John Scott-Railton.

Although they receive a fraction of the attention devoted tostate-sponsored espionage groups or headline-grabbingheists, "cyber mercenary" services are widely used, he said."Our investigation found that no sector is immune."

A cache of data reviewed by Reuters provides insight intothe operation, detailing tens of thousands of malicious messagesdesigned to trick victims into giving up their passwords thatwere sent by BellTroX between 2013 and 2020. The data wassupplied on condition of anonymity by online service providersused by the hackers after Reuters alerted the firms to unusualpatterns of activity on their platforms.

The data is effectively a digital hit list showing who wastargeted and when. Reuters validated the data by checking itagainst emails received by the targets.

On the list: judges in South Africa, politicians in Mexico,lawyers in France and environmental groups in the United States.These dozens of people, among the thousands targeted byBellTroX, did not respond to messages or declined comment.

Reuters was not able to establish how many of the hackingattempts were successful.

BellTroX's Gupta was charged in a 2015 hacking case in whichtwo U.S. private investigators admitted to paying him to hackthe accounts of marketing executives. Gupta was declared afugitive in 2017, although the U.S. Justice Department declinedto comment on the current status of the case or whether anextradition request had been issued.

Speaking by phone from his home in New Delhi, Gupta deniedhacking and said he had never been contacted by law enforcement.He said he had only ever helped private investigators downloadmessages from email inboxes after they provided him with logindetails.

"I didn't help them access anything. I just helped them withdownloading the mails, and they provided me all the details," hetold Reuters. "I am not aware how they got these details, but Iwas just helping them with the technical support."

Reuters could not determine why the private investigatorsmight need Gupta to download emails. Gupta did not returnfollowup messages. Spokesmenfor Delhi police and India's foreign ministry did not respond torequests for comment.

Horoscopes and pornography

Operating from a small room above a shuttered tea stall in awest-Delhi retail complex, BellTroX bombarded its targets withtens of thousands of malicious emails, according to the datareviewed by Reuters. Some messages would imitate colleagues orrelatives; others posed as Facebook login requests or graphicnotifications to unsubscribe from pornography websites.

Fahmi Quadir's New York-based short selling firm SafkhetCapital was among 17 investment companies targeted by BellTroXbetween 2017 and 2019. She said she noticed a surge insuspicious emails in early 2018, shortly after she launched herfund.

Initially "it didn't seem necessarily malicious," Quadirsaid. "It was just horoscopes; then it escalated topornography."

Eventually the hackers upped their game, sending hercredible-sounding messages that looked like they came from herco-workers, other short sellers or members of her family. "Theywere even trying to emulate my sister," Quadir said, adding thatshe believes the attacks were unsuccessful.

U.S. advocacy groups were also repeatedly targeted. Amongthem were digital rights organizations Free Press and Fight forthe Future, both of whom have lobbied for net neutrality. Thegroups said a small number of employee accounts werecompromised, but the wider organizations' networks wereuntouched. The spying on those groups was detailed in a report by the Electronic Frontier Foundation in 2017, but has not beenpublicly tied to BellTroX until now.

Timothy Karr, a director at Free Press, said hisorganization "sees an uptick in breach attempts whenever we'reengaged in heated and high-profile public policy debates."

EvanGreer, deputy director of Fight for the Future, said: "Whencorporations and politicians can hire digital mercenaries totarget civil society advocates, it undermines our democraticprocess."

Private investigators

While Reuters was not able to establish who hired BellTroXto carry out the hacking, two former employees said the companyand others like it were usually contracted by privateinvestigators on behalf of business rivals or politicalopponents.

Bart Santos of San Diego-based Bulldog Investigations wasone of a dozen private detectives in the United States andEurope who told Reuters they had received unsolicitedadvertisements for hacking services out of India including onefrom a person who described himself as a former BellTroXemployee. The pitch offered to carry out "data penetration" and"email penetration."

Santos said he ignored those overtures, but could understandwhy some people didn't. "The Indian guys have a reputation forcustomer service," he said.