Fmr. Mexican Federal Agent Pleads Guilty to Hacking Client’s Political Rivals in U.S. Court

A former Mexican federal agent and two other business owners pleaded guilty to selling and using hacking software to politicians and private entities this week. The software was used against a mayoral candidate in the state of Morelos.

This week, Julio Santamaria, a former member of Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office went before a U.S. federal judge in California and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire and communication interception, the U.S. Attorney’s Office revealed. He is expected to face sentencing at a later date.

According to the information filed by prosecutors, in 2016, Santamaria began working for a Tijuana-based company called Elite by Carga and, along with Carlos Guerrero and Daniel Moreno, began selling Italian and Israeli hacking software to companies and Mexican politicians. Guerrero and Moreno pleaded guilty to the same charge in February 2022 and received a sentence of three years of supervised release.

Mexican corporate documents revealed that Elite by Carga provides security equipment to government agencies, including uniforms, communications gear, surveillance equipment, and computer services.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Santamaria admitted that “in some cases, their Mexican government clients intended to use the interception equipment for political purposes, rather than for legitimate law enforcement purposes.”

One of the cases detailed in various court documents revealed that Santamaria and the two other men worked with a mayoral candidate in Morelos to spy on his political rival by gaining access to his Twitter, Hotmail, and iCloud accounts. Other documents filed in the case also pointed to the group being able to access the WhatsApp accounts of their targets. Some of the targets that the Mexican company hacked had U.S. phones and U.S.-based software.

U.S. Homeland Security Investigations was the lead agency in the case.

Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.