Zacharias Kesses, the lawyer representing several of the victims of the wiretapping scandal, has alleged in a post on social media that the Predator spyware penetrated Greece’s National Intelligence Service (EYP) itself, in “an espionage-style infiltration”, “exposing national security.”
The post followed Monday’s criminal complaint by Yiannis Papadopoulos, a serving EYP officer who says his phone was infected with Predator and who has asked prosecutors to investigate the case as espionage. Kesses said Papadopoulos was not alone: at least six more people connected to the agency, he wrote, were bugged or targeted.
Among those he named were Vasiliki Vlachou, the prosecutor who oversaw the National Intelligence Service; the agency’s first deputy commander, V. Grizis; its security director, A. Papageorgiou; the head of the counterintelligence unit in Patra, in western Greece, Yiannis Papadopoulos; A. Roussou, former head of the Komotini-Xanthi unit in the northeast; and M. Sakali, who served in the agency’s cyber directorate and other sensitive posts.
Dozens of messages, Kesses said, were used to compromise the targets’ phones with Predator and, in some cases, to maintain access over time. Their content and timing, he argued, showed that whoever was behind the operation had continuous knowledge of the EYP’s internal affairs, its staffing and its operations.
Kesses offers several concrete examples of this. On Jan. 26, 2021, he said, the EYP’s supervising prosecutor, Vlachou, was targeted with a message sent, through spoofing, from what appeared to be the personal number of Grigoris Dimitriadis, then the general secretary to the prime minister and also his nephew. A message that March, Kesses said, contained details about the layout of the EYP commander’s private office inside the agency’s building, information that was not known to outsiders. Another message drew on a complaint that had only just reached the National Intelligence Service, he said, revealing real-time collection of information from within the service.
📍 Η ΕΥΠ υπέστη κατασκοπευτική διείσδυση και εξαιρετικά σοβαρή παραβίαση της εσωτερικής της ασφάλειας μέσω του παράνομου κατασκοπευτικού λογισμικού Predator.
📍 Παγιδεύτηκαν ή στοχοποιήθηκαν τουλάχιστον:
• η Εισαγγελέας που επόπτευε την ΕΥΠ, Β. Βλάχου
• ο Α΄ Υποδιοικητής, Β.… pic.twitter.com/EgbGpR0Nr1— Zac Kesses (@ZacKesses) September 2, 2026
On Nov. 25, 2021, Kesses said, the attackers tried to reach a target through the encrypted app Signal, using a purpose-built fake identity and a lure tailored to the individual, an attempt whose precision, he argued, showed both careful preparation and detailed inside knowledge of the targets, their relationships and confidential developments inside the agency.
Taken together, Kesses argued, the evidence shows systematic access to critical information about how the agency worked internally and operationally. Yet what was taken from the infected phones, how much, how highly classified, who obtained it, whether it is still held by third parties, none of it, he said, has ever been investigated.
