Bangladesh bought phone hacking, intercepting devices from Israel

Bangladesh government spent around $330,000 on phone-hacking equipment made by an Israeli company.

The two countries have not recognised each other and have no diplomatic relations.

In an exclusive investigative report by Al Jazeera, a product called UFED is manufactured by Cellebrite security firm in Israel, and Bangladesh has acquired devices from the firm.

It can access and extract data from a wide range of mobile phones. Civil rights and campaigners are worried about its ability to hack encrypted phone data and breach the privacy of users.

Bangladesh does not recognise the state of Israel, forbids trade with it and prevents its citizens from travelling there. The Muslim-majority country officially stands in solidarity with the Palestinians due to the denied civil rights and live under Israeli military occupation. It is unclear whether UFED was provided to Bangladesh directly by the Israeli company or any other channel was created for acquiring the devices.

In February, Al Jazeera revealed how the Bangladesh military in 2018 signed a contract to acquire mobile phone interception equipment from Israeli firm Picsix Ltd. In February 2019, Bangladeshi officers received training by Israeli intelligence experts in the Hungarian capital, Budapest.

The Ministry of Defence in Bangladesh said the equipment, a passive mobile phone monitoring system called P6 Intercept, was made in Hungary and was purchased on United Nations missions but the claim was rejected by the world body.

According to the contract, the manufacturer of P6 Intercept as Picsix Ltd Hungary is made in Hungry, but no public record of any such company exists, and all Picsix equipment are manufactured in Isreal.