El Chapo Hacker Infiltrated FBI, Helping Silence Witnesses

A hacker working for Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán's Sinaloa drug-trafficking cartel infiltrated FBI communications and city surveillance in Mexico City, helping to identify and silence informants, a newly released federal report reveals. The hacker's sophisticated surveillance tactics were used to track, intimidate, and sometimes kill FBI informants and witnesses during the investigation and trial of El Chapo, a notorious drug lord, according to the report from the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General, per USA Today.

In 2018, the cartel targeted the FBI's assistant legal attaché in Mexico City, monitoring the agent's calls and geolocation data, and following the individual's movement and meetings through the city's surveillance camera system, the report notes, per CBS News. Cartel members then used the information to undermine the federal case against Guzmán during his high-profile 2018 trial in Brooklyn, aiming to obstruct justice by threatening or eliminating cooperating witnesses. The revelations underscore the technological challenges law enforcement faces in combating organized crime.