CDMX prosecutor’s office and police paid 344 million pesos for spying systems to Lozoya’s former lawyer

The Attorney General’s Office and the Secretariat for Citizen Security , both from Mexico City, paid 344 million pesos (mp) for telephone interception systems and large-scale data analysis in 2020.

The first instance to acquire these services was the SSC , on March 19, 2020, by directly awarding a contract for 259 million 979 thousand pesos to the Pixkitec company .

Two months later, the CDMX Prosecutor’s Office awarded a contract to said software company for 84 million 482 thousand pesos , also by direct award.

The first contract, and the one with the largest amount, was assigned nine months after the company was created, owned by a former lawyer of Emilio Lozoya, according to the investigation carried out by Mexicanos Contra la Corrupción.

Pixkitec was incorporated in June 2019 in Mexico City and has its fiscal address in a building in Colonia Las Américas, on Avenida Observatorio. His partner and legal representative is José María Funtanet Alarcón , who was a lawyer for Emilio Lozoya Austin, former director of Pemex apprehended in July 2020 on accusations of corruption, money laundering and influence peddling.

In August 2017, Lozoya sent a letter to the then head of Fepade, Santiago Nieto, requesting a summons and that he be directly informed about the investigations against him. In the epistle he listed various lawyers and persons as legal advisers for his defense; one of them was Funtanet Alarcón.

According to the minutes of the Public Registry of Commerce, in addition to being a partner, Funtanet is president of the Pixkitec assembly, while its secretary is Andrés Vázques del Mercado and Diego Casas Farías is the treasurer.

Cell phone spying
The first contract signed in March 2020 between the Ministry of Public Safety (SSC) and Pixkitec had as its object the acquisition of a license software for analysis to large scale of metadata .

Nine months after it was signed, the SSC reserved for three years the information related to this and other similar contracts covered by the “Law that Regulates the Use of Technology for Public Safety in the Federal District”.

While the second contract signed between the capital Prosecutor ‘s Office and the company had as its object a system of radiolocation .

According to the technical characteristics of the system sold by Pixkitec, the system comes from Israel and Cyprus, and has the ability to “ extract the cellular identities of practically all cellular devices in the area of operation of the system”.

In addition, it allows locating the location of the targets, intercepting voice calls or text messages, duplicating the target’s accounts using a password sent via SMS, and blocking or disabling devices.