A lesser-known spyware supplier has spread its tendrils across Asia, Africa, Europe and the Middle East, according to an investigative project that launched Thursday to focus on a variant of the surveillance technology.

A great deal of research on spyware, and publicity about it, has focused on the Pegasus spyware produced by industry leader NSO Group. The new “Predator Files” sheds light on a collection of interconnected companies the project has dubbed the Intellexa alliance, and its associated Predator spyware.

The investigation turned up 25 countries that have purchased invasive, stealthy products from the alliance. Amnesty International, whose Security Lab provided technical analysis to a network of news outlets on the project, said the use of those products to undermine human rights, press freedoms and social movements demonstrates inadequate government safeguards against the technology.

“The ‘Predator Files’ investigation shows what we have long feared: that highly invasive surveillance products are being traded on a near industrial scale and are free to operate in the shadows without oversight or any genuine accountability,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general. “It proves, yet again, that European countries and institutions have failed to effectively regulate the sale and transfer of these products.”

The Washington Post is a participant in the project, which was coordinated by the European Investigative Collaborations (EIC) network and involves 15 media organizations.

The Intellexa Group was founded in 2018 by Tal Dilian, a former Israeli army officer, and it produces the Predator spyware. The Intellexa Alliance combines that group with the Nexa family of companies that operates primarily out of France.

The United States government in July placed Intellexa on its “entity list,” which restricts American companies from trading with them, as part of a Biden administration effort to crack down on spyware abuses.

Among Thursday’s top revelations:

• ”European companies have been funding and selling cyber-surveillance tools to dictators for more than a decade with the passive complicity of many European governments,” according to a network summary.

• Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert worked with the company until recently.

• The spyware was sold to Egypt and pitched to Saudi Arabia.

• Outlets in Germany and France published stories on Predator-related activities in their countries.

“Among the 25 countries that the EIC consortium of media outlets found Intellexa alliance products have been sold to are Switzerland, Austria and Germany,” Amnesty International said. Other clients include Oman, Qatar, Congo, Kenya, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Pakistan, Jordan and Vietnam.

“Amnesty International’s analysis of recent technical infrastructure linked to the Predator spyware system indicates its presence, in one form or another, in Sudan, Mongolia, Madagascar, Kazakhstan, Egypt, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Angola, among others,” the organization said.

Amnesty International said it reached out to the entities involved and got no response, but the EIC network heard from the main shareholders and former Nexa group executives.

They said the alliance no longer exists. Furthermore:

• ”Regarding exports of surveillance technologies to the states mentioned above, they claim that either ‘a commercial relationship was established in full compliance with applicable regulations, or there has never been a contract and/or delivery,’” Amnesty International said.

• ”Finally, they claim that the entities of Intellexa alliance ‘scrupulously respected export regulations,’ while acknowledging that they established ‘commercial relations’ with countries that ‘were far from perfect in terms of the rule of law,’ further stating that it was often a function of ‘political choices’ from the French government,” it said.

The Predator Files project follows on the heels of the Pegasus Project from 2021. That project focused on NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware; The Post was also a participant in that investigation.

The Predator Files are “equally as damning” and “arguably worse” as it shows not much has changed, said Donncha Ó Cearbhaill, head of Amnesty International’s Security Lab.

The United States has garnered some praise for ratcheting up its response to spyware, which includes not only blacklisting companies but an executive order on the federal government’s use of the technology and a campaign to secure similar commitments from other countries.

Things haven’t moved as swiftly in Europe, where a committee that investigated spyware has encountered resistance from European Union nations.