A bipartisan trio of federal lawmakers asked that BellTroX, CyberRoot and Sunkissed Organic Farms (previously Appin) be added to the Entity List.
New Delhi: A bipartisan trio of US lawmakers have urged the Trump administration to impose bans on three Indian companies accused of being involved in paid hacking and espionage operations targeting Americans and in alleged efforts to suppress reporting about their activities through foreign courts.
Democratic senators Ron Wyden and Sheldon Whitehouse and Republican congressman Pat Harrigan made the request in a letter to US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick on Wednesday (September 9), asking that BellTroX, CyberRoot and Sunkissed Organic Farms, formerly known as Appin Technology, should be added to the commerce department’s Entity List.
The September 9 letter, first reported by TechCrunch, accused India-based “cyber-mercenary groups” of conducting targeted espionage against US citizens, businesses and lawyers for more than 15 years.
“These hackers have systematically subverted the US legal and financial sectors, targeting private equity firms, pharmaceutical companies and more than 1,000 attorneys across major US law firms to manipulate ongoing litigation,” the lawmakers wrote.
They also alleged that the groups had stolen data from thousands of Americans and were using foreign legal systems to suppress reporting about their activities. “Simultaneously, these actors have mounted an aggressive censorship campaign to suppress public awareness of their illicit activities, directly threatening American free speech and press freedom.”
The letter alleged that “these groups have operated at the behest of the Qatari government”. It also alleged that the family of a former Republican chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence had been targeted.
“While one of these operatives has been indicted by the Department of Justice, the foreign hackers continue to operate with impunity,” the lawmakers wrote.
The lawmakers’ request follows extensive investigations into the hack-for-hire industry, including reporting by Reuters, The New Yorker and the Citizen Lab on the alleged activities of Appin, BellTroX and CyberRoot.
In their letter, the lawmakers said Reuters and the Citizen Lab had identified the companies as responsible for the hacking operations they described.
Executives connected to Appin previously obtained a global court order from an Indian court requiring Reuters to take down its investigation into the company while Reuters challenged the order. The order was subsequently lifted and Reuters republished the investigation.
The lawmakers cited the case as an example of what they described as the use of foreign legal systems to suppress reporting available to Americans.
“This coordinated effort effectively allows foreign entities to use foreign courts to keep the American public in the dark about cyber threats to their own country and undermines the fundamental constitutional rights of US citizens,” they wrote.
TechCrunch also noted that the Electronic Frontier Foundation had previously defended Techdirt and the MuckRock Foundation against legal threats after Appin allegedly sought to suppress reporting about its involvement in mercenary hacking.
The lawmakers asked the commerce secretary to add the companies to the Entity List in order to restrict their access to US technology.
“We request that the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security add the following companies … to the Entity List to cut off their access to American software, cloud infrastructure, and cybersecurity tools,” they wrote.
An Entity List designation can restrict US companies from exporting or transferring certain goods, software and technology to listed entities without a licence.
TechCrunch said an email to Anuj Khare, a director at Sunkissed Organic Farms, went unanswered. Representatives of CyberRoot also did not respond to the publication’s request for comment, while BellTroX could not be reached. The Qatar government also didn’t respond to a query from TechCrunch.
This article went live on September tenth, two thousand twenty six, at eighteen minutes past one at night.
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