New Delhi: A top Israeli cyber technology firm had shipped its product to Pakistan’s federal investigation agency through its Singapore subsidiary despite a complete ban on trade and contacts, even as Pakistani security agencies openly touted the use of the hi-tech phone hacking tool in their government documents, an Israeli newspaper reported on Thursday.According to Haaretz, the flagship product of Israeli firm Cellebrite, UFED, has been used by Pakistani investigative and security agencies since at least 2012. The cyber product allows the user to hack into password-protected mobile phones and copy all information, ranging from photos, documents, text messages, contacts to call histories.Cellebrite’s End User License Agreement lists Pakistan among “restricted territories” where sales are strictly prohibited.However, Haaretz reported, “International shipment records show that, until at least 2019, Cellebrite Asia-Pacific Pte (its Singapore subsidiary) sold products directly to companies in Pakistan and to its Federal Investigation Agency”.The Israeli firm told Haaretz that it “does not sell to Pakistan, directly or indirectly”, but it didn’t answer questions related to the shipping records and other evidence cited by the newspaper.The Israeli defence ministry declined to comment on the matter. Since cyber forensic equipment is included as dual use technologies in the Wassenaar Arrangement, the Israeli defence ministry has oversight on the export of Cellebrite products since 2020, wrote Haaretz.A 2012 report of the Pakistani newspaper Express Tribune wrote about the Sindh Police’s Forensics division having acquired two new devices “CellXtract-TNT and the UFED Touch Ultimate” that will be used to hack phones of suspects. While the Pakistani newspaper didn’t mention UFED’s origins, Haaretz reported that the photo accompanying the Tribune report clearly showed Cellebrite’s products.Further, the Haaretz accessed invitations for bids, operating manuals and documents that showed that Pakistani police units and the federal investigation agency regularly use these systems.“FIA [federal investigation agency] officials, [in the] past and present, who were tasked with enforcing the draconian cybercrime law even state in their LinkedIn profiles that they have been trained and certified to use these systems and that they use them on a regular basis,” the report said.For example, a 2021 FIA invitation for bids for forensic systems made by other firms also required support for files produced using Cellebrite’s technology. The Peshawar police’s counterterrorism division had issued a tender in May 2023 that called for bidders to renew UFED license for another two years.Further, Pakistan’s National Radio and Telecommunication Corporation had listed UFED in a list of technologies in a 2021 catalog. It also lists BlackBag’s Mobilyze digital forensic technology, which was acquired in 2020.This is not the first time that there have been reports of Pakistan acquiring strategic Israeli equipment. The United Kingdom’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills had issued a report in 2013 that Israel had exported security equipment for the past five years to Pakistan. The report was denied by the Pakistan army at that time.Pakistan doesn’t have any diplomatic relations with Israel. In early July, five Pakistanis were arrested for having visited Israel, despite Pakistani passports explicitly stating that the document was not valid for travel to the West Asian country.