{"id":194446,"date":"2025-12-04T14:47:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T12:47:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/?p=194446"},"modified":"2025-12-04T14:47:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T12:47:19","slug":"bia-planted-spyware-in-farmers-phones-they-were-monitored-for-more-than-a-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/bia-planted-spyware-in-farmers-phones-they-were-monitored-for-more-than-a-year\/","title":{"rendered":"BIA PLANTED SPYWARE IN FARMERS\u2019 PHONES: They Were Monitored for More Than a Year!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

BIRN, in cooperation with the SHARE Foundation, has uncovered that the Serbian Security Intelligence Agency (BIA) inserted NoviSpy spyware<\/strong> into the phones of four farmers and environmental activists during their detention. Speaking to BIRN for the first time, they describe their arrests, the threats they faced, and what life is like when you know someone is constantly watching you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When three unknown men pushed Slobodan Vidojevi\u0107<\/strong>, a farmer from Bresnica and president of the \u0160umadija and Pomoravlje Milk Producers Association, into a black van on the morning of October 1, 2024, his first thought was of his daughter.
\u201cPeople, my child is still at school, someone has to pick her up. Call my family\u2014if anything happens to my child, you\u2019ll answer for it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They didn\u2019t identify themselves. They shoved him, hit him in the head, and told him to keep quiet. They seized his phone the moment he entered the vehicle. A few hours later, Vidojevi\u0107 walked out of the \u010ca\u010dak police station a free man. But his phone would never again truly be his, BIRN writes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Months after the arrest, something was wrong. His battery drained unusually fast. His signal often disappeared. He heard strange static while talking with his family. It turned out that his phone had been sending data directly to a BIA server for more than a year<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Slobodan Vidojevi\u0107 was not the only one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A new BIRN investigation reveals that the phones of four farmers and environmental activists<\/strong> from different regions of Serbia were infected with NoviSpy during their time in BIA and police facilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These cases were documented using digital forensics and the Mobile Verification Toolkit (MVT)<\/strong> developed by Amnesty International. SHARE Foundation used the toolkit together with BIRN journalists to examine the phones. The analysis revealed signatures typical of NoviSpy, including access to the microphone, camera, messages, and location, as well as heavy data flow to a BIA server.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The experiences of Vidojevi\u0107, Zlatko Kokanovi\u0107, Vladimir Vi\u0161i\u0107, and Jovan Topalovi\u0107<\/strong> further illuminate a broader pattern of digital surveillance and pressure in Serbia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All four men had been summoned or detained by BIA and police between July and October of last year, during major protests against Rio Tinto and in support of farmers\u2019 demands. Their phones were confiscated, and the BIA-developed Android spyware NoviSpy was installed without their knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Legal experts told BIRN that spyware use is not legally regulated and is difficult to justify due to its extreme intrusion into personal data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis negatively affects privacy, freedom of expression, and freedom of association\u2014not only for targeted individuals but also for the wider activist community. The consequences for democracy in the country are disastrous because it creates the impression that there is no oversight of BIA\u2019s work,\u201d said Ana Toski\u0107 Cvetinovi\u0107<\/strong> from the NGO Partners Serbia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

What do we know so far?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

At the end of last year, BIRN reported cases involving activists Nikola Risti\u0107, Ivan Bjeli\u0107, Buki Milosavljevi\u0107<\/strong>, and a member of the organization Krokodil, whose phones were proven to have been targeted by secret surveillance. In some cases, data was extracted using Cellebrite<\/strong> tools; in others, NoviSpy was installed once the devices were unlocked. According to Amnesty International\u2019s researchers, NoviSpy communicates directly with a server inside BIA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Due to evidence of misuse, Cellebrite revoked licenses<\/strong> for some Serbian users in February. However, according to Radio Free Europe, the Ministry of Interior regained its Cellebrite licenses by April, just two months later. A criminal complaint was filed against unknown persons within the security services, but progress has been minimal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The newly discovered infections described in this article date from 2024<\/strong>. BIRN and SHARE researchers have not recorded any NoviSpy infections in 2025<\/strong> so far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

A \u201cmovie-style\u201d arrest: \u201cI\u2019m not an enemy of the state, I\u2019m just a farmer\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Farmer Slobodan Vidojevi\u0107<\/strong> woke earlier than usual on October 1, 2024. His association had planned a protest for that afternoon. Tractors were to block the roads; their demands had been ignored for months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At around 8 a.m., before anything began, two BIA officers appeared in his yard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey had no papers. The younger one was from \u010ca\u010dak; I don\u2019t know about the older one. They came into my home, had coffee, stayed almost two hours. They kept insisting we cancel the protest\u2014said everything would be resolved, that they\u2019d call the agriculture minister, even the president if needed,\u201d Vidojevi\u0107 said.
The officers told him, \u201cMy advice is: come with us, because we\u2019re sending a team from Belgrade.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vidojevi\u0107 replied: \u201cPeople, I\u2019m not enemy of the state number one, I\u2019m just a farmer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His family and neighbors witnessed the whole exchange.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later that day, when he briefly stood alone waiting for his child outside the village school, a black Mercedes van pulled up, three men jumped out, and grabbed him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey beat me and forced me inside. I later learned the village was full of police, some in plain clothes, and one BIA officer near the school directed the operation. I didn\u2019t expect a movie-style kidnapping,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His phone was taken immediately. He was driven to \u010ca\u010dak police, to the BIA office on the upper floor. After a two-hour interrogation, he was released. Villagers had blocked the road demanding his return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Months later, his phone showed all the classic signs of surveillance\u2014because NoviSpy had been active more than a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Kokanovi\u0107: \u201cThey wanted to stop me from going to the government meeting\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Zlatko Kokanovi\u0107<\/strong>, activist of \u201cNe damo Jadar,\u201d was on his way to a scheduled meeting at the Serbian Government on July 18, 2024. At 8:15 a.m., BIA called him to a \u201c15-minute conversation.\u201d Instead, he was held for four hours at the BIA office in Loznica.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before entering, he left his phone in a locker. The phone remained with the officers for 30\u201345 minutes\u2014long enough for NoviSpy to be installed at 9:38 a.m.<\/strong> Exactly then, logs show, the spyware appeared on his device.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spyware researcher Filip Milo\u0161evi\u0107<\/strong> explains that NoviSpy can gain administrator permissions, disguise itself as an accessibility app, collect calls, contacts, SMS, record audio, take screenshots, track location, activate the camera, and then send all the data to a BIA server\u2014usually when the device is charging or connected to Wi-Fi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kokanovi\u0107 says his infected phone was used for about a month before he switched devices.
\u201cThen tabloids began publishing articles based on my phone conversations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added: \u201cLet them listen. They know we\u2019re not foreign agents. They can hear me arguing with my wife if they want.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

More at BIRN.rs<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Source<\/strong>: <\/strong>BIRN.rs<\/a>, Foto:<\/strong> Milos Tesic \/ ATAImages <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BIRN, in cooperation with the SHARE Foundation, has uncovered that the Serbian Security Intelligence Agency (BIA) inserted NoviSpy spyware into the phones of four farmers and environmental activists during their detention. Speaking to BIRN for the first time, they describe their arrests, the threats they faced, and what life is like when you know someone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2169,"featured_media":194447,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[3596,9869,1617,9870,641,9871,9872,113,1744],"class_list":["post-194446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-serbia","tag-bia","tag-ekoloski-aktivisti","tag-hapsenje","tag-nadgledanje","tag-poljoprivrednici","tag-pracenje","tag-spijunski-softver","tag-srbija","tag-telefon","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"Serbiantimes.info EN","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2169"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194446"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":194459,"href":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194446\/revisions\/194459"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}