Twist in Pegasus case: purchase of the software would have been made with US financing.

Two senior officials from Joe Biden’s administration, in Washington and another in Bogotá, authorized to speak on the subject, revealed to EL TIEMPO that the The US government was not only aware of the purchase of the Pegasus spy software in Colombia, but it was also said country that financed its acquisition..

The information, delivered for the first time to this newspaper, It would turn around the investigation that President Gustavo Petro has been demanding and that is already in the hands of the Attorney General’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office.. For now, It is proven that there was an operation for 11 million dollars that arrived in Israel in cash and that coincided with the landing of two flights that departed from Tel Aviv and landed at the Police Anti-Narcotics base in Bogotá.

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A cooperation agreement

At this point, dates are the key. The first disbursement, for 5.5 million dollars, which the head of state revealed in a presidential address, was made on June 27, 2021; and the other, for an identical value, on September 22 of that year.

Likewise, the flight logs indicate that one of the aircraft landed in the country’s capital on the night of June 25, 2021; while the other flight, corresponding to a jet with registration T7-CPX, landed in Bogotá at 7:43 pm on September 28, 2021spending the night for 30 hours in Bogotá with executives from NSO Group.

According to Biden administration officials, The plans to acquire this software materialized during 2020 and were not shared by the then president Iván Duque. In fact, they were clear that the use of Pegasus was suspended in 2022, before Petro became President.

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“As part of this cooperation, the United States Government committed to providing funds to our Colombian partners to acquire Pegasus software to advance this critical counternarcotics mission.“said one of the officials who requested that his name be reserved, but spoke officially on behalf of the Biden administration.

And he added: “This effort, which involved strict operational oversight, was carried out in the course of our normal and ongoing counter-narcotics engagements with the Colombian government.”.

What does Pegasus mean?

iStock

Duke would not have found out

EL TIEMPO had already anticipated that In the purchase of this spy software there was a third country involved.

According to American officials, this program was used with “the strictest security protocols and its existence was only known by a small group of people in the country’s security agencies“.

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They also explained, that those responsible for using the program took care to ensure that the software would be used for its intended purposewhich was the “drug trafficker chase“and not for other purposes.

“To help ensure this proper use, strict protocols with checks and balances were established. Strict oversight of this tool was designed and implemented to ensure that the software was used to pursue legitimate drug trafficking objectives. We have no information to suggest that the software was misused to monitor Colombian political figures.“said one of the sources.

Iván Duque was president of Colombia between 2018 and 2022.

EFE

Biden government officials also pointed out that Duque was not informed of this acquisition because, at that time, The technological tool was one of the many instruments that the US government uses (and shares with allies) in the fight against crime and was managed at an operational level..

Likewise, they emphasized that, at the time of its acquisition, there was no controversy over the use of this program, now classified as malicious.

A ‘tatequieto’

This change, as mentioned, occurred starting in the fall of 2021, when journalists and non-governmental organizations around the world They began to warn about the use of Pegasus to invade the privacy of journalists, human rights defenders and political opponents.

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“We also discovered –said one of the sources– that our own staff had been targeted by Pegasus around the world. We immediately began taking a series of unprecedented concrete steps to demonstrate our commitment to driving change on this issue. We have made changes to our own system, and have sought to bring together international partners to counter the proliferation and misuse of commercial spyware, including by vendors such as NSO Group, which was placed on a list of entities to be targeted. prohibits access to American technology”said official sources.

Gustavo Petro.

Presidency of Colombia

When EL TIEMPO asked for clarity about the allegations that have been made about the alleged use of illegal funds to acquire the software, both officials in Washington and the source in Bogotá also responded.

The doubt arose after the journalist Gur Meggido, from the Haaretz newspaperwho revealed the transaction of the NSO Group firm with Colombia, also mentioned that the funds with which it was paid would have come from a drug trafficking seizure.

Without misuse

After reiterating that there is no information to suggest that the Pegasus system has been improperly used to monitor political figures in Colombia, US officials referred to the origin of the resources with which it was paid.

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“We want to be very clear that this was done in a way in which there was no illicit payment. It was the United States that financed the purchase by Colombia. The timeline was what I told you earlier: the United States committed to providing those funds in 2020, and this administration ended the program in 2022 before President Petro took office.“, stated one of the spokespersons authorized to speak on the subject.

Gustavo Petro

EFE

EL TIEMPO also asked for additional details about why it was decided not to inform then-President Duque or other senior officials of his government (as they have already stated) about the purchase of such powerful technology.

As they explained, the intention was never to hide its existence and they framed it more in the day-to-day routine of bilateral cooperation: “What I can say is that, consistent with the long-standing relationship between the United States and the Colombian government to improve security and stability, this effort was part of the usual collaboration against transnational criminal organizations and illegal armed groups dedicated to drug trafficking. The US government routinely provides its international partners with a wide variety of support in combating mutual threats (…) An operational level was handled”.

PORTFOLIO
*With information from EL TIEMPO – UNIDAD INVESTIGATIVA and SERGIO GÓMEZ MASERI