Colombia’s intelligence chief Jorge Lemus denounced on Monday that the government of former President Iván Duque bought the Israeli spy software Pegasus with money from money launderingaccording to an investigation ordered by President Gustavo Petro. Since the beginning of this month, Colombian authorities have been following the trail of the alleged purchase in 2021 of the computer program that infects mobile phones to extract information from them.
According to the complaint that Petro made in a televised speech on September 4, The software was acquired in exchange for $11 million in cash during the government of his predecessor and political rival, the right-wing Iván Duque (2018-2022).
“In the investigation we are doing, we are certain that it is money laundering.“said the director of the National Intelligence Directorate (DNI), Jorge Lemus, in an interview broadcast this Monday by the public channel Señal Colombia.
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Pegasus became known worldwide in 2021, when a consortium of 17 international media outlets revealed that thousands of public figures were spied on in Mexico, Hungary, Poland, Saudi Arabia and other countries.
Pegasus software in Colombia
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Israeli and Colombian media had already reported on this alleged irregular transaction between the Colombian police and NSO Group, manufacturer of Pegasus, whose features include remote activation of a phone’s camera and microphone.
Lemus added that NSO Group “declared the money” in Israel, but committed irregularities when receiving the payment in Colombia. The money “They left illegally, they left no trace. They were committing a crime, they were committing misdeeds.“he added. Officials in Duque’s government deny having made any arrangements to buy the software in 2021, a year in which the administration was the target of massive protests that left dozens dead.
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Attorney General Luz Adriana Camargo recently said there is no certainty about the use of Pegasus in Colombia, a “very sophisticated software” that is difficult to trace. Petro broke off diplomatic relations with Israel in May over the war in the Gaza Strip.
AFP
