The nation’s attorney general, Luz Adriana Camargo, revealed, in an interview with EL TIEMPO, that the Pegasus spy software purchase operation was carried out and that currently The Prosecutor’s Office is advancing the investigation to determine who has it, for what purposes it was acquired and if former officials of the Presidency of Iván Duque or the Public Force participated in these events in 2021as President Gustavo Petro has denounced.
(Read: How much would Colombia have paid for the Pegasus software, according to President Petro?).
According to prosecutor Camargo, The financial transactions for the purchase of Pegasus amounted to 11 million dollars, which appear supported in an Israeli document that the Prosecutor’s Office received..
To investigate the case, they have already heard in interviews with former Dapre director Víctor Muñoz, former vice minister Jairo García, General Juan Diego Sepúlveda, who directed the Joint Cyber Command of the Military Forces in the government of Iván Duque; and General (r) Carlos Iván Moreno, who was the second commander of the Army. They also heard from Luis Eduardo Llinás, director of the Financial Information and Analysis Unit (Uiaf) of the Petro government, and Carlos Ramón González, former director of intelligence.
(See: President Petro accused NSO Group director of ‘money laundering’ in Colombia).
“The operation for 11 million dollars existed, there was a first payment, which was in June, of 5.5 million. According to the information issued there (in the document), the alert of suspicious operations tells us that the “Money arrives in cash, in American dollars. It is certain that this is the case because there is an exchange operation form where the entry of the money into Israel is recorded.”Prosecutor Camargo told EL TIEMPO.
And he added that “This information has a very objective nature, it is not a matter of whether we believe it or not. It is part of the tracking of the money that Israel made regarding an operation that an authority of theirs considered suspicious. These operations usually track these financial intelligence units that almost all Western countries have”.
Luz Adriana Camargo
Néstor Gómez / EL TIEMPO
Where is Pegasus?
Prosecutor Luz Adriana Camargo also indicated that the software has not been found in any entity and that the investigation has also focused on identifying whether it could be in the Prosecutor’s Office.
(Also: ‘Deterioration in sight’: the risks that threaten the global economy).
“A good part of the investigation has focused on identifying whether Pegasus could be in the Prosecutor’s Office, or in the National Intelligence Directorate, in the Police, in the Ministry of Defense, and we have not found Pegasus in any entity. In the particular case of the Prosecutor’s Office, we have legal interception platforms, it would be quite curious to have an illegal interception room, we do not have one. I want to be absolutely blunt on this. The prosecutor who came out to give her information on her X account was called for an interview in. the Prosecutor’s Office that is handling the case, because we wanted to know what was the source of their knowledge, of revelations that do not coincide at all with the investigation that we are carrying out, and with regret I have to say that from what the person carrying out the case informs me, the “The official did not provide us with any information that would allow us to say that what he said in X is moderately true.”The Prosecutor told EL TIEMPO.
Petro complaints
President Petro has denounced that directors of the Israeli company NSO Group took by plane the $11 million in cash from the 2021 sale of the Pegasus spy software to the government, a transaction investigated for suspicions of “money laundering”.
According to a confidential report revealed by Petro in early September, The software that infects mobile phones to extract information was acquired for that sum in cash during the government of his predecessor Iván Duque (2018-2022).
For their part, Duque government officials deny having managed the purchase.
PORTFOLIO
