Bogota., The head of Colombian intelligence denounced this Monday that the government of former President Iván Duque purchased the Israeli spy software Pegasus with money from money laundering, according to an investigation ordered by President Gustavo Petro.
Since the beginning of this month, Colombian authorities have been tracking 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 on the public channel Signal Colombia.
Pegasus became known worldwide in 2021, when a consortium of 17 media
international revealed that thousands of public figures were spied on in Mexico, Hungary, Poland, Saudi Arabia and other countries.
Israeli and Colombian media had already reported this alleged irregular transaction between the Colombian police and NSO Group, manufacturer of Pegasus, whose functionalities include remotely activating the camera and microphone of a phone.
Lemus added that NSO Group “declared the money” in Israel, but committed irregularities when receiving payment in Colombia.
The money “left illegally, they left no trace. “They were committing a crime, they were committing misdeeds,” he added.
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– 2024-09-27 23:53:39
