Colombian President Gustavo Petro Slams Police for Buying Israel-Made Pegasus Spyware

Colombian far-left President Gustavo Petro on Wednesday accused the nation’s Police Intelligence Directorate (Dipol) of purchasing Pegasus spy software for $11 million in 2021 and asked the Colombian Attorney General’s Office to open an investigation into the matter.

Petro claimed that the software could have been used to spy on opposition politicians during the administration of his predecessor, conservative former President Iván Duque.

In 2021, investigative reports indicated that Pegasus software, which Israeli surveillance company NSO Group manufactures, was allegedly used to spy on the phones of government officials, business executives, activists, and journalists. 

Later reports indicated that French President Emmanuel Macron, former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa were among more than 50,000 individuals whose phone numbers the spy software had infected. U.S. State Department officials were also reportedly among those whom Pegasus malware targeted.

On Wednesday evening, during a televised official speech, Petro, who was reportedly expected to refer to an ongoing trucker strike protesting the recent rise of diesel fuel in the country, accused Dipol of purchasing Pegasus software in 2021 for $11 million in cash during Duque’s administration. 

Petro asked:

How do[es] 11 million dollars in cash leave the country in a plane or two from state offices of the Dipol to Israel to buy software that spies on cell phones [and] private communications — perhaps for months — [of] those of the main opposition party at the time?

Petro made his accusations while reading a document he claimed was “confidential” and only used for intelligence purposes. The not-publicly disclosed document, Petro asserted, was from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) and revealed “the trips and amounts of cash” Dipol allegedly used to “illegally purchase the Pegasus interception software between June and September 2021.” 

According to Petro, the document states that the Colombian police allegedly made two cash payments of more than $5 million each to a Tel Aviv bank in 2021. The payments were allegedly made to the NSO Group firm that created Pegasus software.

“The truth has to come out, and we have to get to the bottom of it,” Petro said during his speech.

The FINMA document, Petro claimed, was issued in response to an information request its Colombian counterpart, the Financial Information and Analysis Unit (UIAF), made in August. According to Petro, the UIAF report was confidential and could only be disclosed with the approval of Israeli authorities.

“As I do not obey diplomatic relations with Israel because of the Gaza case, I get out of this prohibition and tell them,” Petro said.

Petro had Colombia cut all diplomatic ties with Israel as part of his ongoing international campaign against Israel that started shortly after the jihadist terrorist group Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 terrorist attack on Israel, which left more than 1,200 dead and hundreds taken hostage. Petro’s decision to sever Colombia’s ties with Israel ended more than 50 years of uninterrupted friendly relations between both nations.

Petro has repeatedly accused Israel of committing “genocide” through its self-defense operations against Hamas and has accused the Jewish State of turning Gaza into a concentration camp the likes of Auschwitz, comparing the Israeli government’s actions to that of Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler during World War II.

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Colombian media outlets reported in March that the Colombian Defense Ministry had, at the time, investigated the alleged purchase of Pegasus software, but, after several internal verifications, no contract for the purchase of the software was allegedly found:

Once the database for strategic purchases, managed by the State Procurement Directorate of the Ministry of National Defense — MDN — was verified, it was established that, in the period from 2020 to date, no contracts were signed between the MDN and the Israeli company NSO GROUP for the purchase of the “Pegasus” software.

The Colombian Attorney General’s Office announced through a press statement, issued on Wednesday morning, that it had opened an investigation into Dipol’s alleged purchase and use of Pegasus software.

The Attorney General’s Office stated that, after taking “careful note” of the complaint Petro presented through his speech, the Colombian Public Prosecutor’s office “incorporated the information publicly revealed by the Head of State” into an investigation opened on accusations of alleged illegal wiretapping that Petro’s government conducted against several Colombian judges — including members of Colombia’s Constitutional Court, the highest branch of the nation’s Supreme Court of Justice.

The investigation into alleged illegal wiretapping of judges was opened in response to a complaint filed by Colombian Supreme Court Justice Jorge Enrique Ibáñez, who accused Colombian intelligence agents under Petro of targeting him and his family with illegal wiretapping and persecution “for several months.”

Petro dismissed the wiretapping accusations as “fake news” and accused local media that reported on Justice Ibáñez’s claims at the time as “Mossad press.”

The statement reads:

Consequently, the investigation seeks to establish, among other aspects, if the negotiation between the Dipol and the NSO Group company took place and, if the purchase was made, what was the origin of the money, what the cash transfer from Colombia to Israel implied, and if this information was delivered to the UIAF Colombia by the Swiss financial intelligence unit.

“In addition, it must be determined whether the National Police still has the ‘Pegasus’ program and under what legal regulations it would have been used and disposed of,” the statement concludes.