Colombia’s police paid Israeli defense firm NSO $11 million in cash for the controversial spyware program Pegagus, said President Gustavo Petro on Wednesday.
The president accused the administration of his predecessor, former President Ivan Duque, of using the software to spy on Petro’s 2022 campaign.
According to Petro, this payment was confirmed by Israel’s financial intelligence unit IMPA in a classified report sent to its Colombian counterpart UIAF.
In a televised address, the president read the report out loud, despite the fact that the IMPA had stressed that “the contents of this report are highly sensitive and may not be disseminated outside of UIAF without prior written consent.”
Petro decided to ignore the caveat because “I am the President of the Republic” and “at this moment I don’t obey to diplomatic relations with Israel because of the Gaza case.”
According to the document, Israel’s largest bank, Hapoalim, reported that a representative of Colombia’s police intelligence directorate DIPOL had deposited $5.5 million in cash in the NSO account on June 27.
The money had been flown in from Colombia’s capital Bogota and reported to customs in accordance with Israeli law, the IMPA report allegedly said.
“The payment was related to an $11 million agreement signed between NSO Group Technologies Limited and the Colombian Police Intelligence Directorate for the purchase of Pegasus,” read Petro.
The second cash deposit was made on September 22 of 2021, according to the alleged report.
Petro partially confirmed allegations made in March by Israeli newspaper Haaretz about the alleged purchase of Pegagus by the administration of former President Ivan Duque.
According to Haaretz, the Colombian buyers of the controversial NSO software flew $13 million into Tel Aviv.
The head of the Israeli Defense Ministry’s export assistance department, General Yair Kulas, prevented an investigation into the origins of the money, according to Haaretz.
The company called Yair Kulas, the man in charge of exporting cybersecurity technology, to confirm that this money was legitimate and that it was not a money laundering transaction. Kulas was then a kind of guarantor for the bank. For this, the company received a letter from Yair Kulas, so that the company would not have to be investigated in the future. After having received this payment, they then allowed this deposit to be made at the bank in Tel Aviv in cash.
Haaretz reporter Gur Meggido
According to Petro and the Defense Ministry, those who allegedly purchased Pegagus left no record of the payment in Colombia.
How can 11 million dollars in cash leave the country by plane, or in two, from state offices, [military airport] Catam perhaps, of the DIPOL to Israel to buy a software that spies on cell phones?
President Gustavo Petro
“This is the laundering of assets by our own state,” said the president, who urged the Prosecutor General’s Office to open a criminal investigation.
Petro also said that he ordered the director of the National Police, General William Salamanca, to locate the software and surrender his findings to Prosecutor General Luz Adriana Camargo.
The United Nations’ human rights office in Colombia said that “the use of Pegagus seriously violates, among others, the right to privacy, and the freedoms of expression and association.”
“Reports on its purchase in 2021 and possible use must be seriously investigated,” the human rights office said on social media platform X.
In a response, the Prosecutor General’s Office said that it had opened a criminal investigation in order to find out “the truth and the eventual identification of those responsible for the purchase and the possible illegal use” of the Israeli software.