President Petro reveals plot for the purchase of the Pegasus spy program

Published at: 21/10/2024 11:14 PM

The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, confirmed several facts on Monday about the purchase of the Israeli software Pegasus, which would have been made with money seized from the drug dealer and in a “clandestine manner”.

“Indeed, two Israeli planes came to Colombia, and took off for Tel Aviv, in the days when, according to the report of the Israeli intelligence agency on money laundering, it said that they had taken the payments in cash and dollars to buy the Pegasus software in a clandestine manner,” wrote the president on the social network X.

The Telesur portal highlights that Petro made the comment following the publication of a news report that revealed the license plates and photos of the aircraft that traveled to Colombia to agree to buy the spy program, as well as the itineraries and names of the pilots who allegedly participated in the operation.

He adds that, according to data handled by Revista Raya, the planes landed twice in Bogotá, the Colombian capital: the first time, on June 25, 2021; and the second, on September 18 of that same year. At that time, the Presidency was occupied by the conservative Iván Duque.

On each of these flights, 5.5 million dollars in cash, seized in anti-drug operations, would have been transported, which helped Colombia to buy the spy program. The company NSO Group, which owns Pegasus, managed to deposit the total of the banknotes in the Hapoalim bank, the largest in Israel, according to the aforementioned magazine.

The journalistic investigation assures that the pilot of the first plane, an M-AGGB bomber, is called Amir Sade, an Israeli linked to the military industry and an expert in integrating software and hardware products.

The second aircraft, a private jet with registration number T7CPX, was allegedly flown by Yaniv Hait, an Israeli citizen who allegedly served his country's Air Force for more than ten years and who was currently working for Yaas, a Franco-Moroccan company dedicated to information systems.

Apparently, the pilot would have traveled with seven other people, whose names are in the possession of the portal that made the findings.

Clash with the media

In response to the release of this information, Petro confirmed that both aircraft landed in hangars of the Colombian National Police, coming from Punta Cana (Dominican Republic).

“I hope that the National Police will keep a record of the arrival of these flights and of their members arriving and departing. I have held many very sensitive debates in Congress and no one, absolutely no one, can say that I lied,” said the Colombian president, before throwing a hard dart at the media that have tried to distort information about this negotiation. He called these media companies “establishment propagandists”.

In the president's opinion, some media have disrespected his legal right to “declassify secret information if the human rights of Colombians are endangered”, while they published in full information obtained irregularly through espionage.

“The Pegasus software was brought to spy on Colombia's popular youth leadership and the opposition and their communications for more than six months, which was then fully published by an extreme right wing magazine. A 'Watergate', including money laundering, of monumental size,” he said.

The case involves a scandal of several dimensions, since not only would it have been done in a clandestine manner, but the money seized from drug trafficking was not declared in Colombia, so it could be considered as money laundering.

Petro announced that the names of the people who got on the planes “will be passed” to the Office of the Attorney of the Nation, while ordering that all State entities that have sensitive information about those involved make them available to the prosecuting body.

Mazo News Team