The mystery of Pegasus in Colombia: the United States admits having financed the purchase, but no one knows where it is
Traces of Pegasus, the most powerful Israeli spyware in the world, continue to appear in dribs and drabs in Colombia. This Friday, the ambassador in Washington, Daniel García-Peña, said that the White House confirmed that the United States Government was the one that financed Colombia to purchase the interception device in 2021 “in order to promote this anti-narcotics mission.” criticism” against drug traffickers. The confirmation of the diplomat, a trusted man of President Gustavo Petro, came after participating in a meeting with high-level officials of Joe Biden’s Administration.
The left-wing politician has clarified that he requested reports on the information that Pegasus has collected in the 18 months that, according to US authorities, it supposedly worked. That, since the White House has told him that its use “was suspended” in 2022, after several organizations such as the NGO Amnesty International warned of the possible irregular use of the software in different countries. “The Government of President Biden, in 2023, issued an executive order prohibiting the acquisition of these types of tools in the future,” explained the Colombian diplomat.
The US Government’s confirmation of the purchase of Pegasus has come just three days after the presidential elections were held in that country. Regarding the payment for the device, which according to Israeli intelligence information revealed by President Gustavo Petro amounted to 11 million dollars delivered in cash, García-Peña stated that in the meeting they confirmed that it was not unusual to make cash transactions for million-dollar amounts. . “It seems absolutely suspicious and irregular to me that these payments are made effective, but they confirmed to me that this was the case and that it is not the only or the first time that this has happened by the North American authorities.”
He has also assured that senior White House security officials have stated that former President Iván Duque did not know about the transaction or the acquisition of the software. “I simply transmit what they told us here in Washington and here they say that President Duque was not informed,” he added. With all this, the information from the US authorities agrees with the Colombian president regarding the acquisition of Pegasus, weakens his accusations of money laundering in the operation and leaves several questions open.
Open questions
García-Peña’s statement, which has been understood as an official communication from the US government to the Colombian government, does not explain who had or has the interception device in their possession. It is also unknown who could have been operated on with the softwarewho defined the objectives or whatever the control devices were. These were expected not only due to the general rule of supervision of interceptions, but also because specific alerts about Pegasus had been coming since at least 2016.
The confirmation comes a day after the newspaper The Time revealed that two secretive sources in Joe Biden’s Government had told him that the purchase of Pegasus was financed by the United States. “As part of this cooperation, the United States Government committed to providing funds to our Colombian partners to acquire the software in order to promote the anti-narcotics mission.” According to the version provided to the Colombian media, “it involved strict operational supervision that was carried out in the course of our normal and continuous commitments with the Colombian Government in the fight against narcotics.”
President Petro referred to the issue on Friday afternoon, during the commemoration of the 105th anniversary of the Colombian Air Force. “It is not the same as having a software to hunt down gangsters than to do so without a court order, unless the 1991 Constitution is of no use.” He had already referred, this Thursday and in his X account, to the revelation of The Time: “If this is true, things would be worse,” he wrote.
The shadow of Pegasus has expanded since last September, when the president spoke, for the first time and on national television, about the existence of the program in the country. He then assured, based on a report from Israeli intelligence, that the Police Intelligence Directorate (Dipol) had acquired the interception device in 2021 without leaving records of the purchase. Two months later, in October, he revealed that two private planes from Israel landed at the Catam military base in Bogotá, apparently to collect cash payment for the device.
This Friday, while the high-level meeting at the White House with the Colombian ambassador was underway, the Prosecutor’s Office received Jorge Luis Vargas, director of the Police during the Duque Government, to question him about the purchase. The retired officer attended accompanied by his lawyer. He is not the first official from the previous Administration to be called to testify for the alleged irregular purchase. Víctor Muñoz, former director of the Administrative Department of the Presidency, has already delivered his version to the authorities and assured that he knows nothing about the purchase of the software.
