3 former security officials in Ghana said jailed for doing business with shady Israeli firm

A court in Ghana has sentenced three former government senior officials to significant jail time for purchasing spyware products from the controversial Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group, the Cyber Scoop news site reports.

Former national security coordinator Salifu Osman and telecommunications authority director-general William Tetteh Tevie have each been sentenced to five years in prison and telecommunications authority former board chairman Eugene Baffoe-Bonnie was sentenced to six years because he made $200,000 from the deal with NSO, Cyber Scoop reports, citing local media.

The high court in Ghana found that the officials had caused significant financial loss in the country due to their $4 million purchase of NSO Group’s signature Pegasus spyware, Cyber Scoop writes.

The court decision appears to represent the first time that a government official has been jailed for doing business with NSO.

NSO Group has previously claimed that it only licenses its software to governments for “fighting crime and terror” and that it investigates credible allegations of misuse, but activists argue the technology has been instead used for human rights abuses.

Three of NSO Group’s founders — Omri Lavie, Shalev Hulio and Isaac Zack — invest their personal money through a firm known as the Founders’ Group that has invested in the largely fraudulent binary options industry, The Times of Israel reported last month