Anti-money laundering group suspends Colombia after president’s Israeli spyware claims
Egmont Group says Gustavo Petro shared confidential information about previous government’s alleged purchase and use of Pegasus software
BOGOTA, Colombia — The Egmont Group, an international organization created to combat money laundering, said Monday that it had suspended Colombia’s access to its global information-sharing platform after President Gustavo Petro shared confidential information that Colombian officials had obtained from the group.
The Egmont Group said in a statement that Colombia’s government will no longer have access to a secure web used by the group to share data on financial crimes and that can be accessed by 177 member countries. The group said the measure will remain in effect while further investigation of the situation is conducted.
Earlier this month, Petro read out information from a document obtained through the Egmont Group suggesting that in 2021, Colombia’s government, which was then headed by conservative President Iván Duque, paid an Israeli company $11 million in cash to acquire Pegasus spyware.
Petro made the revelation during a nationally televised speech, where many expected him to discuss a truckers’ strike instead. Columbia’s attorney-general subsequently opened a probe into the allegations.
The president said that the spyware was used by Duque’s conservative administration to spy on activists and members of left-wing parties that opposed his government, including Petro himself. Duque administration officials have denied the charges.
Pegasus is able to gather information from cellphones undetected and control a cellphone’s camera and microphones. The software was developed by Israel’s NSO Group company and has been used to target more than 50,000 politicians, journalists, and human rights activists by at least a dozen governments, according to a report published by Amnesty International and 18 media organizations in 2021.
Security analysts have said Colombia’s suspension from the Egmont Group’s information-sharing platform weakens the nation’s capabilities to detect illegal transactions made by drug trafficking groups, and other criminal organizations.
Petro on Monday defended his decision to declassify confidential information, arguing he did so to defend the nation’s interests.
“This is the price of truth,” Petro wrote in a message on X, adding that Colombians now know how his predecessor “paid” for Pegasus.
Spyware technology, including Pegasus, has been repeatedly found to have been used to hack into the phones of civil society, political opposition, and journalists in the last decade.
NSO Group has repeatedly been accused of violating human rights and selling its software to repressive governments who use it to surveil and target civilians and dissidents. It has been the target of multiple ongoing lawsuits. NSO asserts that Pegasus is supposed to be used to counter terrorism and crime.
Petro in May announced that his country would be cutting diplomatic ties with Israel over its actions in the ongoing war against the Palestinian terror group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Petro has repeatedly lambasted Israel’s actions in Gaza, refusing to condemn Hamas’s October 7 onslaught — in which some 1,200 people were murdered and 251 taken hostages, mostly civilians. Just three days after the massacre, he likened top Israeli officials to Nazi Germany.
