According to the prosecutor’s statement, the investigations have been ongoing for some time, and include suspicions against at least two Mexicans, one of whom is a senior official in the previous administration. However, the previous administration was already replaced in 2018 by the government of the current president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who promised in his election campaign to stop the use of espionage tools such as Pegasus against the country’s citizens. Despite this, at the beginning of the month it was revealed that the phones of at least three government critics – journalists, political activists or people with similar occupations – were recently found to contain the Israeli spy software.
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The Obrador government said in response to the disclosure that it does not spy on the country’s citizens, just as it promised in 2018. Now, it directs the fire with hints towards the previous administration, and claims that it is investigating whether purchases of Pegasus for 457 million pesos, which is about 23 million dollars, were made in a proper procedure, with legal justification and a proper tender. In at least one case, the prosecutor claims that an “illegal sale” of Pegasus to Mexico is being investigated.