Did Mexican drug traffickers spy on their victims with the controversial Pegasus software?

Maria Laura Avignolo

07/28/2021 6:00 AM

• Clarín.com

• World

Updated 07/28/2021 6:00 AM

The independent Mexican senator

Emilio Alvarez Icaza

is a good example of how the Pegasus spy system persecutes the victims of human rights violations, their lawyers and defenders, and not their perpetrators.

He is nothing less than the human rights ombudsman in Mexico and was the president of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights since 2012, for four years.

His cell phone line is one of those "tapped" by the Israeli spy system.

From there they

accessed their messages, photos, trips and conversations.

This sociologist and political scientist, graduated from UNAM, is a member of the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity.

The Attorney General's Office of the Republic of Mexico opened an investigation against him "for misuse of funds from the Mexican State" in the Commission in relation to the massive disappearance of the 43 students in Ayotzinapa.

The investigation was later abandoned.

Now it has been found that the Pegasus spy system is

"tapping the phones" of the relatives

of the young victims of those student disappearances in Iguala, of whom no news was ever heard.

Mexican senator Emilio Alvarez Icaza Longoria, one of those spied on with the Israeli Pegasus software.

Photo: courtesy senator Alvarez Icaza

Alvarez Icaza believes that this espionage system is not only active but also outsourced and available

to drug traffickers in Mexico

, through private companies that spy, listen to and sell those services.

“It is incredible that the Mexican state is more dedicated to spying on victims than drug traffickers.

That is why I believe that it is in the public interest to know who has this software, how it is used, what dependencies are they using, ”the senator told

Clarín

.

"How is that possible!?

Shit

Excuse me for saying so.

But instead of investigating those who harm society, they investigate the victims.

It's the world upside down, ”he continued.

This was his telephone conversation with

Clarín

from his home in Mexico, after having appeared on the spied lists, discovered by 17 world media and more than 80 journalists, who investigated the Israeli company NSO, which sells it.

This Tuesday, US Democratic legislators asked that it be placed on the "black list" in the United States or that it be dissolved, when the United States is the largest contributor of military aid to Israel.

The owners of the company are officially three former members of

a famous cyber espionage unit of the Israeli army

and the state must approve their transactions.

-Senator Why do you think he was watched?

Did you have any clues, did you notice?

-What you have to know now is the second chapter of abuse and arbitrariness, part of the people of the Mexican state during the administration of President Enrique Peña Nieto. It does not mean that before the State did not have a practice of illegal wiretapping. There is an organization, called the Network for Digital Rights, which is a new generation human rights organization. They have just dedicated themselves to studying all this topic. Not only about rights in terms of internet access, but what happens with out-of-control wiretapping, wiretaps that have no judicial control. Already since 2017, the network showed a series of very relevant studies, which included outside of judicial control, the work of eavesdropping on the part of the government and one of its security agencies.

Relatives of the 43 disappeared students in the town of Ayotzinapa, in Mexico, would have been spied on with the Pegasus system.

Photo: AFP

-Who buys it?

-The problem took on a greater dimension when different public entities acquired software for eavesdropping.

And I separate the action that a judicial investigation or investigating criminal drug networks may have legitimately, or even issues related to acts of sabotage of national facilities, such as there were oil tankers or this type of thing.

But above all, what I think is needed is a judicial control in the capacity of the State to listen to the citizens.

-What did the network tell you about digital rights?

-What the network told us is that this was "out of control."

When I was in the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, there I had a first warning.

Now that this investigation is coming out again, thanks to committed journalism, I am communicating with the organizers and, indeed, my mobile phone is included in the list of phones that were illegally eavesdropped.

-Senator, you are going to formalize the complaint.

But what are the guarantees given by the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the Supreme Court that he is not being spied on?

Do you think Pegasus is still operational, at least in your case?

- My suspicion is that the system continues operating.

I think there are inheritances and inertias, especially in our security forces.

President López Obrador came out to say first that he did not know if that was working or not.

And then he went out to ask for transparency in the information.

Honestly for me that is not a guarantee.

It seems to me that you have to make not only an effort of transparency, but that there has to be a reference with international actors.

For example, the office of the United Nations High Commissioner or for example, so that we can have a digital forensic work, which allows us to obtain certainty that the Mexican State has already overcome these authoritarian practices.

-Are there more complaints?

-There have already been previous complaints and the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic has not presented results.

But there is no other way than to insist on this area and, if necessary, press.

I would like the Supreme Court of Justice to have that more active role in the judicial control of complaints.

I would like the Supreme Court of Justice, from this incident, which today has a greater public centrality, to take a fair action in everything that means that the judges control those actions.

-Why?

-Because the truth is that a very delicate part is the wiretaps that are not even from the government.

Today there are companies that carry out wiretaps, or cell phone companies, who decide to filter or not the information at the time of investigations.

That is my opinion.

That is why I filed my complaint.

To force the judicial system also to act on those areas that have no control.

"The truth is that people do not know at the end of the day, who is using this type of software to listen"

-Do you think that the Mexican government and all governments should make the contract known?

Who signed it, how much was it paid, who did the Israelis train, how do they currently operate it?

What Mexicans have been trained to use it, what department is being used? 

-I think it definitely has to be done like this.

And I think that even in the federal government, in the case of Mexico, they have the condition to obtain information from which state governments have obtained this software.

Or which state government security agencies have purchased this type of software.

Because the truth is that people do not know at the end of the day, who is using this type of listening software.

-Why do you think this is so?

-I can understand that there are national security reasons.

I can understand that there are judicial investigations that require discretion.

Obviously one is not going to tell whoever wants to cause harm that an investigation is going to be carried out.

If you want to do drug crime investigations, it would do us a lot of good.

Instead of spying on victims and human rights defenders, the Mexican State should dedicate itself to studying and listening to the drug traffickers, who then do so much damage.

-To the narcos?

-I am surprised that in the time of Peña Nieto - we hope that is not the case now - they have put more interest in listening to the victims of forced disappearance and not breaking the chains of the illegal situation of narco money to corroborate.

It is incredible that the Mexican State is more dedicated to spying on victims than drug traffickers.

So I think it is in the public interest to know who has that software, how it is used, what agencies use it.

"It is incredible that the Mexican State is more dedicated to spying on victims than drug traffickers."

-It will be to keep the investigations secret ...

-In the investigations I agree that they maintain the criterion of secrecy.

But what I cannot share under any circumstance - and hence the reason for my enormous indignation - is that the relatives of murder victims, those who live the painful situation of the disappearance of their children, are heard.

Damn it!

How is that possible?

Excuse me for saying so.

But instead of investigating those who harm society, they investigate the victims.

It's the world upside down.

-Do you think the government uses it for personal purposes?

Do you watch the opponents, the lovers, their businesses, but there is also a connection with the drug traffickers?

In other words, could drug traffickers access the Pegasus system in Mexico?

-It is one of the issues that seems most critical to me. Today there is the issue of illegal wiretapping, in a market that is completely out of control. The company is supposedly Israeli and they say they sell the program only to governments or entities that must have the court order. The truth is that this is not the case. There are even large companies that have private listening systems. In Mexico some cases were known. And it is just an industry of recordings of characters from public life. With that then, at the time of electoral campaigns, wiretaps are sold or even between drug traffickers they must be informed. It seems to me that this is why it is so important that it be controlled. Not only is it an affectation in the case of Mexico with the victims, but there is a whole illegal market that is used in matters of derision,of people's private lives and used in a more perverse way.

-How is Mexico going to question Israel? Is the Mexican president interested in doing it?

-The Mexican president has not given a single signal in this direction. I do think that the Mexican Foreign Ministry and the international police department should have an intervention action of that nature. Just as the government of Israel seeks the cause in matters of terrorism control, the democratic signal in Mexico, Latin America and Europe would require international cooperation. But that must necessarily be an issue of international interest for the Mexican government, because we need models of democratic security. Today Latin America continues to carry the inheritance of authoritarian governments, which used illegal methods to combat the opposition, social actors, such as unions, as students, as victims. That heritage unfortunately continues throughout our region. This is a spy thingThey are for sale to the highest bidder, and they have no social consequence that they shouldn't be.

Paris, correspondent

CB

Look also

Pegasus: "The virus enters all contacts ... couples, children, relatives and even the doctor"

Suicide?

Murder?

The mysterious end of Alexandre Stavisky, the king of bottomless checks