Mexican journalist Marcela Turati works on her desk in Mexico City on April 30, 2019.
- It is believed that customers of the Israeli company NSO Group have selected more than 50,000 Mexican smartphone numbers, of which approximately 15,000 Mexican smartphone numbers are used for potential surveillance.
- In 2017, a Mexican journalist on the list was murdered after criticizing the connection between politicians and criminals.
- NSO insists that its software is only used to combat terrorism and other criminal activities.
Reporter Marcela Turati has always suspected that the Mexican authorities are monitoring her. After appearing on the leaked list at the center of the global spyware scandal, she is now almost certain.
“People wrote to me and said:’Look, you are not crazy, you are not paranoid,'” she told AFP on Monday.
According to an international media survey, it is believed that customers of the Israeli company NSO Group have selected more than 50,000 Mexican smartphone numbers for potential surveillance, including approximately 15,000 Mexican smartphone numbers.
These include figures related to 25 journalists and even related to the inner circle of President Andres Manuel López Obrador before he took office.
Although the Pegasus software license obtained by former Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto expired in 2017, Turati believes that monitoring is still being carried out in other ways.
“Almost all Mexican journalists know and feel that we are under some sort of surveillance,” the award-winning journalist said.
The 47-year-old said: “This is a hypothetical thing, especially because Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in this industry.”
As part of a joint investigation by The Washington Post, The Guardian, Le Monde, Mexico’s Aristegui Noticias, and other media organizations, these revelations emerged over the weekend.
In 2017, a Mexican journalist on the list was murdered after criticizing the connection between politicians and criminals.
Cecilio Pineda is one of more than 100 journalists murdered in Mexico since 2000. Mexico is one of the deadliest countries in the world for journalists.
When Turati appeared to be a target of the NSO, she and two colleagues were investigating the corruption scandal that swept the Brazilian conglomerate Odebrecht.
Emilio Lozoya, a former senior adviser to Pena Nieto, claimed that Odebrecht’s bribes were used in the former leader’s presidential campaign.
Turati also investigated the massacre of immigrants and the disappearance of 43 teaching students in 2014, a case that has aroused widespread condemnation from the international community.
According to the international investigation of the Pegasus Project, relatives of missing students and human rights defenders have also become targets of the National Bureau of Statistics.
Lopez Obrador, who has been in power since 2018, did not directly comment on these revelations.
But he mentioned them in a comment related to the disappearance of a journalist on Monday, stating that “no one is watching anymore. Freedom is guaranteed.”
According to Aristegui Noticias, the leaked list of smartphone numbers does not include Lopez Obrador himself.
It said that the left-wing leader “obviously did not use a personal cell phone,” but communicated through his assistant.
NSO insists that its software is only used to combat terrorism and other criminal activities.
According to the “Guardian”, Mexico was the first country in the world to purchase Pegasus from NSO, “and became a laboratory for spying technology.”
It said that the Mexican agencies that obtained spyware included the Ministry of Defense, the Office of the Attorney General, and the National Security Intelligence Agency.
According to Aristegui Noticias, Lopez Obrador’s wife, children, brother and even his cardiologist were selected to use Pegasus malware for potential surveillance between 2016 and 2017.
At the time, Lopez Obrador was Pena Nieto’s opposition leader and political opponent.
Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, cabinet ministers and other officials of the current government have also been identified as potential targets.
Sheinbaum told Aristegui Noticias that “the old regime used a persecution of political espionage” and its director, Carmen Aristegui, seemed to be a target.
