Mexico: Investigation into alleged bribe payment for the purchase of Pegasus

Mexico's Attorney General's Office (FGR) has launched an investigation into Mexico's former President Enrique Peña Nieto for allegedly accepting millions in bribes, according to reports in several Mexican media. According to the Israeli newspaper The Marker, he allegedly received 25 million US dollars from two Israeli businessmen as a bribe for the purchase of the Pegasus spy software from the Israeli company NSO Group.

"We will immediately ask the Israeli authorities through the international legal assistance system to include this information, which they have published in the media, in a file so that we can move forward", said the head of the FGR, Alejandro Gertz Manero, on Tuesday. They will formally request legal assistance from the Israeli government "so that these allegations are made within a legal framework and do not fall into the same vacuum of unfounded accusations," Gertz added. However, given the difficult cooperation with Israeli authorities in other cases, Gertz was not very optimistic about the transfer of the necessary documents.

The information linking Mexico's former president to the sponsors of the spyware was published last week by the Israeli newspaper The Marker and widely picked up by Mexican media. The publication is part of a legal dispute between two Israeli businessmen who claim to have made a joint "investment" of 25 million US dollars to obtain contracts with the Mexican government under Peña Nieto between 2012 and 2018. It is unclear whether the entire amount was paid to the ex-president himself or whether other people were involved.

Ex-president denies the allegations

Peña Nieto, who has lived between Spain and the Dominican Republic since leaving office, has firmly denied the allegations made against him. Via his official X account, which he had not used for months, he described the Marker article as "completely false" and assured that the accusations were unfounded. "I regret to come across articles that make frivolous and malicious allegations without a modicum of journalistic due diligence", he wrote. It is an insinuation "that lacks any basis". He left open the question of who would benefit from such a publication. Peña Nieto later explained in a radio interview that he had never been involved in awarding contracts to suppliers. Nor did he know either of the two businessmen in question.

The Peña Nieto government (2012-2018) had allegedly officially purchased the Pegasus spy system for 32 million US dollars for intelligence purposes and to combat organized crime. Activist groups and journalists later uncovered that government institutions were using the malware to spy on journalists, human rights activists and anti-corruption campaigners. The US daily New York Times discovered that Mexico's then Secretary of State for Human Rights, Alejandro Encinas, was spied on with Pegasus when he was investigating misconduct by the Mexican military.

Despite claims to the contrary, activists and journalists were also allegedly spied on using Pegasus during the term of office of left-wing President López Obrador (2018–2024). At the beginning of 2023, the Mexican data protection authority INAI demanded that the Ministry of Defense disclose the contracts relating to the Pegasus spying software.

(akn)