Former Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto. Photo: Google

By KELIN DILLON

According to protected witness testimony provided to Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office (FGR), some of Mexico’s most prominent journalists and businessmen – including billionaires Carlos Slim and German Larrea – were allegedly surveilled by the notorious Israeli “Pegasus” spyware under orders from the administration of former Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.

The testimony purported that Peña and his administration’s Secretary of the Interior, Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, instructed the Israeli company KBH and its CEO, Uri Emmanuel Ansbacher, to spy on a list of 1,500-plus individuals.

The witness testified that they heard his superior, Ansbacher, “receive orders, I witnessed calls he received several times, calls that were directly from the president, whom Uri Ansbacher called ‘boss’; there were also calls from Miguel Osorio Chong, to whom he also called ‘boss.’”

They went on to claim that they were once handed a USB drive filled with surveillance files on individuals targeted by Pegasus by mistake and saw the spy records – which included photos, videos, messages and call logs – with their own eyes back in 2015.

“An Excel file opened… The file had more than 1,500 records, I saw journalists, businessmen and politicians, I saw the names of Carlos Loret de Mola, Genaro Villamil, Héctor de Mauleón, Pedro Ferriz de Con, Carmen Aristegui,” said the witness. “I saw a series of names of great businessmen like Germán Larrea, Carlos Slim and people from Televisa.”

The witness’s testimony came at the trial of Juan Carlos N, who stands accused of operating spy software for KBH, in front of the FGR.

Of the 1,500 purportedly infiltrated by Pegasus at the behest of Peña Nieto, only Aristegui is legally recognized as a victim of spyware in Juan Carlos N’s trial.