Mexico: $300 million in spyware spending included kickbacks
Associated Press
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MEXICO CITY — Mexico's top anti-money laundering investigator said Wednesday that officials from previous administrations from 2012 to 2018 spent about $300 million in government money to purchase spyware from the Israeli spyware firm NSO Group.
The bills for programs like the Pegasus spyware appear to have included excess payments that may have been channeled back to former government officials as kickbacks.
Santiago Nieto, the head of Mexico's Financial Intelligence Unit, said the information is being given to prosecutors in Mexico.
Nieto said the amounts paid, and the way they were paid, suggested government corruption in an already questionable telephone tapping program that targeted journalists, activists and opposition figures, who at the time included President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his inner circle.