Espionage in Mexico has a new victim: the president’s ally
He is an old friend of the president, a close political ally for decades who is now the government’s top human rights official.
And he has been spied on repeatedly.
Alejandro Encinas, Mexico’s secretary of state for human rights, was targeted by Pegasus, the world’s most notorious spyware, while investigating abuses by the country’s military, according to four people who spoke to him about the hack and an independent forensic analysis that it confirmed.
Mexico has long been rocked by espionage scandals. But this is the first confirmed case of such a senior member of a government — let alone one so close to the president — being controlled by Pegasus in more than a decade of the country’s use of the spy tool.
The previously unreported attacks on Mr Encinas seriously undermine President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s pledge to end what he has called the “illegal” espionage of the past. They are also a clear sign of how free surveillance has become in Mexico, when no one, not even the president’s allies, seems to be off limits.
Pegasus only holds licenses to government agencies, and while there’s no definitive proof of who hacked Mr. Encinas’ phone, the military is the only entity in Mexico with access to the spyware, according to five people familiar with the contracts . In fact, the Mexican military has targeted more cell phones with the technology than any government agency in the world.
Mr. Encinas has long been at odds with the armed forces. He and his team have accused them of involvement in the mass disappearance of 43 students, one of the worst human rights violations in the country’s recent history.
His cell phone has been compromised several times — as recently as last year when he led a government truth commission into the kidnappings — giving the hackers unfettered access to his entire digital life, according to the four people who discussed it with him.
Pegasus was used against some of Mexico’s most prominent journalists and pro-democracy advocates several years ago, sparking an international scandal that tarnished the previous administration.
Yet the attacks on Mr. Encinas are unlike anything Mexico has ever seen.
“When someone as close to the president as Alejandro Encinas is targeted, it is clear that there is no democratic control over the agent of espionage,” said Eduardo Bohorquez, the director of the Mexican chapter of Transparency International, an anti-corruption group.
“There are no checks and balances,” he added. “The military is a superpower with no democratic oversight.”
Mr. Encinas did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The Mexican president and the Mexican defense ministry also declined to respond to requests for comment.
Pegasus can infect your phone without any sign of intrusion and extract anything – any email, text, photo, calendar event. He can watch through your phone’s camera or listen through the microphone, even when your phone seems to be off.
People who spoke to Mr Encinas about the hacks said he learned the details of the infections after they were confirmed by Citizen Lab, a watchdog group based out of the University of Toronto. It performed a forensic analysis on his phone which has not been made public.
The group also found evidence that Pegasus had infiltrated the phones of two other government officials who work with Mr Encinas and have been involved in investigations into rights violations by the armed forces, three people with knowledge of the hacks said.
Citizen Lab declined to comment.
The Israeli manufacturer of Pegasus, NSO Group, opened an investigation into cyberattacks against human rights defenders in Mexico following recent reports from The New York Times about the military’s use of spyware, according to a person familiar with the NSO compliance investigations.
The company also began investigating the attacks on Mr Encinas and his two colleagues after The Times asked about those hacks, the person said.
In a statement, NSO said it does not manage individual Pegasus systems, but is “investigating all credible allegations of abuse.”
The hacking has put Mr. Encinas and the President in a difficult position. In early March, Mr Encinas met with Mr López Obrador to discuss the espionage and whether he should go public with it, according to several people briefed on the conversation.
But Mr. Encinas has since remained silent about his Pegasus infection, they said.
Over the summer, he and his team released an explosive report on the disappearance of the 43 students, accusing the military of playing a role, calling the events “a crime of the state.”
Then questions arose about the evidence and Mr Encinas came under intense scrutiny – especially after he admitted in an interview with The Times that key parts of the investigation were “invalid”.
Lawyers representing military officials involved in the case called for his resignation and charged him with falsifying evidence. Mr López Obrador has stood by Mr Encinas throughout, calling him “an exemplary public servant in whom we have all our confidence”.
The two men have been political partners for more than two decades; Mr. Encinas served in Mr. López Obrador’s cabinet when he became mayor of Mexico City in 2000.
“Andrés is my friend, he is my partner,” Mr Encinas was quoted as saying as said in 2011. “We are part of a team and a project.”
But since Mr. López Obrador took office, the two men have not always aligned with the growing power of the military.
The country’s armed forces have greatly expanded their authority under Mr. López Obrador, building broad control over the police, as well as a formidable array of other activities, including building much of a 1,000-mile railway line and an airport , distributing medicines and managing ports and customs .
Mr. Encinas has been one of the few people willing to criticize the military from within.
When soldiers killed five people in northern Mexico this year, Mr. Encinas publicly that the unarmed men had been “executed” by the military.
The president has not weakened his support for the armed forces. Despite mounting evidence that the military is abusing Pegasus, Mr. López Obrador deny that espionage is taking place.
“We don’t spy on anyone,” López Obrador said in March. He added: “It is an act of dishonesty and lack of principle to spy.”
When the Israeli Defense Ministry approves the sale of Pegasus to government agencies, they must sign agreements to use the surveillance tool exclusively for combating serious crime or terrorism, three Israeli defense officials said.
NSO is now investigating whether the use of Pegasus in Mexico was in violation of that agreement.
Faced with two lawsuits in the United States by Apple and Meta, WhatsApp’s parent company, NSO is under more pressure than ever to demonstrate that it is enforcing its own rules. The Biden administration also blacklisted the Israeli company in 2021, concerned about how Pegasus was being used to “maliciously attack” dissidents around the world.
NSO appealed the decision, but as part of the process, the company hopes to demonstrate that it prevents abuse.
A senior executive at NSO said the company had disconnected 10 customers after they breached the terms of their contracts. One of them, the Emir of Dubai, used Pegasus to spy on his ex-wife, according to public court documents.
If NSO confirms that Mr. Encinas and others were targeted by the Mexican military for no legitimate reason, the company could immediately shut down the institution’s access to Pegasus.
Publicly, Mr López Obrador’s position has not changed. After The Times revealed how the Mexican military became the world’s first — and most prolific — user of Pegasus, the president said the armed forces “respect human rights and no longer spy like before.”
Emiliano Rodriguez Mega contributed reporting from Mexico City.