Former Mexican president investigated over allegedly taking bribes from spyware industry

Mexican Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero announced Tuesday that he has launched a probe into allegations that former Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto took bribes from Israeli businessmen who allegedly paid him as much as $25 million to secure government contracts for spyware and other technology.

The investigation comes in response to an account in the Israeli business publication TheMarker, which reported that the contracts included a deal to buy Pegasus — the powerful spyware manufactured by Israel-based NSO Group. 

Gertz Manero acknowledged in a press briefing that he currently lacks concrete evidence to prove TheMarker’s claims about Peña Nieto are true, but suggested that the names and documents cited in the news outlet’s report give his office a roadmap for a probe.

TheMarker’s report is based on documents filed as part of a legal dispute between the businessmen — Uri Ansbacher and Avishai Neriah — who reportedly entered into arbitration in Israeli courts to determine individual proceeds from a joint $25 million “investment” in Peña Nieto.

The arbitration documents allegedly include statements from the businessmen claiming that in exchange for their money, Peña Nietro delivered their “joint business” the lucrative security contracts from the Mexican government, including for the use of Pegasus. 

Gertz Manero said that as part of the investigation his office has sought the documents which allegedly include Neriah and Ansbacher’s account of the alleged bribes.

The Israeli government has historically been uncooperative with Mexican authorities investigating Pegasus abuses, Gertz Manero said, indicating that his office has requested international legal assistance in order to access the documents TheMarker report draws from.

The documents reportedly do not name Peña Nieto but instead cite his years in office and refer to an official described as “the elder man” and “the N.”

Peña Nieto denied the allegations in an X post Sunday, saying TheMarker’s account is “completely false.”

“I regret to come across articles that, lacking the minimum journalistic rigor, make rash and malicious claims,” he wrote. “It is an insinuation devoid of any basis.”

Peña Nieto also has reportedly said in media interviews that he does not know Ansbacher or Neriah. TheMarker is owned by the Haaretz Group, which publishes Israel’s newspaper of record.

Peña Nieto, who served as Mexico’s president from 2012 to 2018, has previously been investigated for other acts of alleged corruption, including incidents involving bribes, but he has never been formally charged.

During Peña Nieto’s presidency, digital forensic researchers at the Citizen Lab documented dozens of examples of the use of Pegasus to target phones belonging to journalists, government scientists, politicians and anti-corruption activists.

In 2021, an international media consortium reporting on NSO abuses — an effort known as the Pegasus Project — revealed that during Peña Nieto's presidency some 15,000 Mexican phone numbers were potentially monitored with Pegasus.

The findings were based on a leaked list of more than 50,000 phone numbers obtained by Amnesty International and a Paris-based nonprofit media organization which are believed to belong to people NSO clients expressed interest in targeting, beginning in 2016.

A spokesperson for the NSO Group did not immediately respond to a request for comment.