Mexico City (AFP)

Marcela Turati suspected for a long time that she was being spied on by the Mexican authorities.

Today, this freelance journalist is almost certain to have been the target of the Pegasus software.

And for good reason.

Marcela, 47, was told on Saturday that her name and those of 24 other Mexican-based journalists were on a list of 15,000 numbers registered in software designed by the Israeli company NSO and purchased by the government of President Enrique Peña Nieto (2012 -2018).

Introduced in a smartphone, this formidable software allows you to recover messages, photos, contacts and even listen to calls from its owner.

The investigation, which reinforces long-held suspicions about the company, was published Sunday by a consortium of 80 journalists working for 17 international media.

It is based on a list obtained by the France-based network Forbidden Stories and the NGO Amnesty International, which they claim has 50,000 phone numbers selected by NSO clients since 2016 for potential surveillance.

Like Marcela, relatives and collaborators of Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), are among the targets of this plot.

They were reportedly spied on between 2016 and 2017, one of the consortium's 17 media revealed on Monday.

Although Pegasus' license in Mexico expired in 2017, Marcela is confident that surveillance continues through other means.

"I think that almost all journalists in Mexico know and feel that they are subject to some sort of surveillance because Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries to exercise our profession," the journalist told AFP on Monday.

At the time she believes she was spied on, she was investigating with two other colleagues into the case of Brazilian giant Odebrecht of paying colossal bribes in exchange for contracts in several Latin American countries, including Mexico.

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"People wrote to me to say + look, you were not crazy, you were not paranoid, what you said happened +", recounts Turati with emotion.

- "No one is being spied on anymore" -

AMLO, in power since 2018, has so far confined itself to reaffirming Monday that his government does not spy on journalists.

"No one is being spied on anymore, freedoms are guaranteed," said the leftist leader.

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At the same time, he pledged to clarify the case of journalist Olegario Aguilera, who disappeared 17 years ago in the state of Guerrero (south) in a still obscure context.

With a collective of journalists, Marcela Turati is also known for having drawn up a map of clandestine graves and investigating the massacres of migrants and the disappearance of 43 Ayotzinapa students in 2014, a case widely condemned around the world.

Relatives of Ayotizanapa victims and human rights defenders have also been targeted, according to inquiries by media such as the Washington Post, the Guardian and Le Monde.

"I was very involved in setting up networks to protect journalists," recalls Marcela.

Around 100 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 2000, including Cecilio Pineda in March 2017 in Guerrero.

His phone had also been penetrated by Pegasus.

As a result of the consortium's investigation, NSO argued that its software was designed to combat terrorism, pedophilia and other crimes.

Relatives of Javier Valdez, the AFP collaborator shot dead in May 2017 in Culiacán (north-west), have also been placed under tapping.

- "political espionage" -

The wiretapping of AMLO's entourage would have taken place when he was leading the opposition to Peña Nieto (2012-2018) of the PRI, the then majority party, according to the Aristegui Noticias website.

These people include Lopez Obrador's wife, Beatriz Gutiérrez, his children, his brothers and sisters and even the cardiologist of the left-wing leader who had operated on him for a heart attack.

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Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, ministers and other current government officials were also under surveillance.

"The former government practiced political espionage," Sheinbaum told Aristegui Noticias, whose director, Carmen Aristegui, was also under tapping.

The list of at least 50,000 smartphones "infected" by Pegasus, however, did not include that of AMLO, which, according to Aristegui Noticias, "apparently did not use a personal cell phone" and transmitted its messages through collaborators.

According to the investigation around Pegasus, the software was also used by the Department of Defense and the former attorney general's office.

© 2021 AFP