BOGOTÁ, Colombia (AP) — The Egmont Group, an international organization created to combat money laundering, said Monday it has suspended Colombia’s access to its global information-sharing platform after Chairman Gustavo Petro shared confidential information that Colombian officials had obtained from the group.
The Egmont Group said in a statement that Colombian authorities will no longer have access to a secure web used by the group to share financial crime data and accessible to 177 member states. The group said the measure will remain in place while it investigates the situation.
Earlier this month, Petro read out information from a document obtained through the Egmont Group showing that the Colombian government, then headed by conservative President Iván Duque, paid $11 million in cash to an Israeli company in 2021 to Pegasus spyware.
Petro made the revelation during a nationally televised speech, which many expected him to talk about a truck drivers’ strike instead.
The president said the spyware was used by Duque’s conservative government to spy on activists and members of leftist parties opposed to his government, including Petro himself. Duque government officials have denied the allegations.
Pegasus can stealthily collect information from mobile phones and control a mobile phone’s camera and microphone. The software, developed by an Israeli company, has been used to target more than 50,000 politicians, journalists and human rights activists by at least a dozen governments, according to a 2021 report by Amnesty International and 18 media organizations.
Security analysts have said Colombia’s suspension of the Egmont Group information-sharing platform weakens the country’s ability to track illicit transactions by drug traffickers and other criminal organizations.
Petro on Monday defended his decision to make confidential information public, saying he did so to protect the country’s interests.
“This is the price of truth,” Petro wrote in a post on X, adding that Colombians now know how his predecessor “paid” for Pegasus.
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