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He is a longtime friend of the president, a close political ally for decades who is now the government’s top human rights official.
And he has spied on, repeatedly.
Alejandro Encinas, Mexico’s human rights secretary, 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 independent forensic analysis confirmed.
Mexico has long been rocked by spying scandals. But this is the first confirmed case of a senior member of the administration – let alone someone close to the president – being monitored by Pegasus in more than a decade of using the country’s spying tools.
The attack on Mr. Encinas, which was not previously reported, seriously undermined President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s pledge to end what he called “illegal” spies in the past. They are also a clear sign of surveillance in Mexico, when no one, even the president’s allies, seems to be off limits.
Pegasus is licensed only to government agencies, and while there is no definitive evidence that it hacked Mr. Encinas’ phone, the military is the only entity in Mexico that has access to the spyware, according to five people familiar with the contract. In fact, the Mexican military has targeted more cell phones with technology than any government agency in the world.
Mr. Encinas has been arguing with the army for a long time. He and his team have accused him of involvement in the disappearance of 43 students, one of the worst human rights violations in the country’s history.
His cell phone has been infected several times — like last year when he led a government truth commission into kidnapping — giving hackers unlimited access to his entire digital life, according to four people who have discussed it.
Pegasus attacked some of Mexico’s most prominent journalists and democracy advocates a few years ago, sparking an international scandal that rocked the previous administration.
However, the attack on Mr. Encinas was unlike anything seen in Mexico.
“If someone as close to the president as Alejandro Encinas is targeted, it is clear that there is no democratic control over the spy tools,” said Eduardo Bohorquez, director of Transparency International in Mexico, an anti-corruption group.
“There are no checks and balances,” he said. “The military is a superpower without democratic oversight.”
Mr. Encinas did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The Mexican president and the Mexican defense ministry also did not respond to requests for comment.
Pegasus can infect your phone without any signs of interference and extract everything – every email, text message, photo, calendar appointment. Can watch through the phone’s camera or listen to the microphone, even if the phone appears to be turned off.
People who spoke to Mr. Encinas about the hacks said they learned the details of the infection after it was confirmed by Citizen Lab, a watchdog group based at the University of Toronto. It conducted an undisclosed forensic analysis of the phone.
The group also found evidence that Pegasus had hacked the phones of two other government officials who worked with Mr. Encinas and had been involved in inquiries into rights abuses by the armed forces, three people familiar with the hacks said.
Citizen Lab declined to comment.
Israeli manufacturer Pegasus, NSO Group, opened an investigation into cyber attacks on human rights defenders in Mexico following a recent report by The New York Times about the use of military spyware, according to people familiar with NSO’s compliance investigation.
The company also began looking into the attack on Mr. Encinas and two of his colleagues after The Times asked about the hacks, the person said.
In a statement, NSO said it does not operate individual Pegasus systems, but “investigates all credible allegations of abuse,” adding: “Past NSO investigations have resulted in the termination of multiple contracts regarding improper use of technology.”
The hacking put Mr. Encinas and the president in a difficult position. In early March, Mr. Encinas met with Mr. López Obrador to talk about the spying and whether to go public, according to several people briefed on the conversation.
But Mr. Encinas remained silent about the Pegasus infection, he said.
Over the summer, he and his team published an explosive report on the 43 missing students that accused the military of a role, calling the event a “state crime.”
Later, questions arose about the evidence, and Mr. Encinas came under intense scrutiny — especially after he admitted in an interview with The Times that key pieces of the questioning were “illegitimate.”
Lawyers representing military officials involved in the case have asked him to resign and charged him with falsifying evidence. Throughout, Mr. López Obrador has stood by Mr. Encinas, calling him “an exemplary public servant in whom we all believe.”
The two have been political partners for more than twenty years; Mr. Encinas served in Mr. López Obrador’s cabinet when he was mayor of Mexico City in 2000.
“Andrés is my friend, he is my partner,” Mr. Encinas 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 been in sync with the growing power of the military.
The country’s armed forces have expanded their powers under Mr López Obrador, amassing considerable control over policing as well as many other activities, including building a 1,000-mile railway and airport, distributing drugs and managing ports and customs. .
Mr. Encinas is one of the people who is willing to criticize the military from within the administration.
When soldiers killed five people in northern Mexico this year, Mr. Encinas said publicly that unarmed people were “executed” by the army.
The president did not reduce his support for the armed forces. Despite mounting evidence that the army blamed Pegasus, Mr. López Obrador continued to deny any spying.
“We are not spying on anyone,” Mr López Obrador said in March. He added: “This is a dishonest and unprincipled act of spying.”
When Israel’s Defense Ministry licenses Pegasus sales to government agencies, they must sign an agreement to use the surveillance tool only to fight serious crime or terrorism, according to three Israeli defense officials.
The NSO is now looking into whether the use of Pegasus in Mexico violates the agreement.
Facing two lawsuits in the United States by Apple and Meta, the parent company of WhatsApp, NSO is under more pressure than ever to demonstrate that it enforces its own rules. The Biden administration is also targeting Israeli companies in 2021, concerned about how Pegasus is being used to “target” dissidents around the world.
NSO appealed the decision, but as part of the process, the company hopes to demonstrate that it prevented abuse.
A senior executive at NSO said the company had cut 10 clients after breaching contract terms. One of them, the emir of Dubai, used Pegasus to spy on his ex-husband, according to public court records.
If NSO confirms that Mr. Encinas and others were targeted without legitimate reason by the Mexican military, the company could immediately shut down the institution’s access to Pegasus.
In general, Mr. López Obrador’s stance has not changed. After The Times revealed how the Mexican military became the first – and most prolific – user of Pegasus in the world, the president said that the armed forces “respect human rights and do not spy as before.”
Emiliano Rodriguez Mega contributed reports from Mexico City.
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