International investigation names responsible behind Catalangate espionage using Pegasus

Catalangate espionage scandal broke the news during the Easter holidays in 2022 after The New Yorker magazine first reported that around 60 pro-independence politicians had been spied on.

Among those targeted using Pegasus spyware, there were all presidents since 2010, such as Artur Mas, Carles Puigdemont, Quim Torra, and Pere Aragonès, some when still in office.

After two years of investigation, the Irídia human rights group has now named those responsible for Catalangate espionage scandal. A police report points to three businesspeople working at NSO Group, owner of Pegasus, with offices in Luxembourg.

Irídia and Amnesty International named Shalev Hulio, founder of NSO in 2010 and sitting CEO and board member of two companies in Luxembourg since 2019; Omri Lavie, co-founder and member of one of these Luxembourgish companies; and Yuval Somekh, who led one of the companies in Luxembourg between 2016 and 2020 and a second one between 2019 and 2020.

The report names these businesspeople for arranging this allegedly illegal attack and not protected by Spanish legislation.

"We have been able to link the NSO Group founders to these companies, which operate in Luxembourg as a gate for States to buy the spyware," Anaïs Franquesa, Irídia director, told journalists during a press conference in Barcelona on Wednesday.

"These people clearly have a decision-making position, so we are not only filling complaints against companies but also against these directors," she added.

Both organizations are calling for sanctions on the 19 companies of the group and for the Pegasus spyware to be forbidden from being used and sold in the European Union.

Organizations believe that it is not only the responsibility of those States who buy the software but also the selling company as they offer personalized support despite being aware of its product's large human rights violations.

Two years investigation

For the last two years, a judge in Barcelona has been investigating the alleged use of Pegasus to spy on lawyer Andreu Van den Eynde, renowned for being Esquerra Republicana's former leader Oriol Junqueras's lawyer.

Van den Eynde is one of the many judicial cases involving politicians, activists, journalists, and lawyers. While many are investigating, it is going slower than these organizations would have liked as NSO Group and the alleged spyware client, Spain's National Intelligence Service (CNI), are not cooperating.

With the new information, these human rights groups hope that a new European Investigation Warrant will be used to ask Luxembourg courts to cooperate in giving information on the companies.

60 pro-independence figures

Around 60 pro-independence figures were targeted by spyware over the span of several years, and many complaints have been issued since the scandal was first reported by The New Yorker magazine following an investigation led by CitizenLab. The same research body said that evidence pointed to perpetrators within the Spanish government. 

Between 2017 and 2020, the devices of at least 65 Catalan politicians and activists were reportedly targeted by a spying program. Victims included Catalan leaders, Members of the European Parliament, legislators, jurists, and members of civil society organizations. 

Learn more about Catalangate by listening to our Filling the Sink podcast episode from May 2022 and read a more in-depth article on the consequences of the espionage scandal. 

Catalangate 

Catalangate is the name given by Citizen Lab, a research group based in the University of Toronto that reports on high-tech human rights abuses. They are responsible for launching an investigation into the espionage of several Catalan pro-independence politicians, activists and their close associates.  

It is "the largest forensically documented cluster of such attacks and infections on record," according to the New Yorker article published on April 18 of last year.  

Among the targets were Catalan president Pere Aragonès and every former Catalan president leading back to 2010. 

Victims' phones were infected using spyware programs Pegasus and Candiru. The former is known internationally for its previous infections of renowned people, such as murdered Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi and members of Rwanda’s opposition party. 

Candiru, founded by former NSO Group employees, is not as well known but performs a similar function as Pegasus.