Former Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto insisted this Monday that the investigation into a report by the Israeli media outlet The Marker is “false” and “fraudulent.” would link him to alleged bribes of 25 million dollars to allow the use of the Pegasus spy system during his government (2012-2018).

“It is a totally false insinuation, lacking support and where it seems to me that the original note disseminated in Israel, by a journalistic outlet there, was distorted to later confuse it a bit and make a type of insinuations,” said the president in an interview with Mexican journalist Ciro Gomez Leyva on Grupo Formula.

According to the report by the Israeli media outlet The Marker, the sellers of the system would have given Pena Nieto the aforementioned amount to allow the operation of the controversial spy program.

The report points out that “the most famous agreement that they (the sellers) negotiated was the sale of Pegasus, the fraudulent software from the Israeli cyberattack manufacturer NSO, to various authorities in the country,” including the Secretariat of National Defense (Defense), the now-defunct Attorney General's Office (PGR), and the Center for National Security and Research (Cisen).

The former Mexican president defended that during his Administration he never worked in an area where he was responsible for authorizing contracts.

"I do not give guidelines, nor have I ever given guidelines for assigning contracts to this or that, but no, it is not my job," said Pena Nieto in the interview, who has remained away from public life after his six-year term in power.

Furthermore, he assured that the software was not used to spy during his government, but as a tool to "strengthen its intelligence capabilities and generate security conditions and combat organized crime."

He recalled that in 2021, after an international investigation claimed that Pegasus was used in Mexico to spy on journalists, activists and opposition politicians, the case was investigated by federal authorities.

Pena Nieto assured that the publication took him by surprise, since he was unaware of the existence of the conflict between the Israeli businessmen and denied that his name had been mentioned directly as some media in Mexico have suggested.

"This note was published to my surprise, without even knowing that there was a fight between two Israeli businessmen. but rather a dispute over investments made during my Administration," he pointed out.

For her part, the president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, said this morning that the report published by The Marker "was kind of tremendous," although she specified that the report does not directly mention the former president.

The investigation by international media uncovered in 2021 that several countries intervened 50,000 telephones with the Pegasus program, of which 15,000 cases were in Mexico during the government of Enrique Peña Nieto, the highest figure.

The investigation revealed that the communications of activists and journalists were intercepted; of the then opposition leader and later president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (2018-2024), in addition to some of his collaborators, as well as relatives of the 43 students disappeared in the Ayotzinapa case.

Meanwhile, the Guacamaya Leaks group published in October 2022 documents that it hacked from the Ministry of National Defense, which revealed that the Army had spied on journalists and activists, already with President Lopez Obrador in power.