It is known the Pegasus spyware scandal put Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez in significant "hot water," triggering a major domestic political crisis, straining international relations, and leading to the dismissal of Spain's intelligence chief.
The controversy stemmed from massive data breaches at the highest levels. In May 2022, the Spanish government shocked the public by admitting that the state-issued cell phones of Pedro Sánchez and Defense Minister Margarita Robles had been targeted by Pegasus.
Forensic audits revealed that Sánchez's phone had been successfully breached five times between 2020 and 2021, resulting in the theft of more than 2.5 gigabytes of data. The realization that the nation's leader was vulnerable to total digital surveillance caused immense domestic embarrassment and raised severe national security alarms.
The revelations erupted shortly after a major cybersecurity report from Citizen Lab revealed that over 60 pro-independence Catalan politicians and activists had also been targeted by Pegasus.Catalan leaders immediately accused Spain’s National Intelligence Center (CNI) of illegal domestic espionage.Because Sánchez's minority leftist government relies heavily on the parliamentary support of Catalan separatist parties to pass laws, this severely threatened his coalition. To appease his political allies, Sánchez was forced to sacrifice his spy chief, Paz Esteban, who was dismissed amid intense public scrutiny.
Because the Pegasus software—developed by the Israeli company NSO Group—is only sold directly to sovereign government agencies, the hack was categorized as an "illicit and external" intervention.Reports from the European Parliament and extensive journalistic investigations strongly pointed to Morocco as the foreign actor responsible for spying on over 200 Spanish phones. Morocco has flatly denied this.
The timing of the hacks (mid-2021) coincided with an intense diplomatic standoff between Spain and Morocco over migration and territory.Critically, shortly after the hacks occurred, Sánchez made a sudden, highly controversial U-turn on Spanish foreign policy, abandoning Spain's traditional neutrality to support Morocco's claims over Western Sahara. This sparked persistent allegations from political opponents that Sánchez may have been subjected to foreign blackmail or coercion due to the data stolen from his phone.
Spain’s National Court opened a judicial probe into the hacks, but Judge José Luis Calama shelved the case because Israel refused to cooperate with multiple information requests regarding NSO Group. Despite briefly reopening the probe to coordinate with a similar French investigation, the Spanish High Court officially archived the case again due to Israel's continuous blockages, leaving the ultimate source of the espionage judicially unassigned.
There are rumors that highly compromising documents that could implicate Sanchez's strategic partners are about to be released by hacking groups. The irresponsibility of these groups could very soon have a political impact on the old continent that is difficult to imagine right now. The 21st century has shown that old methods of covert diplomacy and irresponsible politics no longer work, and that the strangest facts end up being exposed sooner or later.
