Moroccan whistleblower reveals how Rabat used Israel's Pegasus spyware for surveillance A Moroccan intelligence insider has revealed details about his government’s use of hacking software, including Israeli-manufactured Pegasus spyware, to track journalists, human right defenders and foreign officials. The whistleblower's revelations were reported in an investigation published on Thursday by Forbidden Stories, Amnesty and 13 media organisations. Investigative reporting in 2021 accused Morocco of having used the Israeli-manufactured hacking tool for spying on its critics as well as allies - claims that Rabat denied at the time.
The former Moroccan intelligence officer said he had been witness to much of Morocco's relationship with Pegasus, from its introduction to Moroccan officials to its utilisation. Safir, the pseudonym given to the whistleblower, worked at the Direction Generale de la Surveillance du Territoire (DGST), the Moroccan domestic intelligence services, for almost a decade. His testimonies were corroborated by evidence gathered by the investigative consortium, incuding leaked emails, targeting records relating to Pegasus and other spyware, victims’ testimony and internal training material, as well as leaked data analysed by Amnesty International's Security Lab.
It was in 2017 in a luxurious villa in the capital Rabat that Pegasus was first introduced to the Moroccan intelligence services, according to the investigation. Representatives from Israel's NSO Group, the cyber-intelligence firm that gave birth to Pegasus, gave an extensive presentation of the spyware to high-ranking Moroccan intelligence officers and technical experts. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); The house was called “the FSSYS villa” after the FSSYS Maroc, the Moroccan branch of the Emirati surveillance intermediary al-Fahad.
Safir suggested in the report that the costly Pegasus software was a gift from the UAE. “Millions for the Emiratis, that’s nothing,” said Safir.
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