Andean Group - February 2026

Colombia’s government was rocked by an espionage scandal in January after two ministers claimed that the defence ministry was responsible for spyware installed on their mobile phones. The allegations were made by acting Justice Minister Andrés Idárraga and Interior Minister Armando Benedetti, who claim that they were illegally monitored using the Israeli spyware Pegasus.

Idárraga, who is also the government’s transparency secretary, was named as acting justice minister in October following the resignation of Luis Eduardo Montealegre, who stood down after just four months in the role amid reported disagreements with Benedetti. In a video posted on social media on 13 January, Idárraga claimed that “Pegasus was illegally used to spy on me and my family”. He said that a forensic examination of his phone had revealed that 2.3 gigabytes of data had been extracted between August and November 2025, that his phone had been hacked over 8,700 times, and that on at least 124 occasions the hackers had illegally activated its camera and microphone. The information that was accessed, he said, included “corruption allegations and my sources”.

The goal of the alleged spying, according to Idárraga, was to “prepare a campaign to discredit me, due to the information that I was receiving about various corruption cases (of all levels and types) within the armed forces”. He claimed that “the hacking is believed to have been ordered by the defence ministry, using classified funds and structures from the counterintelligence system, to persecute a person who was carrying out corruption investigations”. Idárraga said he had filed a complaint with the attorney general’s office. Then, on 17 January, Benedetti claimed that an analysis of his phone had also revealed the presence of Pegasus spyware. “The main question is whether State agencies or State employees are manipulating Pegasus,” he wrote on social media.

The defence ministry strongly denied any involvement in illegal spying. Defence Minister Pedro Sánchez said on 14 January that “there has never been an order from the defence ministry or any other force to carry out monitoring of the sort that has been mentioned, and the justice minister has been the victim of false information”. He said that Pegasus “was used in Colombia in 2021 and 2022, and then it stopped being used and it still isn’t being used by the security forces”. The defence ministry reiterated on 17 January that it “has not issued or tolerated orders for illegal monitoring”.

• Pegasus

  President Petro announced in September 2024 that the previous government led by former president Iván Duque (2018-2024) had purchased the Pegasus spyware from Israeli cyber-intelligence firm NSO for US$11m in 2021. Petro claimed that its purchase coincided with major anti-government demonstrations that year and also alleged that his 2022 presidential campaign was illegally spied upon.

The row has the potential to open a major rift in the government just months ahead of the May general elections, in which Petro cannot seek a second term and Senator Iván Cepeda will be the continuity candidate for the ruling left-wing Pacto Histórico. Petro has made little comment on the spying claims as of late January. He reportedly convened a meeting on 19 January between Idárraga, Sánchez, and the military leadership to discuss the allegations and resolve the tensions, but the meeting was apparently cancelled at the last moment.

Allegations of illegal espionage are nothing new in Colombia and have dogged successive administrations. Under Petro, constitutional court magistrates claimed in June 2024 that their communications were being intercepted, although little information was made public about the allegations and Petro denied that his government was involved. Under Petro’s predecessor, Iván Duque (2018-2022), local media reported in 2020 that the military had spied upon at least 130 civilian targets, including politicians, social leaders, and journalists.

Duque’s predecessor, Juan Manuel Santos (2010-2018), shut down the former national intelligence agency (DAS) in 2011, largely due to concerns about extensive illegal surveillance operations, and rebranded the intelligence service as the DNI. This followed widespread claims of illegal espionage during the government of Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010), which resulted in former DAS director Jorge Noguera (2002-2005) being sentenced to seven years in prison in 2017 for ordering illegal surveillance of Uribe’s opponents. This was in addition to a 25-year sentence received by Noguera in 2011 for aggravated criminal conspiracy relating to collusion with right-wing paramilitary groups.

Mancuso given another 40-year sentence

The former commander of the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC) paramilitary group, Salvatore Mancuso, was sentenced on 19 January to 40 years in prison for AUC crimes in the north-eastern department of La Guajira from 2002-2006. The crimes largely targeted the Wayúu indigenous group. A court in the northern city of Barranquilla (Atlántico department) found Mancuso guilty of 117 crimes in La Guajira, including murder, forced displacement, gender violence, torture, and other human rights abuses.

      The court heard that there was an AUC unit dedicated to persecuting the Wayúu, named the Frente Contrainsurgencia Wayúu, which consisted of around 150 members, and that this group used terror to crush local resistance to the AUC.

      Mancuso was handed a separate 40-year sentence in November 2024 for 1,323 crimes committed in the north-eastern department of Norte de Santander between 1999 and 2004 [SSR-25-01]. He has only recently begun facing Colombian justice after serving a 12-year sentence in the US for drug trafficking from 2012-2024. There had been speculation that, as part of a plea bargain, he might shine a light on the AUC’s alleged links with the Uribe administration, to which Mancuso has regularly alluded over the years.

      The criminal case against Mancuso is enormous and there are likely to be more court cases in the future. Local media reported that, at the time of his extradition from the US to Colombia in February 2024, Mancuso was suspected of involvement in some 60,000 crimes, including terrorism, murder, torture, kidnapping, forced displacement, money laundering, and extortion. 

Could the guerrilla groups unite?

Néstor Gregorio Vera Fernández (‘Iván Mordisco’), the commander of the Colombian guerrilla alliance Estado Mayor Central (EMC) which consists of dissident units from the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc), issued a video message on 8 January calling for guerrilla groups to unite against US intervention in Venezuela. Appealing to the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), the rival dissident Farc groupings Segunda Marquetalia and Coordinadora Nacional Ejército Bolivariano (CNEB), and the Ejército Popular de Liberación (EPL), Cepeda said: “We are not scattered forces, we are heirs of the same cause... Let us forge a great insurgent bloc that will push back [our] enemies… the shadow of the interventionist eagle looms over everyone equally”.  He added that “destiny is telling us that it is time to come together… in a common trench”.