"Moroccan intelligence insider reveals widespread use of Pegasus hacking software" 16 July 2026

A former member of Morocco’s domestic intelligence service has helped to provide an unprecedented insight into how the north African state used hacking software – including Pegasus spyware – to target journalists, human rights defenders, French politicians and Spanish cabinet ministers and police officers...Pegasus, which is manufactured by the Israel-based NSO Group, allows its operator to access everything on a target’s mobile phone, including emails, text messages and photographs...

Although NSO Group says Pegasus is sold only to governments to help them track criminals and terrorists, the spyware is alleged to have been used by several countries to target dissidents, journalists, diplomats and politicians...According to information gathered by the consortium, NSO Group representatives gave high-ranking Moroccan intelligence officers and technical experts a long and detailed demonstration of new technologies – including Pegasus – in an expensive villa in Rabat in 2017. The source said the house was nicknamed “the FSSYS villa” after FSSYS Maroc, which was then the Moroccan branch of the UAE-based surveillance intermediary al-Fahad, and which frequently used the property for such demonstrations...Morocco has long denied using Pegasus to target critics at home or abroad, and has claimed that reporters who have investigated NSO Group were “incapable of proving [the country had] any relationship” with the company...However, evidence from a whistleblower who worked for Morocco’s Direction Générale de la Surveillance du Territoire (DGST) for almost a decade suggests the country’s internal security services began using Pegasus in 2017 and went on to deploy it against domestic and foreign targets over the course of four years...

A Spanish mobile number belonging to Aminatou Haidar, a prominent human rights activist from Western Sahara, was included in the leaked database and found to have been targeted by Pegasus dating back to 2018...All in all, Pegasus project records show more than 200 Spanish mobile numbers were selected for Pegasus targeting by the user believed to be Morocco...Further evidence that Morocco used Pegasus emerged last year after WhatsApp’s parent company, Meta, took NSO Group to court in the US for exploiting its messaging platform to target people...NSO Group, the Moroccan government, the UAE authorities and al-Fahad’s parent company have all been approached for comment, as have the Spanish government and its interior, foreign and defence ministries...

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