Guacamaya leak indicates that the Mexican government sold weapons to drug cartels and illegaly spied on reporters.
Guacamaya are a group of Mexico-based hackers who released an immense trove of over 4 million confidential documents from the files of Mexico’s Ministry of National Defense.
The files included details such as the health status of Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who had a heart attack while in office and a surgery relating to it last January. They also included details of serious disputes between the heads of the Secretary of National Defense and the Navy, and of a failed operation in 2019 that tried to arrest a major cartel leader.
“They took advantage of the fact that we are carrying out a change in the Army, the general told me, of the information system, that hackers are professionals, and they get in and out of all the information, but it is in the public domain, everything that is said there it is certain”, said President Obrador in his daily press conference.
What was certainly not in the public domain is other details which were released. After the president confirmed that the leak was genuine, Guacamaya released documents showing that Mexico’s military knowingly sold explosives and tactical gear to drug cartels, and that Mexican officials refused to cooperate with the investigation into 43 students who disappeared and were later found in several mass graves.
Documents were also released showing that officials used Pegasus spyware from Israel to illegally monitor journalists and other political parties.
When asked what the Mexican government would do to improve their cybersecurity, though, Obrador said there would be no additional measures in response to the Guacamaya leak.
“Nothing (of additional measures), because if you act with transparency, which is the golden rule of democracy, if you don’t lie, if you speak the truth, then what problem can you have,” he argued.
Photo: Octavio Hoyos / Shutterstock
