The Provincial Court of Barcelona has formally charged three former executives of the Israeli firm NSO Group, a company specializing in the development of surveillance software. The men stand accused of involvement in a far-reaching cyber espionage scandal in which at least 63 members of Catalonia’s civil society were subjected to covert surveillance through the company’s software.
According to the Catalan human rights organization Iridia, the investigation into the accused is being conducted under local laws governing the disclosure and breach of secrets. The charges have been brought against three former executives of NSO Group and its parent company, Q Cyber Technologies—Shalev Hulio, Omri Lavie, and Yuval Sumech. Neither the defendants nor NSO Group representatives have provided any official statements in response to the allegations.
The 63 identified victims were all, in some capacity, linked to the Catalan independence movement. Investigators have determined that their mobile devices were infected with Pegasus spyware, a sophisticated surveillance tool capable of infiltrating devices without any action required from the user.
According to Citizen Lab, the majority of these breaches occurred between 2017 and 2020. A 2022 report by the research group indicated that among the surveillance targets were Catalan politicians, including Members of the European Parliament. While Citizen Lab was unable to definitively identify the entity behind the attacks, researchers pointed to extensive circumstantial evidence suggesting a possible connection to the Spanish government.
