Investigators have revealed that targets of high-tech spying in Mexico included an international group of experts backed by the Organization of American States who had criticized the government’s investigation into the disappearance of 43 students.

Previous investigations by the internet watchdog group Citizen Lab found that the spyware had been directed at journalists, activists and opposition politicians in Mexico.  But targeting foreign experts operating under the aegis of an international body marks an escalation of the scandal, which so far involves 19 individuals or groups. The experts had diplomatic status, making the spying attempt even graver.

“This must be investigated to find out who sent these messages, because they could put at risk a lot of contacts and sources,” said the former Colombian prosecutor Angela Buitrago, a member of the group of experts. Buitrago said she and another expert, Carlos Beristain, had received the messages. She said she hadn’t opened them.

“I didn’t open it because I am used to spying,” Buitrago said. “When you work in a prosecutors’ office, a government office, there are strange messages and you pass them on to the analysts.”

A report released by the University of Toronto-based analysts found that someone sent emails with links to the spyware to the International Group of Independent Experts, named by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The experts had been critical of the government’s investigation into the 2014 disappearance of 43 students from a rural teachers’ college in Guerrero state – a politically sensitive incident that deeply embarrassed the government.(theguardian)…[+]