Security company UC Global SL spied on Rafael Correa after he left office and passed information about his private meetings with several Latin American leaders to the C.I.A. and his successor Lenín Moreno, the Spanish newspaper reports.
Rafael Correa in 2013. (Wikimedia Commons)
Spanish private security company UC Global SL allegedly spied for the United States Central Intelligence Agency on meetings held between former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa and leaders of several Latin American countries in 2018, El País has reported.
According to the Spanish newspaper, the security company spied, in particular, on Correa’s meetings with former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, former Brazilian Presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff, and former Uruguayan President José Mujica.
The information emerged from an examination of the MacBook laptop belonging to David Morales, former military officer and owner of UC Global SL. The forensic examination of data from Morales’ laptop was ordered by High Court Judge Santiago Pedraz, who has been investigating him for the past three years for different crimes.
Morales was hired by the Correa government (2007-2017) to handle security at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. UC Global instead he spied on the meetings that Australian journalist and WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange, who was taking refuge there. Meetings with his lawyers were recorded and sent to the C.I.A.
According to El País, Morales did the same to Correa, especially after he left office, and passed information to the C.I.A. as well as to his successor and political enemy Lenín Moreno (2017-2021).
[Related: Rafael Correa: ‘They Have Already Destroyed Assange’]
According to the analysis of Morales’ laptop, seized by police after his arrest in 2019, in a folder under the name “C.I.A.” appeared reports written in English concerning Correa’s private meetings.
These included a report on a trip made by Correa in March 2018, during which UC Global SL employees who accompanied him as his bodyguards recorded details of his meetings with regional leaders.
The reports also included meetings at Correa’s home in Brussels, where he is in exile after leaving the presidency. The new findings also showed that Morales was selling the information to the Moreno government.
The investigation also revealed that Morales would have spied on Correa’s two daughters through Trojan viruses installed on their smartphones in 2014 to wiretap their calls and texts. This happened while he was still president and while the young women were studying in France.
Correa stopped availing services of UC Global SL to provide security for his family in May 2019 after one of his bodyguards told him that Morales had asked them to draft reports on his meetings and his personal and political activities.
In 2020, Correa filed a lawsuit against Morales in the Spanish High National Court, which was incorporated into the case investigating the alleged illegal espionage of Assange.
The new data taken from Morales’ laptop also provided clues about the alleged delivery of the recordings between Assange and his lawyers during his stay at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to the C.I.A.
This article is from Peoples Dispatch.
No surprise at all, and to be expected. Good to see that this has surfaced in a court of law at least.
The NSA tapped the phone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel for years. We know this thanks to Wikileaks, Julian Assange and Ed Snowden. The German BND (Bundesnachrichtendienst) did not inform her.
It is a bit ironic that Snowden had to go to Russia for asylum and Assange is in “maximum security” HMP Belmarsh under false charges.
The Guardian, for example, reported on this at the time. Another example of how mass media outlets profited from Wilileaks revelation, now are silent about the persecution of Julian Assange.
Exactly, perfectly normal how the CIA and its contacts operate. The organisation has been a ‘ gun for hire ‘ ever since N Rockefeller was its boss over 40 years ago. As the CIA is a vital part of the Empire, it needs to be closed down completely. If Trump is elected , he might do it, but he would need to wear a bullet-proof vest for life. Any Democrat elected POTUS would of course continue as normal . The Empire is not only unbelievably powerful, but its owners are virtually untouchable.
The US embassies are full of CIA agents who pretend to work for the State Department.
Hmmmm , America you are sounding just like the novel , “1984”—-Is that where the spies come up with their nefarious ideas and plans? Was there ever really an America with free speech, and free thought?
Now, the problem is more grave.
Yaku. The phony indigenous and phony environmentalist.
His real name is Carlos Perez and guess who is supporting him?
Unfortunately this behavior by CIA is to be expected. UC Global SL just one of hundreds of CIA front organizations exposed for their dirty work.
Keep it coming CN
The reach of our CIA is astonishing. I don’t know of a single politician in Washington D.C. that doesn’t fear our own spy agency. We need to regain control of this agency through the budget process. Appointing an outsider (if one can be found) to lead the agency is Step 1 but that alone will not do much.
Edward Snowden for one.
The CIA and, by extension, their theoretical masters, the US government are such a collection of scum buckets….