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Inside Africa’s increasingly lucrative surveillance market

This article is part of the dossier:

Cyber surveillance: a new market, with old clients

Dozens of journalists, human rights activists and business leaders were tapped via Israeli software by Moroccan, Saudi, Togolese and Rwandan intelligence services. The revelations of the investigation by a consortium of 17 international media exploded on Sunday 18 July. The company NSO, which designed the Pegasus spyware and distributes it, denied the allegations that which it described as “false”.

Update 20 July 2021

The Moroccan authorities, for their part, have referred to the revelations as ‘unfounded allegations’, and the French government is concerned about ‘extremely shocking facts and, if true, extremely serious’.

This ‘Pegasusgate’ echoes an investigation we conducted last year in 2020: ‘Cyber surveillance: a new market, with old clients?’ In light of the new revelations made by the NSO/Pegasus scandal, we are republishing this series of articles.

This is part 1 of a 4-part series.

Africa’s ‘cloak-and-dagger’ market is growing. Heads of state, opposition members, businesspeople: no one is safe from hackers and taking protective measures against them is a tall order. We take an in-depth look at this highly profitable shadow war.

The building doesn’t look like much. Wedged between the Gabonese presidential staff car park and the compound wall bordering the boulevard de la

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