In a meeting on Oct. 8 with Colombia’s ambassador to Washington, Biden administration officials confirmed that the U.S. government helped facilitate the acquisition of Pegasus to use in Colombia. According to the ambassador’s statements to the press following the meeting, $11 million in cash from the U.S. government was used to purchase the software to target drug cartel leaders in Colombia in 2021 and 2022.

The Biden administration “assured us that the software was never given to the Colombian authorities,” the ambassador said. Rather, it was the Colombian authorities that decided who the “targets of the interceptions” would be, with additional “supervision by North American authorities” to purportedly ensure they were directed at leaders of drug-trafficking groups.

The timeline of the purchase and use of Pegasus overlaps with a particularly turbulent time in Colombia. A social movement had begun protesting against Duque, while in the countryside, Colombia’s security forces were killing or arresting major guerrilla and cartel leaders. At the time, Petro, the first left-wing president in the country’s recent history, was campaigning for the presidency.

A product of the Israeli tech firm NSO Group, Pegasus is a nearly undetectable hacking program capable of monitoring phone calls, messages, and microphone and camera activity, as well as a user’s location.