Colombia's Petro accuses Israeli cyberfirm BlackCore of election interference

Outgoing Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Friday accused Israeli cyber-intelligence company BlackCore of orchestrating a massive digital disinformation campaign to manipulate the country's June 21 presidential runoff, claiming the firm deployed hundreds of thousands of automated bots to spread falsehoods about the ruling party's candidate.

Allegations of digital manipulation

Petro wrote on the social media platform X that "BlackCore, the Israeli company, deployed 500,000 bots—fake profiles—to manipulate the Colombian electorate with millions of lies about Ivan and me," referring to ruling party candidate Ivan Cepeda, who lost to opposition challenger Abelardo de la Espriella by less than one percentage point. The outgoing leader subsequently alleged that the National Registry's vote-counting software had been compromised, citing detected alterations in IP addresses of core government servers during the tabulation process.

Petro described the alleged interference as "the hardest blow to national sovereignty since the Spanish reconquest," announcing he would refuse to recognize the legitimacy of the incoming government. He has called on supporters to launch a nationwide mobilization on July 20 to contest the results, which gave De la Espriella—a criminal defense attorney openly endorsed by US President Donald Trump—a razor-thin victory over Cepeda.

Electoral authorities dismiss claims

Colombia's National Registry and the National Electoral Council issued a joint statement defending the total transparency of the vote-counting software, explicitly denying that government server IP addresses had been subject to unauthorized modifications. Their position was supported by international electoral observation missions from the Organization of American States and the European Union, both of which validated the integrity of the June 21 results and stated that no evidence of systemic digital manipulation or cyber interference was detected during the polling process.

International scrutiny and Israeli reaction

The accusations against BlackCore follow a report issued last month by France's disinformation watchdog Viginum, which formally accused the company of using coordinated proxy accounts to target pro-Palestine figures and disrupt democratic processes worldwide. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly celebrated De la Espriella's victory on X, stating: "Congratulations to President-elect Abelardo de la Espriella. I look forward to working with you to strengthen the bond between Israel and Colombia. Israel's friends continue to win. Long live the Isaac Agreements!"