Are most Latin American elections rigged?

(Photo: Dresling Jens – AP)

Panama Papers, a massive leak of 11.5 million documents from a Panamanian law firm that expose the ultimate owners of thousands of shell companies, have drawn a lot of public attention in recent weeks, but I’m just as intrigued by the lesser-known Bogota Papers.

The Bogota Papers? Yes, that’s how we may want to refer from now on to the emails and other documents held by international political hacker and cyber-disinformation expert Andres Sepúlveda. He says he has influenced — if not manipulated — the outcomes of recent elections in Mexico, Colombia, Nicaragua, Panama, Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Venezuela.

Sepúlveda sits in a Bogota prison right now, serving 10 years for hacking and spying for a leading opposition candidate in Colombia’s 2014 elections. A few weeks ago, he gave a revealing interview to Bloomberg/Businessweek in which he claimed, among other things, that he had worked for Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto’s campaign, and that hackers like him are working right now for U.S. presidential hopefuls.

Sepúlveda says that, in Mexico, his team of hackers installed spyware in opposition offices and manipulated social media to create false waves of enthusiasm and derision to help Peña Nieto win the election, according to the story.

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