Outgoing Colombian President Gustavo Petro has accused Israeli cyber-intelligence firm BlackCore of orchestrating a sweeping digital influence operation, revealing that the company deployed a large-scale disinformation campaign to manipulate public opinion and meddle with the outcome of Colombia’s recent presidential election, Anadolu Agency reported.

Petro made the accusation on Friday after challenger Abelardo de la Espriella, a criminal defense attorney who was openly endorsed by US President Donald Trump, won the June 21 runoff election by less than 1% over ruling party candidate Ivan Cepeda.

In a post on the US social media platform X, Petro stressed that BlackCore used hundreds of thousands of automated accounts to manipulate public opinion before the vote.

“BlackCore, the Israeli company, deployed 500,000 bots—fake profiles—to manipulate the Colombian electorate with millions of lies about Ivan and me,” Petro unmasked.

'Hardest blow to national sovereignty'

Petro described the operation as “the hardest blow to national sovereignty since the Spanish reconquest” and said he would refuse to recognize “the legitimacy of the incoming government.” He also called on his supporters to organize a nationwide mobilization on July 20.

The revelations follow remarks Petro made on the night of the runoff, when preliminary results showed De la Espriella taking the lead. At the time, Petro said the National Registry’s vote-counting software had been “compromised", citing alterations to the IP addresses of several key government servers.

Colombia’s National Registry and the National Electoral Council (CNE) later issued a joint statement rejecting the fraud allegations, alleging the vote-counting software had operated with full transparency and security. The two bodies denied that any unauthorized changes had been made to government server IP addresses.

The accusations against BlackCore come after France’s disinformation watchdog, Viginum, issued a report last month accusing the company of using hundreds of coordinated proxy accounts to target pro-Palestine figures and interfere with democratic processes worldwide.

Netanyahu’s praise for Colombia winner adds fuel to Petro’s remarks

Petro’s remarks were further strengthened by the fact that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly celebrated De la Espriella’s victory and framed the outcome as a step toward strengthening ties between "Israel" and Colombia.

Netanyahu congratulated the president-elect in a post on X, saying he looked forward to working with De la Espriella to "deepen bilateral relations."

“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!” Netanyahu stated, amid rising concerns that the election outcome could open the door to an expanded Israeli political and strategic presence in Latin America.