Algeria Gate: In one of the most dangerous cyber blows that threatens a knockout punch to the throne of Mohammed VI, the Israeli Pegasus program; through which the Moroccan Makhzen regime excelled at spying on and blackmailing heavyweight foreign officials and politicians, has today become a spell that has turned against its caster.
The Spanish newspaper ABC revealed that Mehdi El Hajjaoui, considered the most dangerous Moroccan intelligence fugitive, is the engineer of the spying operations on the phone of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, confirming that he is ready to empty its sensitive contents.

The former deputy head of the Moroccan foreign intelligence service, according to the same source, was the leader of the spying operations carried out via the Pegasus program. Shortly before leaving Morocco in 2024, Mehdi El Hajjaoui stole all the information related to the infection of government phones. Sources close to him told ABC that “he is the one who infected Pedro Sánchez’s phone” and that he is “ready to provide” all the information about the breach: “how it was done, who was targeted, the content of the phone and the 2.6 gigabytes.”
El Hajjaoui, who was a general advisor in the Moroccan foreign intelligence service, fled Morocco in 2024 carrying with him other sensitive information about King Mohammed VI’s system: disclosures about the king, intelligence officials, ministers, security leaders, bribes to European parliamentarians in the “Moroccogate” case, and spying operations on European leaders such as Sánchez and French President Emmanuel Macron using the Israeli program.
The exclusive document obtained by ABC, which El Hajjaoui deposited with trusted people who helped him escape from Spain in February 2025, confirms that he led a secret operations unit specialized in cyber-spying on leaders in Europe and Africa, through which the Pegasus operations were carried out.
Mehdi El Hajjaoui: A mobile time bomb
His service record, according to the same source, specifies his high-level missions: “Head of the Security Office. Commander of the Atlas Unit and the Action Service Training Center, and charged with the mission before the Director General.” This points to Yassine Mansouri, head of foreign intelligence, who led the spying operations on politicians, journalists, and international leaders between 2020 and 2022 with the aim of imposing an international change in the status of Western Sahara and emptying the United Nations mission (MINURSO) of its substance.
El Hajjaoui was responsible for training agents for these secret operations and was also commander of the Atlas Unit (the elite of the Moroccan armed forces known as the “Atlas Shooters”). The same sources say: “Everything passed through his hands… He was the general controller of Moroccan intelligence, and he is now a mobile bomb.”
The document shows his long career in the intelligence service until his flight in 2024. He worked as a mission officer with the advisor close to King Mohammed VI, Fouad Ali El Himma. His service record covers 20 years as a “senior intelligence officer” in the foreign intelligence service (1994–2014), where he reached the position of “general controller” and even temporarily replaced the Director General during a sick leave.
The documents refute the Moroccan smear campaign that tried to portray him as a mere ordinary criminal and “swindler” claiming to be a high-level spy. El Hajjaoui, aged 53, was born in Hamburg, Germany, and is characterized by a strong build. He trained with the intelligence services of several countries: Mossad (Israel) and the CIA (United States), in addition to courses in the United States, Canada, France, Belgium, England, and Israel.
El Hajjaoui also studied in Paris advanced courses in intelligence, influence strategies, psychological warfare, and cybersecurity at the School of Economic Warfare. After fleeing Morocco, he first settled in France, but discovered he was being monitored by Moroccan agents, so he moved to Spain. His entourage says that the Spanish CNI set a trap for him in a meeting attended by two Moroccan agents who tried to persuade him to return, but he never trusted Spanish intelligence because of “the Spanish government’s subordination to Morocco.” CNI sources only confirm that he has been “in an unknown location” since February 2025.
His lifeline: Pegasus
The former number-two man in Moroccan intelligence fled Spain carrying with him a “lifeline”: all the information about the infection of Sánchez’s phone with Pegasus, in exchange for the suspension of the extradition procedures initiated by the Spanish National Court on the basis of an Interpol warrant.

ABC confirms that the information he can provide is extremely sensitive and will confirm Morocco’s responsibility for infecting the phones of Pedro Sánchez (2.6 gigabytes), Defense Minister Margarita Robles, Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska, Agriculture Minister Luis Planas, and former Foreign Minister Arancha González Laya.
The infection of González Laya’s phone occurred in the same month that she informed Sánchez of the decision to receive Polisario leader Brahim Ghali in Spain for humanitarian reasons. A few days later came the assault on Ceuta in May 2021.
El Hajjaoui wants to reveal “how the spying was done and who was targeted” even more than the content of the data, in order to expose Moroccan operations of major international dimensions. After the spying, Sánchez paid a heavy price: the dismissal of González Laya at Morocco’s explicit request, blackmail with migration in 2021, then Spain’s historic shift in its position on Western Sahara.






