In 2020, The Guardian, Le Monde and Citizen Lab revealed that six Togolese citizens, among them religious figures and political opponents, were informed by WhatsApp that their phones had been targeted with Pegasus in 2019. According to Le Monde, The Guardian and Citizen Lab, the likely operator behind these attacks could be the Togolese government (the Togolese presidency did not respond to questions from the two media outlets).
In July 2021, the Pegasus Project found that more than 300 Togolese phone numbers had been selected by a client believed to be Togo for potential surveillance using Pegasus, among them religious leaders, at least two journalists and a pro-democracy activist (the Togolese government did not answer the consortium’s requests for comment).