India, Oct. 12 -- The Nobel Institute believes espionage may have caused a leak that revealed Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado as this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner. Norwegian media reportedly said on Saturday that the breach was "highly likely" linked to spying.

Machado's chances of winning the prestigious award reportedly surged from 3.75 percent to nearly 73 percent overnight on the predictive betting platform Polymarket, news agency AFP said. This spike came just hours before the Nobel Committee in Oslo officially named her as the 2025 laureate.

What further raised eyebrows was that no experts or media outlets had named Machado among the frontrunners before the announcement, sparking questions over whether confide...