Spanish police have announced the arrest of José Luis Huertas, a 19-year-old known by the nicknames Alcaseca, Mango and Chimichuri. Authorities have described Huertas as a “major national security threat” and the creator of the Udyat (“Eye of Horus”) platform, designed to sell stolen sensitive information in large volumes.
Huertas’ house and other addresses were searched by law enforcement officers, who seized large amounts of cash, a luxury car, documentation, and computers.
The police investigation into Huertas began in November 2022, following a hack of the computer network of the General Judicial Council of Spain (CGPJ). During the attack, the hacker stole the data of 575,000 taxpayers, including personal information, account numbers, and bank numbers, and created a database to sell this information to other cybercriminals.
Huertas is also accused of impersonating Paolo Vasile, an Italian businessman, film and television producer, and CEO of Gestevisión Telecinco and Mediaset España, and stealing 300,000 euros. In addition, the allegations include attacks on the highest government institutions and money laundering.
Huertas became increasingly bold with each attack, and an interview with him appeared on YouTube (in the video, Huertas hid his face under a balaclava), where he stated that he had access to information about 90% of all Spanish citizens.
According to local media, the identity of the hacker responsible for the attacks was identified by tracking payments for hosting services for Udyat servers. Although Huertas was using cryptocurrencies that had been previously “cleaned” using mixer services, the police were still able to trace the payments with the help of experts from the National Center for Cryptology.
Huertas will remain in custody pending trial, as investigators believe that if released, he could destroy evidence and continue to commit crimes of a similar nature. The court justified its decision to keep the suspect in custody by the fact that Huertas has significant amounts of cryptocurrency, which would allow him to live anywhere in the world and avoid Spanish justice.