Spanish police have arrested 19-year-old José Luis Huertas, who is considered one of the most dangerous hackers in the country. Huertas is accused of multiple high-profile cyberattacks, creating a search engine called Udyat, and selling stolen sensitive information in large quantities.
He is also charged with attacking high-state institutions, money laundering, and impersonating the CEO of Gestevisión Telecinco/Mediaset España to steal €300,000.
Huertas’ most significant attack was on Spain’s national council of the judiciary (CGPJ), during which he stole the data of 575,000 taxpayers and created a database to sell that information to other cybercriminals. The hosted details included personally identifiable information, account numbers, bank numbers, and more.
Huertas also claimed to have access to information on 90% of all Spanish citizens in a YouTube interview.
A police investigation that started in November 2022 eventually led to the identification and arrest of Huertas. Law enforcement agents seized large amounts of cash, documentation, and computers that could help discover the hacker’s activity at Huertas’ home and other registered addresses.
Despite using cryptocurrency that had been “cleaned” through mixing services, the police could still trace the payments with the help of experts at the National Cryptological Center.
Huertas will remain in custody until the date of his trial due to the risk of him escaping, destroying evidence, and committing crimes of a similar nature. Judge José Luis Calama based his decision to detain the suspect on the fact that Huertas has significant amounts of cryptocurrency that would allow him to reside anywhere in the world and avoid the action of Spanish justice.
