He resided at Saint Thomas Country Club. He then moved to El Rebenque, a gated enclave near Canning, where he paid $2,000 a month. He drove an Audi and Mini Cooper before buying a Mercedes-Benz E350 AMG. Alejandro Jakimczuk, C14 or El Hacker, was apprehended in a Cañuelas house three days after moving there. After eight months, judicial investigators called him one of the nation’s most significant digital fraudsters. Police said he led a gang that emptied bank accounts for at least 35,000,000 pesos.
Qualified judicial sources informed LA NACION. When he was questioned by the prosecutor Alejandro Musso, who was in charge of the investigation and the director of the Specialized Prosecutor Unit for Cybercrime Investigations, C14, as he identified himself with his collaborators in the conversations of the instant messaging app and calls Signal, refused to testify (Ufeic).
Musso had been following Jakimczuk’s footsteps for eight months when the legal representative of a Carapachay firm reported the loss of 1,500,000 from her bank account, even though she had not passed account password to anybody.
The victim unwittingly entered the trap. “It was possible to corroborate with the browsing history, that the complainant, when wanting to enter the home banking of the bank where she had her account, clicked on the first option suggested by the search engine, which was of a similar design to the website of the banking entity, but with another domain,” said a judicial source.
On the fake website, the complainant submitted her information (username and password). After giving her phone number, a phony account officer called and asked for the details needed to access her home banking profile and transfer the money. She immediately got a message saying that he needed to synchronize the token.
The money that is gathered by the “vaciadores” is then moved to the bank accounts of various banks and virtual wallets in the names of “mules,” who “lend” their name for transactions in return for a portion of the proceeds. “More proficient fraudster groups acquire cryptocurrency to disguise the stolen funds,” stated an investigator.
Prosecutor Musso and his staff were able to stop the gang from withdrawing 1,300,000 pesos from the victim’s account during the inquiry. It is expected that another $200,000 has been turned into bitcoin.
While Jakimczuk was pretending to be a bitcoin dealer, he was aware that the authorities were on his trail. He may have acquired security force information. He relocated often to escape detection.
Even though he was unaware of it, the syndicated head of the gang knew that his destiny was beginning to be decided when other connections in the criminal organization were captured. For instance, the cell phone of a “mule,” which is a person who receives the money stolen from victims and deposits it into their own accounts, was taken. The information that was gained when the cell phone was opened was crucial, as it allowed the recruiter of the mule to be identified.
“The recruiter house was searched and he was detained. His mobile phone had all his chats with his criminal organization superior. The band’s method of communication was unique in that they used Signal, and they scheduled each other using abbreviations like M18, G17, and C14. They discussed the hierarchy. C14 was gang leader. A judicial investigator said, “Just give his first and last name.”
The next thing that needed to be done was to put a halt to the con artist who called himself G17. Band coordinator. Given the knowledge, C14 was easy to find.
In order to track him down, we tracked the trail of his credit card purchases as well as the activation of the alert on hone network that occurred whenever he used his mobile phone.
When C14 phoned the electric power provider to report a power outage, the mansion’s location was revealed. That communication got the client’s meter number and property address.
The suspect was arrested by Buenos Aires police from the EPDS Vicente López. He had a “laboratory” with cutting-edge equipment to concretize schemes and a gym for MMA, his favorite sport, in the estate.
Investigators believe C14 changed cars when police informed him they were chasing him.
When he drove a Mini Cooper, we found it. “In a picture, he passed past a toll without paying, but afterwards he replaced that car for a Mercedes Benz,” said a judicial investigator.
Information security specialist, currently working as risk infrastructure specialist & investigator.
15 years of experience in risk and control process, security audit support, business continuity design and support, workgroup management and information security standards.