MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazilian Court sentences hacker to 20 years in prison

Delgatti claimed he hacked mobile phones to “fight injustices” but the judge did not buy it

Notorious hacker Walter Delgatti was sentenced Monday to 20 years in jail for his involvement in the 2019 Operation Spoofing case, Agência Brasil reported. The decision can be appealed.

Judge Ricardo Leite, of the 10th Federal Court in Brasilia, issued his ruling after Delgatti was arrested in 2019 on suspicion of hacking into Telegram accounts of authorities, including members of the Lava Jato task force, such as former prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol.

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In addition to Delgatti, six other defendants were also sentenced for the intrusions. In addition to the former Car Wash prosecutors, former Justice Minister Sergio Moro, former Economy Minister Paulo Guedes, and advisors to the National Council of Public Prosecutors (CNMP) also had messages illegally accessed.

In his decision, the judge said that Delgatti intended to sell the hacked Lava Jato conversations to the press and refuted defense claims that the conversations had been violated to “fight injustices” allegedly committed during the operation.

“It was only after realizing the resistance of journalists to paying for access to this material that there was an initial cooling of Walter's eagerness to obtain cash for exchanging the material,” wrote the judge.

In addition to participating in the hacking of authorities, the sentence states that Walter Delgatti obtained bank details from various victims and sold the information obtained on specialized crime chats.

“To better understand Walter's fraud techniques, a conversation was recorded in which Walter introduces himself as being responsible for the technical and security area of a financial institution and instructs a bank client to update his computer to install a malicious program,” the judge noted.

Earlier this month, Delgatti was arrested by the Federal Police (PF) in connection with another investigation regarding the hacking into the electronic systems of the National Council of Justice (CNJ).

The police are investigating whether the act was promoted by Delgatti at the behest of Federal Congresswoman Carla Zambelli (PL-SP). According to the investigations, the hacker had issued a false arrest warrant against Supreme Federal Court Justice Alexandre De Moraes.

(Source: Agência Brasil)