EspañolIn Colombia, accusations of misdeeds directed at presidential candidates continue. This time it involves opposition candidate Oscar Iván Zuluaga, who appears in a video published on Friday by the magazine Semana receiving intelligence information from hacker Andrés Sepúlveda. Andrés Sepúlveda was accused of breaking into the Army’s databases and stealing information about the peace talks between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
Other audio recordings published by newspaper El Tiempo show that Sepúlveda gave Zuluaga and Luis Alfonso Hoyo (former campaign advisor) information about the FARC from intelligence sources. Zuluaga’s campaign staff then used this confidential information to discredit the peace process through websites and social media. “It is military intelligence information which I have gained access to,” said the hacker when creating a profile on “Andrés París,” one of FARC’s negotiators.
According to the opposition presidential candidate himself, Sepúlveda worked as a social media and IT security advisor for the Zuluaga campaign, but he claims he was unaware of the hacker’s criminal activities. Zuluaga told the press on Sunday that the video was a farse created to damage his surge in popularity in the run-up to the elections.
Investigators followed the hacker’s trail and discovered he was a key link to Colombia’s black market of confidential military information, an illegal act Sepúlveda himself recognized. On May 6, when police arrested Sepúlveda, he was already working for Zuluaga’s presidential campaign.
Source: El Tiempo.