Spanish hackers breach Dominican Migration system

Santo Domingo.- A Spanish-led hacking group, headed by 22-year-old José Luis Huertas Rubio (known as “Alcasec”) and former Spanish Secretary of State Francisco Martínez, infiltrated the Dominican Republic’s General Directorate of Migration’s E-ticket system. This database, active since 2021, contains sensitive information on all foreign visitors entering and leaving the country—a destination the Spanish outlet El Mundo describes as commonly used by Spanish nationals involved in money laundering.

The group reportedly sought to extort individuals engaged in financial crimes, including money laundering and tax evasion, by cross-referencing stolen Dominican migration data with confidential records hacked from various Spanish institutions such as the Tax Agency, National Police, and Judiciary. Their goal appeared to be creating high-level intelligence tools for blackmail purposes.

Authorities allege that Martínez, a former top official of the Popular Party and previously linked to the controversial “Operation Kitchen,” was the operation’s mastermind. Data collected by Alcasec was compiled into a black-market database known as “Udyat,” referencing the all-seeing Eye of Horus, and stored on a server in Zurich. Although Dominican authorities acknowledged a cyberattack in October 2024, this latest revelation confirms the international reach and depth of the breach.