The Hacker Who Rigged Elections, Including Mexico's teleSUR
go to original March 31, 2016

"They Killed Our Democracy," Mexico City (Homozapping)    

A highly sophisticated Colombian hacker rigged elections across Latin America in favor of right-wing candidates for almost eight years, pulling in hefty paychecks for highly-coveted dirty work in at least nine different countries’ elections, including in Mexico paving the way for President Enrique Peña Nieto to illegitimately rise to power . A Bloomberg Business article published Thursday tells his story for the first time.

Andres Sepulveda, now in jail in Colombia, was in the business of the “whole dark side of politics that nobody knows exists but everyone can see,” he told Bloomberg Business.

He started with small jobs in 2005, but quickly ramped up to helping presidential campaigns in Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, and Venezuela smear, hack, and spy on their left-wing rivals for a bill of at least US$12,000 per month, and often more.

His first gig was for the re-election campaign of former right-wing Colombian President Alfaro Uribe in the lead-up to the 2006 election, which Uribe won. Sepulveda hacked a rival’s website and campaign database.

But the jobs grew in budget and scope over the years. In the lead-up to Mexico’s 2012 presidential election, Sepulveda hacked, spied, and manipulated social media for President Enrique Peña Nieto’s campaign with a US$600,000 budget as the PRI aimed to regain power after losing it in 2000 for the first time in over 70 years.

Peña Nieto, who was shown ahead in the polls early in the campaign, won the election amid widespread allegations of electoral fraud. His main rival, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, then of the PRD, demanded a full vote recount.

Read the rest at teleSUR

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