Spanish police say they nabbed leader of one of the world’s biggest hacking groups

Spanish police have said they arrested one of the alleged leaders of hacktivist group Kelvin Security in the coastal city of Alicante.

Spanish police say Kelvin Security has hacked more than 300 organizations in over 90 countries over the last three years, extracting sensitive information and selling it on the dark web.

The individual arrested in Alicante is believed to be the head of finances, responsible for laundering the money obtained from the hacking activity.

Police say the detainee mainly laundered money through trading cryptocurrencies.

The detainee is from Venezuela and is charged with crimes including belonging to a criminal organization, revealing secrets, and money laundering.

Spanish police say the group's most recent attack was on an energy company last month. In that case, they managed to carry out a massive extraction of confidential information from more than 85,000 of the company's clients.

In Spain, the investigation began in 2021 after Kelvin Security hacked the computer systems of the Spanish cities of Getafe, Camas, La Haba and the regional government of Castille-La Mancha.