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This article is more than 1 year old

Reports claim Spanish police have arrested hacker Phineas Fisher

But someone using his email says otherwise

Spanish cops investigating an attack on a Catalan police union last May have arrested three suspects, including a hacker alleged to be behind high-profile attacks against spyware-for-cops firms Hacking Team and Gamma International.

Phineas Fisher claimed responsibility for the hack and subsequent leak of sensitive information from Hacking Team in 2015 as well as an earlier assault on UK-based Gamma International, the firm behind FinFisher, back in August 2014.

The three (as yet unnamed) suspects were arrested as part of an investigation into an attack against Sindicat de Mossos d'Esquadra (SME), the Catalan police union. Phineas Fisher claimed credit for the attack, which resulted in the leak of personal information of up to 5,500 serving police officers.

Spain's Policia Nacional (national police) detained a couple in Barcelona and a 33-year-old man in Salamanca on suspicion of the crime on Tuesday. The Salamanca suspect is Phineas Fisher, according to local reports.

Someone using Phineas Fisher's email address surfaced hours after the arrest to claim police had arrested an activist rather than him. "I think the Mossos just arrested some people that retweeted the link to their personal info, or maybe just arrested some activisty/anarchisty people to pretend they are doing something," they said in an email shared through an intermediary with Motherboard.

Spanish daily El Pais has more on the story here. ®

 

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