The tattoo on his right arm, written in Hebrew, reads: "Capitalism is an opportunity and the opportunity – freedom." The same expression, only in Chinese, is tattooed on his left arm. Those are not just tattoos to the 18-year-old hacker with the nickname n-splitter, but a way of life until the early morning of the 8th of June, when he was captured by the Electronic Crime Department.
Now n-splitter will have to take his responsibility for crimes like breach of computer information, computer fraud, forgery and breach of laws on possession of weapons, flares and fireworks, and the personal data protection law.
An Internet-connected laptop to check the state of his shares on the stock exchange was the only request of Alexandros to the police officers in the arrest of the central police station of Attica. The young man had not touched a computer for 12 hours for the first time in six years. The hacker, who horrified the FBI and Interpol and was the first on the electronic crime wanted list for three years and a half, will appear before the magistrate judge today to hear the indictment. The FBI’s charges against him are expected with the same great interest. Since February 2009, when he broke the protection of the official website of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and then that of the National Security Service NSA, the hacker known as n-splitter was placed in one of the leading positions on the wanted list.
"His hands were trembling. He was very nervous especially after the financial operations on the stock exchange started and wanted information about the course of the transactions," a Greek police officer told Ta Nea. "I hacked to win the respect of other hackers, but also because such attacks express my ideology. It is not to be despised when you are wanted by the FBI and Interpol," said the young man to the police. "However, he tried to convince us several times that the whole fuss about his name is not justified. The expression he used is: "I have not got the brain, which they say I have got," told the police officer.
The one and only child in the family, Alexandros got computer "addicted" still in the primary school. He told the police that he successfully attacked a site at the age of 13 for the first time. "I saw that is not that difficult. And it was a very good way to earn money for me and my mother." The only thing he has not given explanation for is the explosive found in his house.
The hacker's mother stopped working less than three years ago. They two lived in the profits of Alexandros, who gradually built a small financial "empire" at his home that he left rarely. He held a package of 48 shares only in the Greek Stock Exchange. The commission that identifies the cases of legalization of funds from illegal activities would have to establish the amount of the economic activity of the 18-year-old hacker.
One of his favorite methods was the development of programs that he offered for free. However, they acted as "Trojan horses" in the computers in which they are installed and stole the data of the unsuspecting owners.
An international investigation is being carried out currently related to the participation of the young hacker in DDos attacks on the Internet, which include theft of credit cards through the e-banking service, Paypal accounts and breaches of profiles on social networks like Twitter, Facebook and others.
The only question that the young man asked the police officers when they came to his house at 6:00 am was "how did you find me?". He had shut down his computer a few minutes earlier. The special police unit has found him a month earlier by the proxy server he used to attack on the Internet. He listened silently to the police officers and followed them without resistance.
The FBI officer who arrived in Athens greeted his Greek counterparts for the successful operation and said that a group of federal agents from Washington are expected to arrive soon. The indictment of the US authorities, which contains the attacks of n-splitter registered in the USA, will be added to the Greek one.
The Greek police authorities are convinced that the American authorities will require the extradition of Alexandros to the USA. The same request is expected to be made by France, which has been seeking the hacker for mote than three years, when he managed to break into the site of Interpol, the headquarters of which are in Lyon. The Greek police, however, do not exclude the possibility of using the boy for the detection of other hackers. The cooperation with a student from the Polytechnic School of the University of Thrace in Xanthi, who was arrested for attacking sites of Greek ministries, proceeded in a similar way.