Young people were in custody for leading a group of computer pirates that hacked at the Ministry of Health. Hackers used credentials to pass drug recipes used for drug creation and issue false death certificates.
Three young Portuguese, aged 19 and 20, are in custody in the Leiria chain, accused of Lead the PKN Groupa cybercriminous organization originating in the world of online video games. In total, 18 people were accused.
According to the prosecution’s accusation consulted by the group, the group is responsible for dozens of crimes, including qualified scam, computing falsehood, extortion, threats and misuse of personal data. When they were arrested, the suspects had About 500 thousand euros in your accounts banking, without any known professional occupation.
Between 2022 and 2023, defendants collected access credentials (usernames and passwords) in forums such as raidforums and breakforums. Managed to obtain confidential data from users, including Ministry of Health doctors, whose accounts were then used to pass illegitimate medical revenuesin particular to get syrup with codeine, used to create the recreational drug known as “Lean”. One of the defendants said he wanted to try the drug after seeing the effects of “some videos of a few rappers”,
Not only did the group use revenues for their own consumption, but it sold them, as well as the accesses of doctors for 10 to 15 euros. In total, they will have been issued More than 300 recipes based on stolen credentials.
Even more serious, group members used medical credentials to issue false death certificatesincluding people still alive. In one situation, a certificate was used to threaten a young woman with whom one of the defendants had disagreed. “Since you’re dead on paper, don’t you want to be dead in real life? I offer 700 euros to those who bring me the head of this bitch,” he threatened.
The group operated through the Tugabin platform and created the #Pinksp@m project, a kind of Portuguese “Doxbin” for anonymous third party data sharing. Through this network, they spread spam campaigns On behalf of companies like EDP or CTT to try to fool victims with false debts. More than half a million messages were sent.
