Raúl Barragán

Raúl Horacio "Yuyo" Barragán (c. 1957–2013) is considered to be the first Argentinian hacker, despite not knowing how to program.

Born in Concordia, he worked as a salesman for Aerolíneas Argentinas when he discovered the gateway through SITA's system. He used his telex to generate free airline passages, and began living by selling them in the black market after being fired from the company in 1979.

Many details from his life are not known, but he was already arrested by the Federal Police of Brazil and the Argentine Federal Police, avoiding conviction both times. It is also known he helped the Argentine Air Force during the Falklands War.

Yuyo was preventatively arrested in May 1994 for being a suspect of illegally selling passages for the band Los Pericos. He spent three years in jail as he was already being processed in other legal cases.

After his release, he lived with his mother in Concepción del Uruguay and died at 56 years-old.

Yuyo was born in c. 1957, in an important family in Concordia, but raised in Concepción del Uruguay.^[1]

Yuyo worked as a salesman for the Concordia branch of Aerolíneas Argentinas. He had a telex directly connected with Santa Fe, but it often didn't work. One day, he received an order for the delivery of several passages and a huge sum of cash. The goods should go to Buenos Aires and from there they were to be sent to London. As he was going to get commission for the trip and the communication with Buenos Aires was down due an overload of orders from the World Cup, he directly asked SITA, the company responsible for the emission of passages in the entire world, for the confirmation codes of the passage, and he received the confirmation in minutes. After realizing the breach on SITA's system, he tested his new access by creating a flight from New York supposedly bought with pre-paid boleto, and it was immediately approved.^[1][2]

In 1978, Yuyo was named manager. He was engaged with a Colombian woman that worked for Aerolíneas Argentinas in Caracas, and he wanted to meet her every week. He did have the right to take some free flights, but it wasn't enough for his plans. He asked his superior for more flights, but his request was denied. He then sent a message to his superior asking for permission again and hacked the telex system to create the information that a message was also sent to the general manager in Buenos Aires, Juan Carlos Pellegrini. A few days later, he sent a fake message to his boss supposedly signed by the general manager giving him permission to take the flights that he wanted.^[1][2]

In 1979, Yuyo was fired, and he reopened his travel agency Bahía Compañía Internacional de Viajes in his hometown, but the new business didn't work out. He was condemned to one and a half years of jail for not having the money for the liquidation process, but as this was his first passage through justice, he didn't have to serve the sentence.^[3]

Afterwards, he made a living by selling airplane passages. He created permissions for emitting passages, usually of first-class seats, from one airway company in the name of another, collected the passages for free and gave them away or sold them with 30-40% discount. The price was paid six months later during the clearing process of the companies. The scheme was not detected due the low value of the passages compared to other expenses. He also played tricks to punish Aerolíneas Argentinas. One day, he made a flight to depart with only 20 real passengers. He had also taken flights and had used the airway system as he wished.^[1] It is not known how much money Yuyo got, but it is estimated he generated from 5 to 10 thousand passages, profiting about 5 million dollars.^[2]

There are many stories about Yuyo's life, and it is hard to distinguish reality from myth. In one occasion, Yuyo and a friend were spending a weekend in Brazil, but they had no money and all the banks were closed. Yuyo generated two first-class passages to Tokyo and they came back when the banks were opened. He also allegedly entered in a drinking competition with a Russian ambassador, and they drank so much vodka that they both went into alcoholic coma. He also supposedly used a fake Colombian passport to rent a car which was never returned.^[4] According to a source heard by Damián Kuc, Yuyo supposedly helped paramilitaries from Costa Rica with fake passages, and briefly dated Freddie Mercury.^[5] He used to take lexotanil and valium.^[3]

During the Falklands War, Yuyo cooperated with the Argentine Air Force. His role during the conflict is unknown, but there are rumors that he generated chaos inside United Kingdom, including by generating fake passages on UK airlines.^[1][2] There is a single official document from 2 November 1982 where the Air Force sends their regards to Yuyo for his work.^[4]

In 1982, Yuyo created a flight ticket from Rosario to Tel Aviv, but the KLM manager detected the fraud and cancelled it. Yuyo then fled to Brazil and kept his operations by forging passages from Varig, but this time selling it half price on the black market.^[6] In 1983, the brother of a prostitute he was friends with went to Varig to confirm the authenticity of his passage to Chicago, and Yuyo was arrested by the Federal Police of Brazil. The company agreed to release him if he showed his modus operandi. Yuyo agreed to meet then on the next day in a hotel, and he gave two passages and a compensation check to the police officer for his good work. He then hacked Varig again and came back to Buenos Aires through a flight from San Pablo; his check bounced. He was Banned from Brazil because of the incident.^[1][2][7]

In February 1983, Yuyo was paid for a passage with a Rolex watch, but it was broken and he left it in a repair shop. When he came back to collect it, the clerk asked for the receipt and the Argentine Federal Police arrested him. Yuyo argued that he got it from an airway passage, but he didn't work for the airport of a travel agency, and the cops grew suspicious of him. On 3 March,^[8] he confessed his crime and demonstrated his modus operandi in a telex from Interpol. The police warned the airway companies of the hacking, but they took no action as they didn't want to admit that their system was vulnerable. Four days later, the police were obliged to release him.^[1][2] After his confession, all the world's airlines met in Paris to make decisive changes on SITA's system. They changed all the codes, imposed verification messages and decided to end clearing operations every 32 days.^[9]

On 23 July 1993, the band Los Pericos flew from Jamaica to Miami, but when they arrived in the United States, their passages for the way back weren't with them yet. Yuyo said someone of his trust was on his way to deliver the passages, but the airplane was leaving in minutes, and the band asked the airport to announce Yuyo's name through the megaphone. His man of trust thought he was caught and tried to flee, thus compromising the whole band.^[4] Their manager, Pablo Hortal, gave away Yuyo's name to the Argentine Federal Police. During the trial, Yuyo wasn't recognized by any of the members of the band, and the passages were emitted in the United States, a country where he was banned because of his activities. Yuyo was also suspected of using fake credit cards to buy the tickets. In May 1994, the judge Juan José Galeano decreted his preventive detention. He was arrested on Unit 16, Caseros Prison.^[1] According to Yuyo, he wanted to regularize his residency certification for voting purposes, and the airways used the opportunity to arrest him.^[9] His arrest also happened because of other problems with justice, including the liquidation process of his company in 1979 and a process from Areolíneas Argentinas in 1982 for fraud of public administration that was only judged on 28 December 1994, where he was sentenced by Martín Irurzun to 6 months in jail. His sentence was considered settled after he left jail on the Los Pericos case.^[3] Yuyo blocked his bank accounts in London and was impeded from using them during the trial, so he was left with no money whatsoever. During his time in prison, he started attending Law school.^[10]

Yuyo was released in 1997, after three years on jail, and disappeared from the public life.^[2] A YouTube channel named yuyo3260 became notorious for posting several recent pictures of Yuyo after his release, mostly about his travels. On 6 March 2009, the channel published a video where Yuyo allegedly says he was betrayed by a good friend of his and was going to die soon.^[11] He died on 1 August 2013, in Concepción del Uruguay.^[1] On his last days, Yuyo was linving on his mother's house and was stuck to a wheelchair, using morphine for his pain.^[5]

Yuyo is considered to be the first hacker from Argentina, even though he didn't know anything about programming.^[12] He is recognized as such by other hackers, including Daniel Sentinelli,^[10] and has participated several times on the Susana Giménez talk show wearing a balaclava.^[4]

The 1995 book Llaneros Solitarios - Hackers, la Guerrilla Informática (Espasa-Calpe), written by Raquel Roberti and Fernando Bonsembiante, has a chapter about Yuyo's byography.^[13]

• Roberti, Raquel; Bonsembiante, Fernando (1995). "Sucesos Argentinos". Llaneros Solitarios - Hackers, la Guerrilla Informática (in Spanish). Espasa-Calpe. ISBN 978-950-852-075-3.