This murder has exposed the dark side of Mexico’s hacking community
Raúl Robles was a controversial figure among the Mexican hacker community.
Raúl Robles, a prominent Mexican hacker and cybersecurity expert, was eating breakfast with his father at a quiet café in a leafy neighborhood of the western city of Guadalajara when a masked gunman walked in and opened fire. Robles, 31, was reportedly hit five times and died at the scene. The killer escaped before police arrived.
The December 2 murder has shocked Mexico’s hacker community but it has also provided a window on a murky world of intense rivalry and mutual sabotage where the death itself was seemingly announced beforehand in an online forum.
Robles, a resident of Mexico City, had been the target of several threatening messages on Hispachan, a site for completely anonymous Spanish-language discussion that has proven popular among hackers since its launch in 2012. All the threats have now been deleted.
“I’m gonna kill this faggot!! I know he’s coming to my city and I’ll kill him here,” read the first threat posted in October, alongside an image of Robles…
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