You cannot settle this locally while we're still investigating what lies behind it
En Buenos Aires, un hacker aceptó una condena en suspenso por ataques de sim swapping contra funcionarios porteños, pero esa resolución judicial llegó apenas horas después de que un juez federal lo convocara en el marco de una investigación mucho más vasta. Lo que la justicia de la ciudad trató como delitos informáticos acotados, la justicia federal los examina como posibles eslabones de una red de espionaje ilegal que habría apuntado al corazón del Poder Judicial argentino. La pregunta que queda flotando no es técnica ni procesal: es si el Estado, o quienes operan en sus márgenes, utilizó estas herramientas para vigilar a los mismos jueces que deben garantizar la independencia de la democracia.
- Un hacker condenado a tres años en suspenso descubrió que cerrar una causa no significa cerrar su destino: seis horas antes de la sentencia, un juez federal ya lo había citado por algo mucho más grave.
- La investigación federal apunta a una operación coordinada que habría comprometido los teléfonos de tres ministros de la Corte Suprema, jueces de cámara y magistrados que condenaron a Cristina Kirchner.
- Junto al hacker están imputados un expolicial que operaba informalmente en la SIDE y el creador del mercado en la dark web que proveía los datos necesarios para cada ataque.
- El choque entre dos jurisdicciones —ciudad y federal— no es solo burocrático: representa dos versiones del mismo caso, una que lo cierra y otra que apenas empieza a abrirse.
- Las indagatorias programadas para junio definirán si estos ataques fueron delitos aislados de un técnico ambicioso o piezas de un aparato de inteligencia ilegal con ramificaciones en el Estado.
Una mañana de junio, Elías Ezequiel Núñes Pinheiro llegó a un tribunal porteño y aceptó un acuerdo: tres años de condena en suspenso y 150 horas de trabajo comunitario. La jueza María Araceli Martínez unificó sus condenas previas en una sola sentencia. Los delitos admitidos eran precisos: había hackeado los teléfonos del entonces ministro de Seguridad porteño Marcelo D'Alessandro y del diputado Diego Santilli mediante sim swapping, una técnica que consiste en obtener fraudulentamente una nueva SIM para apoderarse de toda la vida digital de la víctima.
Pero seis horas antes de que esa sentencia quedara firme, el juez federal Marcelo Martínez de Giorgi ya había citado a Núñes Pinheiro en el marco de una investigación completamente distinta. No se trataba de dos hackeos aislados, sino de una presunta red de espionaje ilegal que habría apuntado a ministros de la Corte Suprema —Rosatti, Rosenkrantz y Lorenzetti—, a jueces de cámara y a los magistrados que condenaron a la expresidenta Cristina Kirchner. La colisión entre ambas causas no fue casual: una consulta procesal de la justicia porteña encendió las alarmas en Comodoro Py, y el juez federal respondió con nuevas citaciones y un mensaje inequívoco a su par de la ciudad.
Para ejecutar los ataques, Núñes Pinheiro había recopilado datos personales mediante consultas ilegales al RENAPER y a la base comercial Nosis, y compraba información adicional en Dark PFA, un mercado de la dark web. Con esos insumos vulneró el teléfono de Santilli el 14 de octubre de 2022 y el de D'Alessandro cinco días después. Luego destruyó el celular utilizado, lo que le valió un cargo adicional por entorpecimiento de pruebas.
Junto a él están bajo investigación federal Ariel Zanchetta, expolicial que habría operado como agente informal de la SIDE, y Tomás Patricio Hválica, señalado como creador de Dark PFA. Sus indagatorias están fijadas para el 17, 19 y 24 de junio por videoconferencia. Mientras la justicia de la ciudad cerró su expediente con una condena en suspenso, la justicia federal mantiene abierta la pregunta más incómoda: si estos ataques fueron crímenes de oportunidad o crímenes de Estado.
On a June morning in Buenos Aires, a hacker named Elías Ezequiel Núñes Pinheiro walked into a city courtroom and accepted a deal: three years of suspended prison time, plus 150 hours of unpaid community service. Judge María Araceli Martínez unified his scattered convictions into a single sentence, absorbing a prior two-and-a-half-year term from 2024. The attacks he'd admitted to were surgical and specific—he'd breached the phones of Marcelo D'Alessandro, then the city's security minister, and Diego Santilli, a national deputy. The technique was called sim swapping: fraudulently obtaining a new SIM card to seize control of someone's phone line. Once inside, he had access to everything—emails, contacts, messaging apps, the full architecture of their digital lives.
But the timing of that courtroom agreement was, in retrospect, catastrophic. Six hours before Judge Martínez formalized the deal, a federal judge named Marcelo Martínez de Giorgi had summoned Núñes Pinheiro to expand his testimony in a far larger investigation. This one wasn't about two isolated hacking incidents. It was about alleged organized espionage—a structured operation targeting judges, appeals court justices, and government officials. The implication was grave: what looked like discrete crimes in city court might actually be threads in a much darker tapestry.
The collision between the two cases was not accidental. The city court had sent an email to federal prosecutors on Friday requesting certification of the case status, a procedural step meant to seal the plea agreement. That inquiry triggered alarm at Comodoro Py, the federal courthouse. Martínez de Giorgi responded swiftly with new summonses and an explicit reminder to his city-court counterpart that the larger investigation remained active and that any decision affecting it required careful consideration. The message was clear: you cannot close this door while we are still investigating what lies behind it.
Núñes Pinheiro's methods were methodical. To execute the sim swapping attacks, he first harvested sensitive personal data—including national ID numbers—through illegal queries to RENAPER, Argentina's identity registry, and to Nosis, a commercial database. He also accessed Dark PFA, a dark web marketplace where he could purchase phone lines and personal information on demand. Armed with these details, he breached Santilli's phone on October 14, 2022, gaining complete access to his communications. Five days later, he repeated the operation against D'Alessandro, compromising his WhatsApp and Telegram accounts. He then destroyed the phone he'd used to carry out the attacks, an act that triggered an additional charge of evidence tampering.
But the federal investigation suggests those two breaches were part of something larger. Prosecutors are examining similar attacks against three Supreme Court justices—Horacio Rosatti, Carlos Rosenkrantz, and Ricardo Lorenzetti—as well as against federal appeals court judges Mariano Borinsky and Gustavo Hornos, and against the judges who had convicted former president Cristina Kirchner in the Vialidad case. The scope of the alleged operation is staggering: a coordinated assault on the judicial system itself.
Under investigation alongside Núñes Pinheiro are two other figures. One is Ariel Zanchetta, a former police officer and informal agent within Argentina's state intelligence agency, the SIDE. The other is Tomás Patricio Hválica, identified as the creator of Dark PFA—the very platform Núñes Pinheiro used to obtain the data he needed before each attack. Federal Judge Martínez de Giorgi scheduled their indagatory hearings for June 17, 19, and 24, respectively, to be conducted by videoconference.
So while the city court has closed its file with a suspended sentence, the real weight of the case remains suspended in federal court. The question now is whether Núñes Pinheiro was a lone actor with technical skill and ambition, or whether he was part of an organized intelligence apparatus—whether the breaches were crimes of opportunity or crimes of state. The hearings scheduled for later in June will begin to answer that question. Until then, the case exists in two jurisdictions, two narratives, two possible truths.
Notable Quotes
The federal court signaled that the city court could not finalize a plea deal while the larger investigation into organized espionage remained active— Federal Judge Marcelo Martínez de Giorgi's implicit message via new summonses and explicit reminder
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why did the federal court move so quickly after the city court sent that email?
Because they understood what was happening. The city court was trying to close the case, to finalize a plea deal. But the federal investigation is much broader—it's not about two hacking incidents, it's about whether there's an organized intelligence operation. They had to signal: you cannot settle this locally while we're still determining if it's part of something systemic.
What makes the federal case so much more serious?
The scope. Two breached phones could be the work of an ambitious hacker. But breaches of three Supreme Court justices, federal judges, and the judges who convicted Cristina Kirchner—that pattern suggests coordination, planning, resources. That suggests it might not be a crime, but a conspiracy.
And the other two men under investigation—what's their role?
One is a former police officer embedded in the state intelligence agency. The other created the dark web marketplace where Núñes Pinheiro bought the data he needed. If those connections hold up, it's not just hacking anymore. It's state apparatus.
So the suspended sentence Núñes Pinheiro accepted—does that protect him from the federal charges?
No. The city court deal covers those specific attacks on D'Alessandro and Santilli. But the federal investigation is separate, and it's asking whether those attacks were isolated incidents or part of a larger operation. He still has to answer to that.
What happens at the June hearings?
The federal judge will question all three men about their knowledge of each other, their communications, their roles. The goal is to establish whether there was a coordinated structure—whether this was organized espionage or just opportunistic hacking that happened to target powerful people.
And if they find evidence of coordination?
Then Núñes Pinheiro's three-year suspended sentence becomes almost irrelevant. He'd be facing charges of organized illegal espionage, which carries much heavier penalties. The real case is just beginning.