Bulgarian man who hacked Bill Gates nabbed in QC

A Bulgarian national jailed in Paraguay in 2011 for allegedly hacking the account of the world's richest man Bill Gates was arrested in an entrapment operation in Quezon City on Thursday .

 

Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission Executive Director Reginald Villasanta said they worked with the Philippine National Police Criminal Investigation and Detection Group for the arrest of Konstantin Simeonov Kavrakov.

 

Villasanta said the they caught the suspect at the PS Bank branch at the corner of Scout Reyes Street in Barangay Paligsahan, Q.C. while he was withdrawing using counterfeit ATM cards around 9 p.m.

 

Recovered from the suspect were nine pPS Bank Quezon Avenue ATM branch receipts and P76,570 in different denominations that he withdrew by from the bank’s ATM.

 

Also recovered were assorted credit cards including a Citi Visa, Standard Chartered MasterCard, Citibank MasterCard, Citi MasterCard, Citibank Visa, Eastwest Bank Vice and a blank Gold card.

 

The operation was launched by joint PAOCC and PNP CIDG elements following a tip from their foreign counterparts.

 

According to Interpol, Kavrakov, tagged by international authorities as the “king of the hackers”, is engaged in ATM and credit card fraud and cloning. 

 

He is currently detained at the office of the CIDG's Anti-Fraud and Commercial Crime Unit and is facing charges for violation of the Access Device Regulations Act.

 

Kavrakov's arrest came after Gates reportedly visited the International Rice Research Institute in Los Baños, Laguna on Wednesday.

 

Bureau of Immigration records show that a certain William Henry Gates has been in the country since April 4. — Andrei Medina/JDS, GMA News