The incredible story of Argentina’s first hacker: in the pre-internet age, he traveled all over the world without paying a single peso

Raul Horacio “Yuyo” Barragán, Originally from Concepción del Uruguay, Entre Ríos, he is considered the first Argentine hacker. Its history dates back to 1978, in the midst of the military process, when “Yuyo” was 21 and worked at the Aerolineas Argentinas branch in Concordia, Entre Ríos.

Barragán’s story is told in the book “Lone Rangers – Hackers, the computer guerilla” by Raquel Roberti and Fernando Bonsembiante, published in 1995. According to the book, during the year of the first FIFA World Cup in Argentina, “Yuyo” had a telephone and telex terminal directly connected to Santa Fe through a private coaxial device at work, although generally this connection did not work.

Luckily, Yuyo noticed how easy it was to forge telex messages without anyone noticing.

Telex was the device used before the Internet age for the transmission of data and typed messages. Its appearance is very similar to that of typewriters, and the message arrived at its destination printed on paper, similar to the home fax machine, has also disappeared.

The mechanism for selling airline tickets at the Concordia branch, usual then and still today, envisaged the possibility that a foreign company, without offices in our country, could deliver its tickets through the intermediary of another airline. When such a case arose, Barragán was to inform the Buenos Aires office, which in turn communicated with the International Aeronautical Communications System (SITA). This organization of French origin, responsible for all airline bookings around the world, registered the reservation at its headquarters in England, confirmed it in the United States and then gave the order to issue it to the corresponding company.

One day, Yuyo received a purchase order from London for such a large sum of money that she made him pay close attention. “I have to confirm these tickets anyway,” he told the telex operator. “All the numbers of Aerolineas in Buenos Aires are busy,” he replied.

Faced with his impatience, Yuyo decided to look in the air guides for the codes and keys he needed and in the telex guide for the SITA number in Buenos Aires. Yes indeed, He communicated directly – bypassing the Aerolineas Argentinas offices in the capital Buenos Aires -, made the reservation and a few minutes later obtained confirmation.

This fact marked the moment when Barragán realized how easy it was to forge telex messages without anyone noticing. His first “hack” was made at the company that had hired him.

When Yuyo Barragán realized that his actions were undetectable, he began to travel around the world several times and with different companions.

Yuyo generated an order from New York for a prepaid ticket; at the Buenos Aires plant, no one suspected it and the approval was immediate. Thus, Barragán became the first Argentine hacker without having great computer skills.

The story continues animated by a young love. It is said that he had a Colombian girlfriend, employed in a branch of Aerolineas Argentinas in that country, and that the desire to meet his beloved prompted “Yuyo” to continue his counterfeit actions. He sent a note to the president of Aerolineas Argentinas – at the time Juan Carlos Pellegrini– with a copy to his direct boss, giving the necessary authorization to the company to pay the tickets and daily allowances for Barragán to go to Colombia. The surprised boss had no way of knowing that the request and acceptance was wrong.

After this antecedent, “Yuyo” saw that his operation was, at least until this moment, undetectable. Thus, he began to travel around the world, several times, and with different companions.

It wasn’t until 1982, in the midst of a bellicose conflict over the Falkland Islands, that a director of KLM found strange an order issued in Rosario and consulted Aerolineas Argentinas in Buenos Aires. No one knew anything, neither in Rosario, nor in Buenos Aires, nor in Tel Aviv, which was behind the theft.

Barragán realized that his scam had been detected and fled to Brazil, where he continued his proceedings. This time, he targeted the old Varig as the target of his counterfeits and decided that instead of traveling himself, he was better off issuing tickets and selling them on the black market for half the price. It was not until mid-1983 that the brother of a Yuyo client decided to visit Varig’s offices to verify that the passage was real.

“Yes, it works, it comes from East Chicago and it is confirmed by our agency in Copacabana”, they told them. “Who sold it to you?” “they asked.

The same night, Barragán was arrested by Brazilian police. Varig officials went to see him at the police station and offered to not press charges against him if he explained his system to them and handed them the flight codes he was using. Yuyo agreed, but on the condition that the meeting take place the next morning at his hotel, once he was released.

That night, before leaving the police station, Yuyo gave the commissioner two plane tickets and a check attesting to his understanding and proper performance of his duties. In the middle of the morning the next day, when the managers of Varig arrived at the hotel, they found nothing and no one. The pirate had fled to Buenos Aires thanks to a San Pablo-Montevideo ticket from Varig herself, with the endorsement of Iberia.

Back home, he pursues the case. On the one hand, he traveled where and when he wanted and, at the same time, began to accept barter in addition to cash for resale tickets. It was so In February 1983, Yuyo got a Rolex that didn’t work, went to the watchmaker to have it repaired and when he came back to get it, they asked him for the purchase receipt.

Of course, he didn’t have it and he was arrested by the Federal Police. This time, Yuyo decided to confess everything. He explained his way of working by issuing tickets to the commissioners and their wives, but in this way he also failed to make himself understood by the officers and they had to consult by telex – yes, as in a bad joke – specialists from the FBI who, more than answers, they had several questions about Yuyo’s behavior.

“The lines have a lot of difficulties. I don’t know if you’ve noticed that passages almost always come with an error in the name. Those who asked me said “BARAGAN”, with only one era. This is satellite junk and the airline people of the world know it. Faced with the slightest inconvenience, we show the document, we realize that it is a transmission error, and voila. What did I do? I discovered that if at the end of the message I put a return order for the car (equivalent to Enter computers) and in the next line put four capital letters, closed the circuit. I give an example: He sent a message to PanAm San Francisco ordering a ticket from Milan for such an itinerary, to be endorsed by Aerolineas Buenos Aires or Varig Rio de Janeiro. The North American operator looking at the screen sees him enter. Suppose you check it, which hardly ever gets done: when you go to try it, the system crashes. How was I supposed to know I was doing it on purpose? He was convinced it was a satellite problem and was not suspicious. He had to shut down and restart the machines and by the time he finished doing it he had already forgotten “. This is the explanation Yuyo gave in court.

Although he explained everything and confessed everything, four days later, he left the police department without charge or guilt. None of the airlines involved in his maneuvers wanted to file a complaint against him or admit to being injured. Indeed, to make known such a scam, by only one person, in a peripheral country, would have made them lose credibility with their regular customers.

We never knew how much money Barragán was making with his trap; even he did not know the exact number, but Official estimates indicate that he falsified the issuance of 600 to 1,000 plane tickets, which, multiplied by the $ 5,000 that SITA allocated at the time, reaches figures of up to $ 5 million. But the reality is that Yuyo failed to make a fortune; not even to ensure a comfortable future.

“Song of Pericos”

This is how the book of Roberti and Bonsembiante the chapter that matters the meeting that Yuyo Barragán had with the Argentinian reggae group “Los Pericos”. In 1993, the group toured America for which, His manager at the time, Urbano Hortal, bought plane tickets which, in the city of Caracas, he realized had been stolen.

At the time, a cause was launched, and Hortal identified “Yuyo” as the person who sold him the tickets during a police reconnaissance parade. However, another member of the group did not recognize him.

The then judge Juan José Galeano decided to believe Hortal and decreed the preventive detention of Raul Horacio Barragan, after recognizing your operating mode. However, the tickets Los Pericos had received were stolen directly from North American agencies, while Yuyo devoted himself to securing legal issuance – with bogus orders – according to the routine of airline companies.

Everything led Barragán to serve his sentence of preventive detention in the defunct Caseros prison in Parque Patricios. After three years of sentence, he was released to disappear from the public eye. He had returned to Concepción del Uruguay and on August 1, 2013, it was learned that Raúl Horacio “Yuyo” Barragán, Argentina’s first hacker, the one who made free flights around the world, had died at the age of 56.

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