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A hacktivist collective posted more than 2 terabytes of hacked emails and files from a host of mining companies in Central and South America on Wednesday, in a move to apparently expose environmental damage in the region.
The group — which calls itself Guacamaya, named for a type of bird — posted the files from five public and private mining companies and two public agencies responsible for environmental oversight, one in Colombia and the other in Guatemala. The material was posted to a website called Enlace Hacktivista, a site for documenting hacker history, sharing educational resources, and that provides space “for hackers to publish their hacks, leaks, and communiques.”
In a Spanish-language statement posted with the materials, the group decried what it described as environmental devastation at the hands of U.S. and other international governments and firms that plunder the region’s resources.
“All we really want, as our own mother warns us, is for this to stop,” the statement read, according to a Google translation. “We want them to stop, to stop once and for all exploiting, mining, polluting, that desire for dominance.”
The materials come from ENAMI, an Ecuadorian state mining company; the Agencia Nacional de Hidrocarburos (ANH) in Colombia; New Granada Energy Corporation in Colombia; Quiborax, a mining company in Chile; Oryx, an oil company in Venezuela; Tejucana, a Brazilian mining company; and Guatemala’s Ministerio De Ambiente y Recursos Naturales.
DDoSecrets, a transparency advocacy website that also hosts hacked materials in the public interest, published a release on the files simultaneously Wednesday.
Guacamaya, in March, released 4.2 terabytes of hacked material from mining subsidiaries of a Swiss investment group that detailed the companies’ apparent pollution in Guatemala. The files became part of a massive reporting project involving 65 journalists around the world that exposed not only proof of pollution, but efforts to manipulate local governments and surveillance of journalists.
After that hack, the group posted a video detailing how they accessed the systems and stole the files and emails. They also gave an interview talking about why they’re going after these companies to Forbidden Stories, the organization that coordinated and published a series of stories based on the documents.
“The role of a hacker is to take part in the different forms of resistance in any territory where there is dignified rage and a joyful desire for radical revolution,” they said.
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