Most Wanted: Teen Hacker is a four-part docuseries, directed by Sami Kieksi, that examines how the FBI, with the aid of police in Helsinki, caught notorious teen hacker Julius Kivimäki (who goes by Aleksanteri Kivimäki these days), and the chaos he caused before he got caught, including swatting cyberattacks and an incident that caused a passenger jet to make an emergency landing.
Opening Shot: An FBI agent gets a microphone put on for what looks like a sting operation, but it’s an interview.
The Gist:In the docuseries, Kieksi interviews the FBI agents that were involved in the sting that led to Kivimäki’s arrest, as well as other members of the hacking community and experts in cybercrime. Kieski also interviews Kivimäki, who is now 28 and currently serving a term in a maximum-security Finnish prison after a 2024 conviction for the data breech of the Finnish company Vastaamo.
The first episode sets up the arrest of “Zeekill,” as he’s known online, in 2015 as he was attending a hackers’ convention in Las Vegas. At this point, he had called in a fake bomb threat that diverted an American Airlines flight and triggering the an Air Force alert, sent SWAT teams to three different houses in the U.S., including the house of an FBI agent who was investigated him, and caused the PlayStation network to be shut down. He was also part of cybercriminal networks Lizard Squad and Hack The Planet. He even hacked Elon Musk.
After his arrest in Vegas, he was released after his parents were called in, but the FBI shares their evidence with law enforcement in Helsinki; when Kivimäki returned to Finland, he was arrested and detained. In his interview, Kivimäki denies he did any of what he was accused of doing. “It’s just bullshit. What am I supposed to say?” he says.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Most Wanted: Teen Hacker is like Mr. Robot in real life.
Our Take: Let’s put the aggro style of Most Wanted: Teen Hacker, complete with narrator, propulsive soundtrack, and a general Investigation Discovery-type of in-your-face tone, aside for a moment. The way that Kieksi goes about structuring the series is a bit strange.
The FBI “bust” of Kivimäki wasn’t really a bust because he was ultimately detained in Finland. Also, Kivimäki isn’t currently in prison for these incidents; he got a two-year suspended sentence. So, instead of starting with the hacking incidents that led to his 2015 arrests — the swatting, the fake call about a possible bomb on the American Airlines flight, the hacking of Musk and the takedown of the PlayStation network — they start with the operation in Vegas that put him in briefly in federal custody.
We’re not sure why Kieksi led with the FBI bust, making it seem that Kivimäki is in prison because of it. The incidents that led to it are far more interesting and would have been a good way to ramp up the story, especially because Kivimäki was so young when he committed those hacks and other incidents.
It certainly was a good “get” to have an interview with Kivimäki, though; it shows how little remorse he had for people who were victimized by these incidents, and how he continues to maintain his innocence. But it would have been better to tell the story from the beginning, as it were, instead of starting in what’s essentially the middle.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: Helsinki law enforcement officers talk about how different Kivimäki and his group was than others that are creating “mischief on the internet.”
Sleeper Star: Blair Straiter was a hacker who became friends with Kivimäki but eventually became the Finnish teenager’s “punching bag.” His interview is interesting because of quotes like “I really would have liked to see him splatter on the ground, but anyway…” when he recalls that Kivimäki wanted to jump out of his hotel window when the FBI came for him.
Most Pilot-y Line: The FBI agent who went to Helsinki to talk to law enforcement officials about what they have on Kivimäki mentions how nice of a day it was and that “you could really feel the energy of the city.” So?
Our Call: STREAM IT, but this is a reluctant recommendation. The bad pacing, odd structure, and aggro style make Most Wanted: Teen Hacker a tough watch. Viewers might want to wait until the entire series is available and start with the second episode.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.