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Feds Seize KickassTorrents Domains and Arrest Owner In Poland (arstechnica.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the justice-will-prevail dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Federal authorities announced on Wednesday the arrest of the alleged mastermind of KickassTorrents (KAT), the world's largest BitTorrent distribution site. As of this writing, the site is still up. Prosecutors have formally charged Artem Vaulin, 30, of Ukraine, with one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement, one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, and two counts of criminal copyright infringement. Like The Pirate Bay, KAT does not host individual infringing files but rather provides links to .torrent and .magnet files so that users can download unauthorized copies of TV shows, movies, and more from various BitTorrent users. According to a Department of Justice press release sent to Ars Technica, Vaulin was arrested on Wednesday in Poland. The DOJ will shortly seek his extradition to the United States. "Vaulin is charged with running today's most visited illegal file-sharing website, responsible for unlawfully distributing well over $1 billion of copyrighted materials," Assistant Attorney General Caldwell said in the statement. "In an effort to evade law enforcement, Vaulin allegedly relied on servers located in countries around the world and moved his domains due to repeated seizures and civil lawsuits. His arrest in Poland, however, demonstrates again that cybercriminals can run, but they cannot hide from justice." KickassTorrents added a dark web address last month to make it easier for users to bypass blockades installed by ISPs.

7 of 302 comments (clear)

  1. Some thoughts by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 5, Interesting

    We just saw an article explaining how China had just outlawed ad-blockers.

    Does this mean China can accuse the maker of ad-blocking software with a major crime, and require that person to be extradited to China for trial?

    1. Re:Some thoughts by viperidaenz · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It's hard to extradite someone from somewhere what they have done it not a crime

      That's probably why the DOJ is slapping on "conspiracy to commit money laundering" because a lot of countries have treaties to combat money laundering.
      They won't have to argue Artem has committed a crime that Poland recognises in relation to copyright infringement.

    2. Re:Some thoughts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Ennetcom springs to mind, the Dutch encrypted phone the Dutch police raided to shut it down. That had a 'money-laundering' charge tacked onto it. But the Dutch press reported that the money-laundering was because criminals were reselling the phones to other criminals, allegedly to clean their drug money. Except how can it be cleaned if they're selling to other criminals? The other criminals money must also be tainted too! It made batshit sense.

      The core two complaints: a fake money laundering charge (which would not be reason to close the phone company), and that the owner had an unregistered gun (which would not be reason to close the phone company), neither of them justified seizing the servers for what the police admit isn't a crime.

      I wonder now if that fake money laundering charge is used to justify the cross border seizure of the servers.

    3. Re:Some thoughts by sjames · · Score: 1, Interesting

      So why can't they arrest the scam callers impersonating the IRS and demanding money? Fraud is illegal in most countries.

  2. Tails 1.4.1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    They did it because it hosted the only version of uncompromised Tails.

    There are many other torrent sites. Stupid fuckers. As you take away, your shit is taken away harder.

  3. Re: Justice? by jonwil · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The problem is that most of the malware out there comes from countries like Russia that dont have an extradition treaty with the US, that have one but where the treaty doesn't allow extradition of malware authors or that are powerful enough that the US cant make them bend over in the way they can for smaller countries like Poland.

  4. Re:Treason? by quenda · · Score: 3, Interesting

    apparently, you have no idea what how treason is defined by the US Constitution.

    Of course, that document was written by a bunch of guys who had just willingly committed treason, justified or not, against their former country and king ('a man do levy war against the king in his realm') by so they should know exactly what they were talking about.