After The Pirate Bay owner had suffered copyright infringement, KickassTorrents (KAT) became the biggest and most-used pirate site on the Internet, with millions daily unique visitors.
The federal authorities have finally arrested the alleged mastermind behind the world’s largest and most notorious BitTorrent distribution site KickassTorrents (KAT), the US Justice Department announced on Wednesday July 20, 2016.
However, the site appears to be offline after its alleged owner Artem Vaulin, a 30-year-old Ukrainian national was apprehended in Poland on July 20, 2016 and the US government has requested his extradition.
Charges Filed Against Kickass Torrents Owner
According to criminal complaint [pdf] filed in US District Court in Chicago, Vaulin faces:
- Two counts of criminal copyright infringement.
- One count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement.
- One count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.
The United States federal authorities say that Kickass Torrent has caused damages of more than $1 Billion to copyright holders.
Here’s what Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell stated in a press release issued by the Department of Justice:
“Vaulin is charged with running today’s most visited illegal file-sharing website, responsible for unlawfully distributing well over $1 billion of copyrighted materials,” said Assistant Attorney General Caldwell. “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.”
Kickass Torrents Team Responds to Copyright Infringement Complaints
According to the court affidavit, Vaulin claimed that his BitTorrent site KAT did not violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), but they did.
How Authorities get their hands on the Owner of Kickass Torrents
An IRS agent went undercover to buy and advertise on the notorious site for five days, at the price of $300 per day.
This revealed Vaulin’s e-mail account, [email protected], hosted by Apple, who provided a copy of his email inbox to authorities after being requested for help.
With the help of the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT), US officials were easily able to obtain information about the Kickass Torrent’s operations from the bank accounts used to collect payments for advertisement slots.
“Records provided by Apple showed that [email protected] conducted an iTunes transaction using IP Address 109.86.226.203 on or about July 31, 2015,” reads the complaint. “The same IP Address was used on the same day to login into the KAT Facebook.”
An analysis of this account later disclosed the presence of Kickass Torrents servers in Chicago.
Source: Hackernews
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