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Owner of Kickass Torrents arrested, website goes down

Owner of Kickass Torrents arrested, website goes down

The man who owns and operates the most-visited piracy site in the world – Kickass Torrents – has been arrested in Poland and is facing extradition to the USA.

Artem Valuin, 30, has been charged with criminal copyright infringement and money laundering after being targeted by American prosecutors.

The Ukrainian launched his BitTorrent directory in 2008 to let users illegally download movies, TV shows, video games, music and other media collectively worth an estimated $1billion.

Kickass Torrents receives more than 50 million unique monthly visitors, according to officials.

Valuin was held in Poland yesterday at the behest of the American authorities while US Department of Justice seized seven domain names associated with Kickass Torrents.

The site has consistently listed the latest movies which can be downloaded using file-sharing apps. Recent titles include Captain America: Civil War, Now You See Me 2, Independence Day: Resurgence and Finding Dory.

Law-enforcement officials across the globe have battled pirate sites for years but the task of shutting down such illegal operations remains challenging as they routinely switch domain names and use anonymising services to mask their identities and locations.

In one of the most notorious cases, the FBI shut down Megaupload.com in 2012 after the site allegedly caused more than $500million in damages to copyright holders – while legally embattled founder Kim Dotcom has claimed he's going to relaunch the site next January.

Meanwhile high-profile Pirate Bay, despite several raids and arrests of its organizers over the years, still remains up and running.

The US government's complaint against Vaulin charges him 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.

The copyright-infringement charges carry a maximum sentence of five years in prison, and the money-laundering charge is punishable by up to 20 years.

n addition to the charges, a federal court in Chicago ordered the seizure of seven domain names associated with Kickass Torrents – kickasstorrents.com, kat.ph, kickass.to, kastatic.com, kickass.so, thekat.tv and kat.cr.

According the DOJ complaint, Kickass Torrents' net worth is estimated at more than $54m with estimated annual advertising revenue of between $12.5m and $22.3m.

Kickass Torrents, also known as KAT, has moved its domain several times due to prior seizures and copyright lawsuits, and it has been ordered blocked by courts in the UK, Ireland, Italy, Denmark, Belgium and Malaysia.

 

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