The Federal Bureau of Investigation has successfully toppled one of the most popular torrent websites in the world. The file-sharing site known as Kickass Torrents (KAT) is offline as of yesterday to owner and founder of the site being taken into custody by authorities.
The 30-year-old Ukranian Artem Vaulin, more popularly known by his pseudo name “Trim”, was arrested in Poland on the charges of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement, and conspiracy to commit money laundering and two counts of criminal copyright infringement. The arrest was put into action by a criminal complaint filed in the US district court in Chicago.
KAT was well known for sharing files of copywritten material such as music, movies, images, comics, ebooks and many other forms of digital media. The wrongly acquired and shared material is estimated to be valued at well over $1-billion USD. Reports also estimate the site to have earned approximately $12-million USD to $22.5-millon USD in ad revenue alone.
The website was infiltrated by an undercover IRS agent that met with a representative of the website last year, inquiring about buying ad space on the site. This ultimately leads to the U.S government being able to uncover Vaulin’s bank account information, numerous pieces of contact information, and social media account information.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security Special Agent Jared Der-Yeghiayan found numerous different website domains that KAT went by, likely to make tracking their activity difficult for anyone attempting to do so. Despite their efforts, DHS was able to trace the website to two IP addresses in Chicago that lead to the website’s two main servers. Once the access logs from the servers were in the government’s possession they were able to find an Apple email address that Vaulin used to operate KAT.
The following is a statement released by the U.S 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.”
This is arguably one of the biggest blows to the torrent and file sharing community to date. While the hunt for illegal filesharers may not be making headlines in the news as it once was only a few years ago, this proves that fight is not over.
