TheMountain Posted July 20, 2016 Share Posted July 20, 2016 The U.S. Government has arrested the alleged owner of KickassTorrents, the world's largest torrent site. The 30-year-old Ukrainian was arrested in Poland today and is charged with criminal copyright infringement and money laundering. In addition, a federal court in Chicago has ordered the seizure of several KAT domain names. With millions of unique visitors per day KickassTorrents (KAT) has become the most-used torrent site on the Internet, beating even The Pirate Bay. Today, however, the site has run into a significant roadblock after U.S. authorities announced the arrest of the site’s alleged owner. The 30-year-old Artem Vaulin, from Ukraine, was arrested today in Poland from where the United States has requested his extradition. In a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago, the owner is charged with conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and two counts of criminal copyright infringement. The complaint further reveals that the feds posed as an advertiser, which revealed a bank account associated with the site. It also shows that Apple handed over personal details of Vaulin after the investigator cross-referenced an IP-address used for an iTunes transaction with an IP-address that was used to login to KAT’s Facebook account. “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. The same IP Address was used on the same day to login into the KAT Facebook,” the complaint reads. In addition to the arrest in Poland, the court also granted the seizure of a bank account associated with KickassTorrents, as well as several of the site’s domain names. Commenting on the announcement, Assistant Attorney General Caldwell said that KickassTorrents helped to distribute over $1 billion in pirated files. “Vaulin is charged with running today’s most visited illegal file-sharing website, responsible for unlawfully distributing well over $1 billion of copyrighted materials.” “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.” At the time of writing the main domain name Kat.cr has trouble loading, but various proxies still appear to work. KAT’s status page doesn’t list any issues, but we assume that this will be updated shortly. TorrentFreak has reached out to the KAT team for a comment on the news and what it means for the site’s future, but we have yet to hear back. Breaking story, in depth updates will follow. Source Thanks to @Xionic for the heads up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SandStone Posted July 20, 2016 Share Posted July 20, 2016 Deleted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMountain Posted July 20, 2016 Author Share Posted July 20, 2016 Some domains were seized: but, not all of them are gone. Kickass Torrents - DDG Search Results (My DDG settings are encrypted.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xionic Posted July 20, 2016 Share Posted July 20, 2016 I was shocked,this site was the most dmca-friendly torrent site ever I hope they try hydra just like tpb or make a strong comeback Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SandStone Posted July 20, 2016 Share Posted July 20, 2016 Deleted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vic Vega Posted July 20, 2016 Share Posted July 20, 2016 Quote Feds Seize KickassTorrents Domains, Arrest Owner Does this mean that Bitmanagement can seize U.S. Military and arrest Obama? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pequi Posted July 21, 2016 Share Posted July 21, 2016 1 hour ago, TheMountain said: Some domains were seized: but, not all of them are gone. Alas, just backups. The latest files are dated yesterday. All the main servers are giving DNS lookup failures. Back to Google, I suppose. There is always extra** too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karlston Posted July 21, 2016 Share Posted July 21, 2016 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steven36 Posted July 21, 2016 Share Posted July 21, 2016 This guy used his bank account and his real ip so it was easy for them too catch him . This is a example of what people don't want too do when involved in p2p . In the USA when they catch someone for something like this 9 out of 10 times its because they leave a big data trial all over the place . If they dont got a good case against you there not going to bother . And many uploaders on KAT got caught here lately.. So he knew he was being watched . You think silly DMCA is going to protect you it want . DMCA has been needed to be reformed for years . Its his own fault he got caught i hope the other p2p site owners are not as dumb as him or they will be no sites left . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
info999 Posted July 21, 2016 Share Posted July 21, 2016 nobody is safe from uncle sam Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
namek Posted July 21, 2016 Share Posted July 21, 2016 How can feds arrest him in Poland? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steven36 Posted July 21, 2016 Share Posted July 21, 2016 1 hour ago, namek said: How can feds arrest him in Poland? They didn't arrest him the local police did. Quote Vaulin, who is 30, was arrested by local police in Poland on Wednesday, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois. The U.S. will seek to extradite Vaulin to the United States to stand trial, it said. Source: http://bnonews.com/news/index.php/news/id4926 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alanon Posted July 21, 2016 Share Posted July 21, 2016 Holy crap! So wait, this guy was the sole owner? So there's no chance of Kat taking off again with someone else? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SnakeMasteR Posted July 21, 2016 Share Posted July 21, 2016 This case will get solved faster than the one with U.S. Army stealing software worth half a billion from only 1 (!) company, not several thousands. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vitorio Posted July 21, 2016 Share Posted July 21, 2016 This is the long, long arm of "justice". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMountain Posted July 21, 2016 Author Share Posted July 21, 2016 Poland obviously isn't a 'file sharing friendly' country. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pc71520 Posted July 21, 2016 Share Posted July 21, 2016 13 hours ago, SandStone said: This is bad ... This is awful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steven36 Posted July 21, 2016 Share Posted July 21, 2016 The server 1 hour ago, TheMountain said: Poland obviously isn't a 'file sharing friendly' country. The server was no were near Poland it was in Canada the feds served them a warrant and they got everyone at KAT's info too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMountain Posted July 21, 2016 Author Share Posted July 21, 2016 13 hours ago, TheMountain said: The 30-year-old Ukrainian was arrested in Poland He was arrested in POLAND! Are you blind? --- Off Topic @steven36 Leave me alone. I have nothing to say to you after you sent the nasty & vile PM to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steven36 Posted July 21, 2016 Share Posted July 21, 2016 you need to do you're home work the server in Canada gave the feds what they need to know to catch more people. https://torrentfreak.com/can-kickasstorrents-make-a-comeback-160721/ Quote Finally, and crucially, the investigators issued a warrant directed at the Canadian webhost of KickassTorrents. This was one of the biggest scores as it provided them with full copies of KAT’s hard drives, including the email server. “I observed […] that they were all running the same Linux Gentoo operating system, and that they contained files with user information, SSH access logs, and other information, including a file titled ‘passwd’ located in the ‘etc’ directory,” the HSI agent writes. While regular users are unlikely to be targeted, the information may provide useful for future investigations into large-scale uploaders. More clarity on this, the site’s future, and what it means for the torrent ecosystem, is expected to become evident when the dust settles. And there's no love lost Joe you started it not me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
straycat19 Posted July 21, 2016 Share Posted July 21, 2016 6 hours ago, n0_risk! said: This case will get solved faster than the one with U.S. Army stealing software worth half a billion from only 1 (!) company, not several thousands. It definitely will since it wasn't the Army stealing the software, it was the Navy. Just another example of why nothing you read on the internet can be trusted. People can't even regurgitate the news correctly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
straycat19 Posted July 21, 2016 Share Posted July 21, 2016 3 hours ago, steven36 said: you need to do you're home work the server in Canada gave the feds what they need to know to catch more people. That's correct. According to everything I have read and heard they have a complete historical list of users, particularly uploaders, who they may go after also. Taking down pirate sites is becoming an international operation with cooperation. No one or nothing is safe or sacrosanct. This is particularly true if you are banking big bucks from the operation. Deep pockets attract lawyers like bears to honey. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kgpian Posted July 21, 2016 Share Posted July 21, 2016 8 hours ago, Alanon said: Holy crap! So wait, this guy was the sole owner? So there's no chance of Kat taking off again with someone else? Whether he was the sole owner or not couldn't be confirmed... I believe they were more people behind the scene... Most probably he managed the business transactions... 5 hours ago, steven36 said: The server The server was no were near Poland it was in Canada the feds served them a warrant and they got everyone at KAT's info too. 1 The server wasn't in Canada either, believe it or not, they might have been in Chicago *facepalm* And the user database is still intact. The site, the proxy sites and everything related to KAT was taken down by the other admins to protect all users (including themselves). They had contacts outside the community too. 1 hour ago, straycat19 said: That's correct. According to everything I have read and heard they have a complete historical list of users, particularly uploaders, who they may go after also. Taking down pirate sites is becoming an international operation with cooperation. No one or nothing is safe or sacrosanct. This is particularly true if you are banking big bucks from the operation. Deep pockets attract lawyers like bears to honey. No, they don't have any kind of user list. They could only link a server that hosted KAT to the bank account of the man who handled the transactions for the ad revenues. You would be surprised to find out it was actually Coinbase who handed over the information according to the following article: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-21/how-the-us-government-brought-down-kickass-torrents/7649862 An interesting twist could be found at the end of the article: The criminal complaint alleges that Mr Vaulin himself has the controlling interest in Bitcoin Innovations Ltd. Some information were sourced from an admin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SnakeMasteR Posted July 21, 2016 Share Posted July 21, 2016 It definitely will since it wasn't the Army stealing the software, it was the Navy. Just another example of why nothing you read on the internet can be trusted. People can't even regurgitate the news correctly. Yes, army or navy probably makes a huge difference. NOT. It will land on Obama's table anyway and well, it's not like the army never engaged in piracy before, right. The internet never forgets, proven again as many times before. It's a bummer Vaulin didn't knew about this. It is logical that any site showing public face of KAT shouldn't get any personal data. All this is not a one-sided road, this incident doesn't only help feds like they may think, it highlights even more where site operators need to be very careful and how feds investigate and what data they are able to obtain but there is nothing we didn't already knew. It was just a matter of time anyway, complying with DMCA doesn't really help when the site continues to generate a crapload of money every single month. And that's the only reason why they kept investigating and would have continued until they got behind of all this. If Vaulin was the only guy doing the business, it may be hard for others to continue with the same infrastructure feds now know about. It would require new ways of revenue because let's face it, the only reason KAT existed is because it was profitable and that will be the only reason why it may come back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMountain Posted July 21, 2016 Author Share Posted July 21, 2016 Turn off your ad blocker & you'll see what keeps KAT going, advertising moolah. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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